I do regular shops for the utilities which I understand is on a different part of Sentry. I missed being notified about Dwolla because a very old email address was being used. When I was told that, I corrected the information. It would seem logical, though, that if I am not answering emails, that someone would try to call me, especially about being paid. I have not been paid for months. I signed up with Dwolla. I was in contact with your agent. I received two emails about payments for two months of work each. The last payment was supposed to arrive about May 7th. I have been trying to get in touch with the agent who was handling that. There is no response. I rarely use Mystery Shop Forum any more because I am so busy. I am coming back to this forum because I am not getting results with your company.

Market Stat still uses Gigspot. I just confirmed a job though there this morning.

Sorry, tried to reply to that comment but it didn't do it. Which reply do I hit to have my comment under a specific one?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2018 08:21PM by jentheshopper.

I think you click on quote. I dont use it. You could also type @jentheshopper a drop down menu will give the posters name

Hi Sandra,
I sent you a PM, thanks

Susan

@sandrasue wrote:

I do regular shops for the utilities which I understand is on a different part of Sentry. I missed being notified about Dwolla because a very old email address was being used. When I was told that, I corrected the information. It would seem logical, though, that if I am not answering emails, that someone would try to call me, especially about being paid. I have not been paid for months. I signed up with Dwolla. I was in contact with your agent. I received two emails about payments for two months of work each. The last payment was supposed to arrive about May 7th. I have been trying to get in touch with the agent who was handling that. There is no response. I rarely use Mystery Shop Forum any more because I am so busy. I am coming back to this forum because I am not getting results with your company.

Susan personally you really rock. Having dealt with you numerous times for various food shops. You are fair and consistent, these are traits not always exhibited by personnel in the mystery shop companies. However the new payment system Dwolla is very slow to pay, this has been very frustrating to me as a shopper.

I am sorry to hear this. We are actually experiencing faster pay times since we switched to Dwolla and much fewer payment errors so I am surprised by. Pleases, if you have an issue let me know so we can get it resolved.

@VirtualMarsha wrote:

Susan personally you really rock. Having dealt with you numerous times for various food shops. You are fair and consistent, these are traits not always exhibited by personnel in the mystery shop companies. However the new payment system Dwolla is very slow to pay, this has been very frustrating to me as a shopper.

I am looking forward to my first shop with Sentry this week! There are not a lot in my immediate area, but the few that ARE here seem great. It's nice to get a payment for restaurant shops and not just reimbursement. I, too, have worked with Susan when she was with ACL and with SEC, and I think she is awesome.

@Sentry_Susan wrote:

I am sorry to hear this. We are actually experiencing faster pay times since we switched to Dwolla and much fewer payment errors so I am surprised by. Pleases, if you have an issue let me know so we can get it resolved.

Susan, in the past, Dave has said that the reason why Sentry doesn't do DD or Paypal is because of fees (on Sentry's end) and customer service. I don't see any other MSC saying Paypal gives them trouble and shoppers don't have trouble with Paypal either. I had to wait a month for Dwolla to get my invoice after waiting a month for my shop to be processed after I did it, then another week for it to be deposited in my account by Dwolla. Sending out checks seem faster. Dwolla is a confusing mess, much like Bill.com.

@a171989 wrote:

Dwolla is a confusing mess, much like Bill.com.

Although I am signed up with Sentry, I have yet to venture into doing any shops for them. And the ONLY REASON is that there have been so many complaints about their payment processes.....first with Bill.com, and now with Dwolla. With the vast number of MSCs who use Paypal, and never mention any problems with it, I have never understood why Sentry wouldn't try using that payment method. But until then....nope....I'm not going to shop and then go through a hassle to collect my monies!

Other MSCs have opted out of PayPal because they find cheaper options. If memory serves, Sentry did eventually say they tried other serves for that reason.

I'm confused about the problems with Bill.com. Because only one MSC I work with uses it, and because they had always paid me by check anyway, I stuck with check rather than DD. My payments are always on time.

This is not directed at any MSC in particular, but if hundreds of shoppers and dozens of MSCs have no issues with a payment method, I would not be so quick to blame the payment processor.

@LisaSTL wrote:

This is not directed at any MSC in particular, but if hundreds of shoppers and dozens of MSCs have no issues with a payment method, I would not be so quick to blame the payment processor.

Exactly. Not sure why Sentry has issues with Paypal, but something tells me that Paypal isn't the problem. I've worked with PP way before I started mystery shopping and they have always done right by me whether it was business or personal.

I was confused with Bill.com's payment processing for the one company I do the Casinos for. I jambled through it and just hoped I did it right. I was paid. I could have taken their other assignments also but was waiting until I was paid. I'd rather not use bill.com at all. I wonder what it costs to use it compared to paypal. I never have problems with paypal.

We decided to migrate away from Bill.com for many reasons. Cost of payment, meaning the cost we incur to process payments, was one of the factors. Shopper dissatisfaction with Bill.com was another factor. For example, Bill.com automatically voided checks after 90 days. We had no control over this and there was no way to turn this off. Shoppers expressed frustration and dissatisfaction about this as any check deposited after 90 days was rejected for payment.

The problem we had with Paypal was that 40% - 60% of payments to shoppers were being blocked by Paypal. We attempted to work with Paypal technical support/development support for more than a month to resolve the issue. When we were unable to receive the help we needed, we decided to find a different payment processor. Doing so required that we invest additional time and money into our payment platform, however, we felt it was the only course of action because of the issues we encountered during our pilot payment processing with Paypal.

I don't know how other companies use Paypal to process payments. We were using their API to process payments and in the end, we felt that Paypal's inability to provide timely support would prevent us from reliably processing payments.

With regard to the cost of processing payments, the reality is that there is not much difference between Dwolla and Paypal. If anything, Paypal would have been a bit less expensive.

Moving our payment platform to Dwolla has not changed the timing of our payments. Shopper pay statements, which we refer to as shopper invoices, are created by our mystery shopping software every month on the 16th. We process payment by the last day of the next month. For example, shopper pay statements will be created on June 16th and those pay statements will be processed for payment by July 31. Once payments are processed, it can take 2 - 4 business days for the money be moved from our bank account to a shopper's bank account.

Since we moved to the new payment platform in January, we have experienced a significant drop in the number of requests for assistance with payments. Of course, there have been some bumps in the road related to the transition and we are working to resolve these as they arise.

I hope the information provide is helpful and answers any questions forum members have about our payment platform transition. If anyone needs assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to myself or Susan via PM. We'll be happy to help research/resolve the issue.

Thanks

Dave

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2018 02:47PM by Sentry Marketing.

Dwolla is working for me; my experience has been far better than with Bill.com. I'm not a big fan of PayPal and use direct deposit when available.

Sentry is one of the slower paying companies, anyway, so I'm not waiting on the money to pay bills with.

It has now been more than a month since the latest date they promised me that my last payment would arrive. I have not been paid this year. There is no excuse.

You may want to send a note to Sentry_Susan. She seems to be responsive and may point you to the right person.

@sandrasue wrote:

It has now been more than a month since the latest date they promised me that my last payment would arrive. I have not been paid this year. There is no excuse.

@Sentry Marketing wrote:

The problem we had with Paypal was that 40% - 60% of payments to shoppers were being blocked by Paypal. We attempted to work with Paypal technical support/development support for more than a month to resolve the issue. When we were unable to receive the help we needed, we decided to find a different payment processor. Doing so required that we invest additional time and money into our payment platform, however, we felt it was the only course of action because of the issues we encountered during our pilot payment processing with Paypal.

I don't know how other companies use Paypal to process payments. We were using their API to process payments and in the end, we felt that Paypal's inability to provide timely support would prevent us from reliably processing payments.

With regard to the cost of processing payments, the reality is that there is not much difference between Dwolla and Paypal. If anything, Paypal would have been a bit less expensive.

Thanks

Dave

Oh Dave....
Here are a couple of companies that use PayPal without issue:

HS Brands
Coyle
CSE
Northfork
Service Check
eBay

I'm to busy to sign up for another payment process and then to keep track of getting paid. Nobody wants to do that. Who shops for you that can't get Paypal? 40-60% of your shoppers, what? I think that at least 50% of the companies that use SASSIE software use Paypal too. Can't you get direct deposit set-up?

ETA: I know you told me it was easy, but still, just too busy.

Bless you for taking care of the doggies BTW.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2018 05:05PM by SoCalMama.

Hi sandrasue,

The payments in question were processed at 11 AM today.

Thank you for your patience.

Dave

@sandrasue wrote:

It has now been more than a month since the latest date they promised me that my last payment would arrive. I have not been paid this year. There is no excuse.

@SoCalMama wrote:

Can't you get direct deposit set-up?

Bless you for taking care of the doggies BTW.

We have electronic deposit setup.

@Sentry Marketing wrote:

@SoCalMama wrote:

Can't you get direct deposit set-up?

Bless you for taking care of the doggies BTW.

We have electronic deposit setup.

Is that the same as direct deposit? If it is, I might take a peek at the job board.

Payments are deposited into your bank account.

SoCalMama, deposits are made through the third party. Sentry sends payments to Dwolla, Dwolla transfers them to your bank. So same basic premise as PayPal without you having to initiate the transfer to your bank.

Thank you, Dave. When will they be sent out after processing? I have not been paid since Sept. 17th when I got two payments. I also got three payments on August 2nd. Do the payments you have processed go back to September's payment?

Please contact our team for assistance. It does appear that there was some delay in submitting documents for September and October which would have delayed payment for these months.

You can email the team at help@sentrymarketing.com .

@sandrasue wrote:

Thank you, Dave. When will they be sent out after processing? I have not been paid since Sept. 17th when I got two payments. I also got three payments on August 2nd. Do the payments you have processed go back to September's payment?

Hi Lisa,
This is correct, Dwolla streamlines the process and skips the step of having the shopper initiate the transfer. It saves the shopper time and the money goes directly into the shopper's account. This secure method of payment has been working for Sentry since we have converted to this payment process with very few issues. I have also been a mystery shopper a long time and I love this payment method, As a shopper, I wish more companies would go to this. Also, the setup time for Dwolla is less than a minute, I could not believe how easy it was.
Susan

@LisaSTL wrote:

SoCalMama, deposits are made through the third party. Sentry sends payments to Dwolla, Dwolla transfers them to your bank. So same basic premise as PayPal without you having to initiate the transfer to your bank.

I guess it would save time. In my case it would a whopping 15 to 20 seconds each week. That's how long it takes to open my PayPal app and transfer the funds. My understanding of how it functions was not an endorsement

Having used PayPal for my 12 years of shopping, never have been charged a fee, always get money to my account the next day and couldn't find a problem if I tried, again, different strokes, as I had Dwolla (didn't care for it), and not changing from either DD or PayPal, or checks, which is why I don't work for Sentry.

Hi Birdy,
We are no longer on Gigspot.

@BirdyC wrote:

Is Sentry still posting jobs through Gig Spot? There aren't many shops in my area from Sentry, and, sadly, the two or three that come up regularly just don't pay enough.... I'm not being negative; it's just a fact. Otherwise, I would have loved to have tried them. I'll keep my eyes open, though.

I am aware that other companies use Paypal, however, I am unaware of how the send the payment information to Paypal. They may be uploading spreadsheets into Paypal. There is nothing wrong with that method, although, in my opinion, it is not the most efficient or secure method of handling shopper payment information.

@SoCalMama wrote:

Oh Dave....
Here are a couple of companies that use PayPal without issue:

HS Brands
Coyle
CSE
Northfork
Service Check
eBay

I'm to busy to sign up for another payment process and then to keep track of getting paid. Nobody wants to do that. Who shops for you that can't get Paypal? 40-60% of your shoppers, what? I think that at least 50% of the companies that use SASSIE software use Paypal too. Can't you get direct deposit set-up?

ETA: I know you told me it was easy, but still, just too busy.

Bless you for taking care of the doggies BTW.

I give credit for the company making changes, and telling us about new schedulers, etc. I may have to give Sentry a try again after a long exit. Kudo's Susan for keeping us updated.