So, after once again being asked by a Maritz supervisor about why I answered as such about a shop, I informed the supervisor that no, I didn't mark that on the debrief, your own editor did.
I've told them this in the past, "Your editors change my answers, they delete my photos."
The supervisor seemed surprised.
"How do you know that?" they ask.
"Because I've had shops put on hold. When they put them on hold, I'm asked to provide another photo or answer. Because of the hold, I'm able to see my edited debrief. Often, I see my answers changed, I've seen my comments changed and I've seen my photos deleted."
"Oh," is the reply.

So Maritz, just an FYI!

Yep.

It is so frustrating to have a shop on hold because of a picture being missing and I know I put in the picture (it won't let me submit the evaluation without the picture). I too know that they have changed my answers. I have gotten so frustrated by it that I am now longer doing some shops for them because of it. I sometimes wonder if they are working so hard on making themselves look good that they are making us look bad. I hope Maritz catches on someday. :-(

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2018 09:23PM by pegleg909.

@pegleg909 wrote:

I hope Maritz catches on someday. :-(

I hope the CLIENT catches on someday!!!

I really don't care if the editors change my answers so long as the shop is accepted. Hopefully the changes improve the report for the client. It would be nice, however, if Maritz let me know where i am going wrong with my answers and what is preferred.

Maybe they're editing the reports to fix your misspellings of "your" as "you're".

It is their report, not yours. You contract to submit it, then it becomes their property. I don't know why anyone cares what an MSC does as long as they pay. So many mystery shoppers personalize everything. Do you think a landscaper cares how you take care of your lawn after he cuts your grass? Or a mechanic cares what you do with your car after he repairs it? Seems like it is only mystery shoppers that act incredulous about how a MSC or client or location treats their observations.

I disagree with roxy1. I put in a reliable honest report. I would not like an editor to change my report. What would be the reason for doing the report in the first place. All of the MSC that I shop for might question an answer, but they do not change anything, they ask me to change it myself. These reports are important to me and I would assume for the MSC's. I'm not talking about misspellings.

I don't care a whit either about what they do to my report, except when I get a call from a supervisor asking why I answered such about a shop, lol.

@roxy1 wrote:

It is their report, not yours. You contract to submit it, then it becomes their property. I don't know why anyone cares what an MSC does as long as they pay. So many mystery shoppers personalize everything. .

Misspellings aside (Thank you Moosie Blue), I wouldn't care either.

Roxy 1 reread my original comment.

It is frustrating and disturbing that an editor would change my answers.
Why? I'll reiterate.
I have now received calls from Maritz questioning my debrief answers and asking for my reasoning. I've pointed out to them I did not mark the site off as such, my answers have been changed.

i agree with Shopper8 its not correcting spelling its changing my report to what they want. Also they delete a picture and shop goes on hold.

It matters, especially if we return to the station every month or every quarter, because it calls our integrity into question. If, for example, I find porn (such as hardcore beastiality and "hot pubescent teens" ) and include a photo only to discover my answer gets changed from a "yes" to a "no" and the photo has been deleted, yeah I get upset AND I have a big problem with it. The client is paying for an honest report, and depending on the MSC, they may know who we are. I have received feedback from more than one MSC that a client likes my reports for one reason or another and have been asked to go in behind another shopper and reevaluate a situation.

I don't want my integrity questioned because an editor sees fit to completely change my answer and destroy evidence.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2018 01:37AM by whiterosie.

I, too, had a shop returned for a pic which I had uploaded and that was the only station that had porn and my answer was changed from a yes to a no.

Wow, I did my first Maritz shops last weekend, but after reading this I think I'll stay away from them again. I'm not going to put in work observing and then reporting my observations just to have someone in another state (or country?) decide they want to change my answer. That's just straight up lying to the client to make sure you only tell them what they want to hear so you can keep the contract.

I can't imagine what the editors are thinking. If the client wants to know whether or not the stores are selling porn and the report is altered, the client does not get what s/he wants. If the photographic evidence is present, Maritz would be giving the client the information it requested. The client knows that neither Martiz nor the shopper put the porn in the store.... If the client were to find out about such falsifications, Maritz could lose the client completely.

Or, maybe, the client WANTS their stores to be selling porn and the editors are unknowingly changing a positive response to a negative one.

Either way, if reports are being falsified at the editor level, the MSC leadership needs to know.

Mine was next door to a strip club and I guess that is why the owner decided to sell them. They had them in plain view behind the register counter., with mid-line wrappers that cover the boobies but kids could see them.

Regardless of the company, I have always been told something (yes/no) would be changed. I just got off the phone with a bar audit I did and didn't get final receipt, this bar is famous for that. Something else had to be changed, and she asked/told me, she was right. I don't think reports should be changed without your knowledge
shoppers hit the wrong button, so schedulers should check it out, and I find most schedulers very conscious.

Just to add a bit more to this; I still question why I should get a call from Maritz regarding some infraction that I supposedly marked off (when in reality the editor changed my answer).
Would it not be the editor's job to put the shop on hold and then ask the shopper to comment about it, maybe even ask the shopper if they wish to change their answer. And, therefore, if the editor allowed it, shouldn't the editor be questioned first about how they could allow an obvious incorrect debrief to go through?

What I find strange about all this is that when I am sometimes contacted about an unimportant detail in a report that was put on hold, the remarks are for ME to change it when the editor could have clearly have changed it him/herself. For instance, yesterday I had one where I marked off that I received additional information of a certain form. That same form was asked about later in the report. The editor sent the report back to me with instructions to remove my comment from the first answer. This is something, imo, that they could easily have done themselves, however, at least now I know how they want that question to be answered for future shops.

Not just Maritz, but editors in general drive me crazy.

I had an editor change York, NE (Nebraska) to New York.

I have a reward to give a cashier; it says "You're Excellent Customer Service is Rewarded!"
When I called and asked if this could be corrected, the person I spoke to said that the "people" the reward was given to would never notice.

I didn't have words to express how this disgusted me, the assumption that just because someone -- male or female, young or old, black, brown, or green -- is working as a cashier they are automatically categorized as uneducated lumpenprolatariat!

I have had editors change "the Wagners" (simple plural for a family) to "the Wagner's" (singular possessive). Just like changing "I have had editors change..." to "I have had editor's change..."

Not just Maritz, but editors in general drive me crazy.

I had an editor change York, NE (Nebraska) to New York.

I have a reward to give a cashier; it says "You're Excellent Customer Service is Rewarded!"
When I called and asked if this could be corrected, the person I spoke to said that the "people" the reward was given to would never notice.

I didn't have words to express how this disgusted me, the assumption that just because someone -- male or female, young or old, black, brown, or green -- is working as a cashier they are automatically categorized as uneducated lumpenproletariat!

I have had editors change "the Wagners" (simple plural for a family) to "the Wagner's" (singular possessive). Just like changing "I have had editors change..." to "I have had editor's change..."

Did you ever stop to think why the picture was deleted? Was it not as clear as it could have been? Was it tilted to the side? etc. etc. Please try to remember editors are human too.
I've had Maritz's editor's make me mad before, but the shop was still accepted. For example, they let me do two shops for one branded wholesaler before telling me all the pumps did not have to be 45-degree angles just one. Oh well. All of them were accepted. (The accepted the first two, and put the third one on hold).
The more of you who quit the more money I make. And yes I've gone behind other shopper's, for Maritz. I love it. You mess up, more money goes in my pocket, sorry about yours but I'm not feeding you I'm feeding me.

@whiterosie wrote:

The client is paying for an honest report.

YOUR client is paying YOU for an honest report.
The end client isn't paying you for anything.
You have no idea what the end client is paying the MSC for.

What you submit to an MSC becomes their property. What they do with it is not your concern. Only what you send to them is your concern.

Now, when an editor makes a change and then someone else questions the shopper about it? Yeah, that's a problem. But when an MSC makes a change because that's what they want to send to a client? Their problem, not yours.

@whiterosie wrote:

Now, when an editor makes a change and then someone else questions the shopper about it? Yeah, that's a problem. But when an MSC makes a change because that's what they want to send to a client? Their problem, not yours.

well said, whiterosie! at the end of the day, you are the one that has to return to the merchant and shop again for the next period. If they want the store to get away with it, as long as they don't try to say you did not report it, then ultimately it does not matter and the merchant will believe YOU the shopper helped them out. I feel bad for some of the merchants who fail and are trying. Of course, if they don't care about the image then why should we?
We are getting paid to take certain pictures a certain way. I'm getting paid to do what my guidelines stipulate or simply take the pictures that they want taken. How they deliver the report is not what my job is.
I got overcharged on an oil change shop.the editor took most of my comments out about them trying to say my 2.5 liter Toyota Camry takes 7 quarts and my oil change would be 80 instead of 50. But when I called the team back they were interested and pulled the report back from the client so I could document what my mechanic said. And they kept that comment. But again, so long as I got my money back and my shop fee, who cares?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2018 03:34AM by F and L TeleComm.

There seems to be so much "let's be complacent, that's not our business" on this board lately. Don't worry if they change your report, don't worry about the fact that we only receive a very small share of the pie, "you" are not making enough money because "you" are doing something wrong: reach higher like "we" do. Reminds me of rotten political systems that hire film makers to make propaganda films.

@spicy1 wrote:

There seems to be so much "let's be complacent, that's not our business" on this board lately. Don't worry if they change your report, don't worry about the fact that we only receive a very small share of the pie, "you" are not making enough money because "you" are doing something wrong: reach higher like "we" do. Reminds me of rotten political systems that hire filmmakers to make propaganda films.

Don't get me wrong spicy1, I was and still am angry at the oil change place. But the main thing is I got my money back. If I had been a "real" customer, I would have walked out and taken my car somewhere else.

Most gas stations are franchises. Each franchise has a slightly different contract, including what needs to be reported on a mystery shop. Some items are legal or regulatory requirements, others branding and imaging. An MSC is not going to create different report forms for each franchise. It is much more cost effective and accurate to clean those during editing than confuse shoppers with 100 versions.
Things like porn being sold/visible may not be an issue in certain locations, so it gets changed to a “No”. Same thing with pictures being deleted when they aren’t necessary for a certain location. It’s part of the cleaning process to prep the data for inclusion in the data file. Not something I would personally recommend during the editing phase, but hardly nefarious.
If you ever saw how much your report changed from submission to inclusion, you would be shocked. From the data management perspective, it is far better to simply have thousands of shoppers filling out the same report then making adjustments on the back end. Most schedulers, editors and even project managers are not going to be able to explain it because they don’t really understand what’s involved in data processing.
That’s not to say mistakes don’t happen and someone might accidentally delete the wrong picture (which is one reason not to do it during editing). You should certainly ask if you have concerns about your reports being altered. However, don’t expect an editor to be able to explain something they don’t really understand. This would be a great question to ask in person at one of the shopping conferences.

It is your contention that they are using a generic reporting form and generic questions, that include a question about porn or whatever and don't bother to remove the question for Client B, even though the question only pertains to Client A and they would rather just remove the answer from the report from 200,000 reports. Oh, I see, thanks for clearing that up, that explains it.

Oh, I see I should have been more specific. The parent corporation that owns the gas station brand has a contract with the MSC to shop their branded stations. Each franchise owner holds a franchisee contract which, among other things, includes reporting requirements and even mystery shopping.
The MSC has only one client for a particular brand, and uses the same questionnaire everywhere, even though some questions do not apply to every franchise or location within a franchise. Two stations a block apart could easily belong to different franchise’s, or even be in different jurisdiction zones with different reporting requirements. Yes, cleaning data on the back end is much easier for 200,000 reports than trying to merge 1000 slightly different versions.

Pray tell, how is it that you are privy to such important and explainable information?