"Huge Earning Potential!"
.....shop pays $5 per location, few locations, large distances apart

"Great pay, easy automotive shop"
.....pays $20, takes an hour at the location and at least 30-45 minutes for the report

Do they think we are broke, desperate, unintelligent, or a combination?

Have you noticed these recently?

Not to mention “the drink is on us” and “free meal”.

The last two auto sales shops I completed, each mandating a test drive, averaged slightly more than four hours for prep, travel, shop and report. The fee was $60 for the first and $80 the second. While not being bad, the sums were certainly not great. I currently require $80 for that type of assignment, but as time goes by and more shoppers enter the business without the communicative skills some clients require, I will be able to raise my fees.

I think these "routes" I started getting email about for Southern Cal. Usually the "route" Is 3 or 4 locations at regular fee and the locations are really far from each other. It would take most of the day in LA to do 4 of those shops and drive sometimes 50 miles to the next but all are in areas which are not usually bonused as there are many living there.

False advertising? Or, some people might see some possibilities there. Some shoppers might consider it fun, for them, to do such a shop. I overheard people talking about what a gas it is to do some of these shops which are so different from their usual work and their swank lives. Perhaps they are the ones who should know about these particular shops. That is a subjective thing, and it may be true that for some people, such shops are fun. Thus, it might not be an instance of false advertising. Some people might be able to build a schedule around the far-flung shops, or fit them into an existing schedule. For these people, the shops might contribute to a profitable work or defray the costs of a personal trip while providing a pit stop. Paid for a pit stop that you would have taken anyway? Hmm. Again, that is not necessarily false advertising. Likely, it is just an opportunity for shoppers to look at their lives and decide whether or not to pursue the mentioned shops.

Personally I doubt most people would consider a $5 shop the OP mentions to be a huge earning potential. Perhaps just an earning potential and most would consider these shops to be a poor earning potential. Yes you can build a route around it but after reading what many route shoppers say they build their routes around bonused or well paying shops, not around $5 shops. So in my mind shop et al the false part about what the OP is saying is about HUGE not about the fact that the shop emails were sent out.
And if you are talking about my post...no I doubt there are many who consider driving 50 miles in LA traffic to be "a gas". Perhaps a gas guzzler and a time guzzler. The routes I have seen are not at all in a straight line. They zig and zag all over the LA basin and often are not even in the LA Basin which itself is huge. They are not at all near each other and they are relatively poor paying shops. No prizes there. If I were to do 2 $10-12 shops I could find them in a route of a few miles. I would not need to drive every which way all over LA to put together a route of 3 or 4 $10 shops. So I find them false advertising as most often the headliner is about the total pay and then you find out it will take 6 or 7 hours of driving, shopping and reporting to earn $40....after deductions for miles driven it would be down to zero earnings.

Sandy, the OP (Niner) was kidding, this thread is a joke.....5.00 definitely not going to work for us.
I keep getting the groceries I do in my town, I'm no more than 4 miles from 6 groceries, to do far away places I haven't been to, for a 5.00 fee....do I have stupid on my forehead. some have "pad", would an additional 10.00 tempt me, no, distance is like going to the moon, then the ghetto.....happy working in my town, no driving, happy camper.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2019 11:51PM by Irene_L.A..

Irene, no joke for me. I get emails that promise huge or fun or free or $50 and it turns out you need to do 10 shops so $5 a shop. Definitely see a lot of false advertising. You may not be fooled into taking the job as you are awake and aware but that does not change the fact that it is in fact a form of false advertising.

of course, that's what the thread is about, false advertising, a lot goes on along with the "fun, easy, free food: jobs offered. They'll say anything and many are naive and buy into it...but hopefully learn fast.

An "urgent" shop that is reimbursement only.

Sometimes I think they are thinking ONLY of the few minutes it takes to actually do the shop.

No consideration of prep, drive, reports.

I remember,: "I need you to do this pizza shop asap! The shopper never showed up!" I said, "Oh, um.... how much is the bonus to do this right away?" He said, "None. There is a no bonus!"

The biggest joke I have seen is actually the Mobee app. They want you to do mystery shopping jobs for a few dollars. They make it seem like it's a game. I downloaded the app this weekend. One of the jobs paid $3.50 and wanted 20+ photos and an employee interaction. And, I don't think that you can select a job and have it leave the board, it appears to be first come first serve. You could be driving to a location, someone else does it, and your $3 job is gone. Even Field Agent lets you reserve a job for two hours.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2019 12:53AM by Niner.

Email stated $10 fee for the following shops with a long list of locations. I replied with the location I was willing to do from the list. Oh, I'm sorry, that one is only $9, she says. Um, the email said $10, I replied, and quoted the email. My bad, she says, its only $9. She implied that it was mistake. Of the 67 shops on the list, only 23 were paying $10. The other 44 were $9 or less. A "mistake" MIGHT be two or three priced wrong, not 2/3s of the locations. False advertising and pure laziness on the part of the scheduler.

A "Client required" deadline three days away with a one or two dollar bonus (on top of a very low fee). A week later the jobs are still in the board, passed the "Required" deadline and no increase in the bonus. That deadline was a straight up lie. And unnecessary, apparently, because the scheduler's need to get shops filled was not the motivator that money would have been.

@HonnyBrown wrote:

An "urgent" shop that is reimbursement only.

'

This is just advertising here. They rarely give anything extra even on the final day when you have only an hour to get to the location after accepting the shop. It may be bad business but not false advertising. I think they really do need the shop done urgently. Sometimes they have a day or so to play around with but that would make it urgent for the scheduler as it is on their head if the following day which is their wiggle room day is a bit late to be advertising an urgent shop and hope to have someone take it. I personally would not want the pressure of being a scheduler.

@Niner wrote:

"Huge Earning Potential!"
.....shop pays $5 per location, few locations, large distances apart

They were talking about brownie points, not cash.

not sure where you live but here most shops I select are at 300-500 points. I pick huge mall locations, I did for instance 3325 in points today including a 50 point travel bonus and an extra 500 (auto bonus) for doing so many shops. I guess you must have ALOT of competition. Also I usually do this app IN addition to a mystery shop I already have scheduled. If you are going to a mall area, definitely keep checking back. I LOVE this app. I never buy anything at Starbucks or Amazon lol. I got my amazon package last week for INK and a charger (which I was too broke to buy). It is hot so I cash it 1 or 2 x a week for a giftcard for a drink PLUS I do 2-3 shops in the same area. Drink shops are only available once a week.

Another tip: use the "search this area" on the map and look for hard to reach areas, I saw one for 1000 points for one shop

Hope that helps and it is a good app if you think smart. I don't do it everyday. I do check back every day to see if I can have a bigger pay day 2000-3500 points.

I have no idea what this points thing is about. What app are you using and can you explain. If this thread is about points it never said so. Or I totally missed that part.

The Mobee app pays you in “points”. When you get enough you can cash them in for gift cards, debit cards, etc.

IF you were talking to me I am unsure I was responding to this post:

Niner 500 6m
The biggest joke I have seen is actually the Mobee app. They want you to do mystery shopping jobs for a few dollars. They make it seem like it's a game. I downloaded the app this weekend. One of the jobs paid $3.50 and wanted 20+ photos and an employee interaction. And, I don't think that you can select a job and have it leave the board, it appears to be first come first serve. You could be driving to a location, someone else does it, and your $3 job is gone. Even Field Agent lets you reserve a job for two hours.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2019 12:53AM by Niner.

I don't look at is as "false advertising." I consider this to be "Scheduler Language." Words and phrases in an email subject line such as "Urgent," "Great Pay," "Pleeeeeeaaaaaaasssse," "HUGE Bonus," "Fun," "Can you do me a favor?" etc. are scheduler language for "pay stinks, I need to get this assigned anyhow." Often the scheduler does not have the ability to add any money to the offer and is facing pressure to get them shopped. I, therefore, don't generally read these.

When the money is good, it's generally in the subject line.

Some schedulers ans some MSCs are certainly unethical. Claiming, for example, that reimbursement is pay, that pathetically low fees are great pay, or that a miserable shop is fun.

On occasion, however, one encounters honesty. One scheduler told me that a particular shop paid, "next to nothing," wasn't worth my time (or her's), but would be a "fairly quick and boring" encounter with a "stupid, but not long," report. Would I mind doing it to help out with the promise that next time it came up she'd find someone else to, "dump it on?" That is what can happen when one has an established relationship with a scheduler.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2019 09:10AM by Rousseau.

@Niner Yes I've been noticing those. I thought it was just me. I couldn't help but giggle when I saw the one that said "Huge Earning Potential!" .....shop pays $5 per location, few locations, large distances apart

I actually thought this was an error. Or the one that's $20 for the automotive shop. I mean I am broke but not this broke lol..

I find the breathless claims of "URGENT URGENT URGENT" to be hysterically funny. Especially on the 50th email of a given day. (Okay, by that time they are getting annoying.)
I see it as them trying to convince me that their problem is in fact, my problem. If they have an "urgent" shop that is their problem. If it's well bonused then it can very well become my problem but not until then.

Coffee, I agree. I need "urgent" pay to do an "urgent" shop.

If a shop is really fun, easy with great pay, great pay, etc., you will not see them in emails, because they will have already been snapped up by shoppers.

Removed

I flaked on a good scheduler a few months back due to time. I had a midterm due and decided to revise it at the last minute. I didn't know how long it would take, so I canceled the shop.

The scheduler said, "Remember, it's only 40 minutes in the restaurant." She didn't mention the travel or time to do the report. That was 5 hours I did not have to spare.

@ceasesmith wrote:

Sometimes I think they are thinking ONLY of the few minutes it takes to actually do the shop.

No consideration of prep, drive, reports.

There have been pay decreases in the banking area, more work, more time, less pay. I am glad I don't have to depend on Mystery shopping.