I noticed this reading some of the comments. Please explains why someone can leave a bogus review on a company from a person who never even worked for them. Now since in a forum it permanent record possibly destroying a company's reputation over sour shoppers leaving bad review their company's from someone who they never even heard of. Then noticed the other people in the forum jumping in saying bad things as well just having fun. Now this company is tarnished by some hateful shopper because they think every ms company is a scam. The ms company seems has no way to remove it or file a claim to the forum that over pure BS. The reviewers have moved on but the company still has to deal with it. Then to still see the reviews on companyies left 15 years ago astonishs me. the hateful person achieved their goals becuse their life is miserable so now everbody elses is to. If I owned a mystery shopping company, I would not dare to share shops with them on this forum. The damage is not even worth it. We are all just hurting ourselves not being aware of what could be fantastic shop because some of you ruined it by trashing someone you dont even know a thing about. Then asking myself why would I even want to be apart of this hatred. The meaning of this forum is now basically useless beause no one had anything nice to say. Could to imagine doing this to the bogus reviewers family. Now you can't get any credit because according to this site you never pay your shoppers, complain the reimbursement wasn't enough even through you accepted it. The same with shoppers pay. I saw people complaining over not being paid to actually do shop but was being remimbured over a $100.00 not have to eat at McDonald's all the time. The complaints were mind boggling. Why would any MS company want someone to do a shop for them who complains about everything?

I should write a book on " I hate being a mystery shopper as we are forced to except a shops that pay less then minimum wage. Now somebody will bash this post as well.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2019 05:16PM by Shopperjudy13.

Could you please explain a little more about what you are talking about? Is this a mystery shopping company or another type of business? Are you an employee or owner of this business? Which MSC is it? Was the reveiw in this forum or another forum? Could you provide a link to the offensive post?

I hope you are not a shopper. This report is rambling, vague, and full of errors.

What’s the beef here?

@Shopperjudy13 wrote:

I noticed this reading some of the comments. Please explains why someone can leave a bogus review on a company from a person who never even worked for them. Now since in a forum it permanent record possibly destroying a company's reputation over sour shoppers leaving bad review their company's from someone who they never even heard of. Then noticed the other people in the forum jumping in saying bad things as well just having fun. Now this company is tarnished by some hateful shopper because they think every ms company is a scam. The ms company seems has no way to remove it or file a claim to the forum that over pure BS. The reviewers have moved on but the company still has to deal with it. Then to still see the reviews on companyies left 15 years ago astonishs me. the hateful person achieved their goals becuse their life is miserable so now everbody elses is to. If I owned a mystery shopping company, I would not dare to share shops with them on this forum. The damage is not even worth it. We are all just hurting ourselves not being aware of what could be fantastic shop because some of you ruined it by trashing someone you dont even know a thing about. Then asking myself why would I even want to be apart of this hatred. The meaning of this forum is now basically useless beause no one had anything nice to say. Could to imagine doing this to the bogus reviewers family. Now you can't get any credit because according to this site you never pay your shoppers, complain the reimbursement wasn't enough even through you accepted it. The same with shoppers pay. I saw people complaining over not being paid to actually do shop but was being remimbured over a $100.00 not have to eat at McDonald's all the time. The complaints were mind boggling. Why would any MS company want someone to do a shop for them who complains about everything?

I should write a book on " I hate being a mystery shopper as we are forced to except a shops that pay less then minimum wage. Now somebody will bash this post as well.

Some reviews are bogus. Some are not. Other posts have some truth, but are not completely truthful. Many times the most angry, flaming posts are made by those who made a mistake and legitimately did not get paid. The problem with this forum is the same as the problem with the majority of forums on the internet. People can register anonymously and can say anything they want. This means that a smart reader will not believe everything s/he reads on an internet forum.

A good rule of thumb when deciding legitimacy of a post:

1. If a post is too angry and flaming, there's a reason - and it usually isn't a post you want to take to heart.
2. If a poster has posted many times to the forum AND represents generally reasonable views, their posts might be worthy of consideration.On the other hand, if this is a poster's first post, there is no way of assessing reasonableness.
3. If a poster makes his first post bashing a company, this is probably not someone who will become a productive forum member.
4. If a forum member posts a complaint but provides no real information, it may very well not be legitimate.
5. If a post contains a lot of emotion and perceptions that the poster calls "facts," clearly something is amiss.

I get what you are saying, and it does disturb me when an anonymous poster names a company and/or a company employee and makes a serious bashing post with no facts or proof.

However, your last two sentences have me shaking my head. Please don't write a book about being forced to accept shops that pay less than minimum wage. People will think you are crazy. Mystery shoppers are independent contractors. We are not employees. We are not at any time forced to accept ANY job. We are free to pick and choose among the posted assignments for those that meet our personal and professional requirements. Any shopper who accepts a shop that they believe pays less than minimum wage, and they are unhappy about the pay, has for some reason made a personal decision to accept the shop.

Okay, after a couple of edits from the OP, there is a LITTLE more clarity, but not much. Still don't know what thread and posts the OP is referring to.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

Could you please explain a little more about what you are talking about? Is this a mystery shopping company or another type of business? Are you an employee or owner of this business? Which MSC is it? Was the reveiw in this forum or another forum? Could you provide a link to the offensive post?

@1cent wrote:

I hope you are not a shopper. This report is rambling, vague, and full of errors.

What’s the beef here?

I agree with 1cent.
It is very vague, lots of spelling errors and most of it makes no sense to me.

One thing that sticks out is this: “Why would any MS company want someone to do a shop for them who complains about everything?“ Then goes on to complain about low rates.

It’s like you want to defend mystery shopping companies and maybe that somehow increases payouts. I might be off base with that interpretation.

I do know that it doesn’t work that way. Companies raise rates on jobs that are difficult to schedule. Restaurant evaluations tend not to pay because so many people will work for food. I buy my own food unless there’s a bonus to cover my time. Schedulers know that and they call when they need me.

I must admit I only read half of the post by the OP since it was really difficult to figure out what they were saying due to vagueness, poor sentences structure or something. But I felt she/he was talking about ruining businesses by giving bad reviews and just assumed, maybe I am wrong, the op was talking about bad reviews on this forum. So I have a question for the op....this forum is viewed mostly by mystery shoppers. I understand it is open to the public but it is not a forum the majority of the public even knows about. How would a bad review by a shopper who reports on this forum even be seen by the millions and millions of others who might spend money with the client? Mystery shoppers, even if all of us avoided the client with a bad review on mystery shop forum, would not come anywhere close to a significant loss of business to a client, especially since we usually do not even spend money that is not reimbursed with the client.

I stopped reading after "Please explains"

I made it to the third run on sentence.

Is OP representing Red Quanta, per chance? Cirrus? The gift card scam company recently discussed in another thread? Either way, only a small fraction of the world's mystery shoppers are even aware of this forum so there are still plenty of shoppers out there who do not know that negative "Reviews" even exist.

I am not sure, but the OP referenced MSCs, then mentioned McDonald's, so I kinda assumed it was one of the MSCs that used to shop Mickey D's years ago. It was quite a messy ramble, so who knows for sure. Not mentioning any MSC names, of course.

@Shopperjudy13 wrote:

Please explains why ...

Please explain why this is the second post from someone who has been a forum member for four years. Is this perhaps a backup name for another account?

Since her 1st post was well written, perhaps being really frustrated made this post sound like rambling. Or perhaps she was posting from her phone. And she does have a point that once something is on the internet, its usually there for good. If a disgruntled person posts something negative about a company in the heat of anger, it might not give the true picture of what the company is really like. Didnt we have a discussion recently about people leaving paid reviews on Amazon?

Anyway, as far as the review coming from this forum, it couldnt have been. She said the review was 15 years ago and this forum isnt that old. I think perhaps 8 or 9? Irene or Walesmaven could probably tell you.

Edited to correct spelling, im on my tablet and dont want to find the apostraphe...lol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2019 05:24AM by kimmiemae.

I just realized the op was talking about bad reviews ruining the mystery shop company someone is complaining about. Well, I think a new shopper might see a bad review on a particular msc and just stop there but for every bad review I have seen there seem to be other shoppers chiming in and saying they had no issues. If that does not happen and all the reviews are bad then maybe it is true. In actuality there really are some msc that provide bad experiences for most. Many of us know to take good and bad with a grain of salt. Just as in reviews on yelp and sites like that most of us know not to base our decisions on one review whether it is good or bad. Threads that are 15 years old or even 8 or 9 years old are closed now and the only way someone would be reading those is if they dug deep. How often do most of of even look back that far? So the review might stand but almost no one is reading it anymore. And if it is the true feelings of that person who wrote it then it should stand just as long as the good reviews stay.

@simonbanks wrote:

I stopped reading after "Please explains"

There are a lot of people who have English as a second language. Or, someone could be typing using a "texting" style. My sister does that. It's annoying for sure (to me). But, that's also just me being a grammar Nazi to some degree and also not getting her generation's way of speaking (which looks childish to me...."C U later"..stuff like that).

My only point being that proper grammar doesn't define a person or the value of their question. It could be hurtful, as well, if a person has reasons that are not their fault for not having the best grammar.

I miss stuff all the time, despite having minored in English and was two courses away from a full on major.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2019 10:40AM by shoptastic.

@iShop123 wrote:

@Shopperjudy13 wrote:

Please explains why ...

Please explain why this is the second post from someone who has been a forum member for four years. Is this perhaps a backup name for another account?

I once signed up for a law school forum and asked one question. Then I came back a few years later to ask more when it was more relevant to me.

I'm signed up on a swimming forum too with a similar situation. I only had one account on both. Sometimes "life happens" as they say.

I certainly scanned the OP in its earlier iteration and found it a sulky complaint about the forum mistreating fine companies and with a chuckle, I dismissed it. Why a chuckle? Because if this is indeed a shopper, there would likely have been more participation in the forum than one post in the previous almost 5 years of being a registered member. There likely would have been more specificity as to the company this 'shopper' felt was so unfairly maligned. A one and done slam of the forum is nonsense. Subsequent revisions have certainly not helped the OP's "case".

This situation is, in my opinion, one of those rare instances where both the yeas and nays are correct. That the OP's post is difficult to comprehend , is a fact. Her forum name of Shopperjudy13 indicates she is in this business, but her seeming inability to handle English syntax, spelling and punctuation is self evident. She very well could be a shopper with impeccable discipline and an exceptional ability to gather any information the client desires, BUT, if said info can not be relayed in a comprehensible manner, all is for naught.

On the flip side, shoptastic is correct that grammatical ability, in and of itself, does not a person make. Perhaps Judy specializes in assignments requiring little, if any, narrative. As a pianist, I was not blessed with the ability to either play by ear or sight transpose. Therefore, I avoided any gigs that required accompanying a vocalist or performing in a bar.

@shopperbob wrote:

On the flip side, shoptastic is correct that grammatical ability, in and of itself, does not a person make. Perhaps Judy specializes in assignments requiring little, if any, narrative. As a pianist, I was not blessed with the ability to either play by ear or sight transpose. Therefore, I avoided any gigs that required accompanying a vocalist or performing in a bar.

sbob,

One thing I'll add is that my very first ms ever was going to be to do a narrative-heavy nursing home shop tour. I declined it ultimately after being too nervous and took fast food shops as my first real official shop instead. But, when I spoke to the scheduler by phone, he told me a lot of shoppers for the company did not have a good grasp of English and seemed to speak it as a second language oftentimes. I told him I was nervous about writing the report and he said I'd do just fine. I always remembered that and just extrapolated his comments (whether fair or not) to all shoppers at MSCs. I just figured many were perhaps immigrants with a different native tongue.

shoptastic shares--But, when I spoke to the scheduler by phone, he told me a lot of shoppers for the company did not have a good grasp of English and seemed to speak it as a second language oftentimes.

Bob comments--Said scheduler, though, was not the editor obliged to rewrite a report that would be acceptable to a skilled nursing facility and for which the editor was probably poorly paid.

@shopperbob wrote:

shoptastic shares--But, when I spoke to the scheduler by phone, he told me a lot of shoppers for the company did not have a good grasp of English and seemed to speak it as a second language oftentimes.

Bob comments--Said scheduler, though, was not the editor obliged to rewrite a report that would be acceptable to a skilled nursing facility and for which the editor was probably poorly paid.

Hmmm - bob, if you were meaning that maybe there was a difference between spoken and written proficiency (i.e., maybe someone can write better than they speak), we did talk specifically about writing errors. He was explaining that I needed to respond to questions and edits within X time frame and when I asked for elaboration that's how we got into this brief topic. I was told that many shoppers have reports sent back to them after an initial draft that required addressing edits from the quality control staff. At some point, he mentioned that reports often have to be corrected for basic grammar, as many shoppers did not seem to have a good grasp of the English language. etc.

So, yeah, at least for that MSC, apparently edits and rewrites were common and much of the time for basic English issues.

*not being judgmental at all, btw. I just thought it was any interesting tidbit. But, really, only editors know the full story to things. They are presumably the only ones who see everything submitted and we might ultimately only be able to speculate up to a certain point.*

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2019 09:45AM by shoptastic.

I never had to edit any nursing facilities when I was an editor. But, during my editor years (for two different MSCs), I edited plenty of restaurant shops, some of which were fine dining for high-end clients that were exacting and of course expected proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Some of the reports were so poorly written that it gave me a headache trying to edit them! I had to communicate with many of these shoppers for more information about the shops and to obtain clarity. Surprisingly, I found that they could carry on a conversation in English quite well and were not ESL at all. In fact, rarely were they ESL. However, their written language skills were atrocious and it made me wonder how they managed to graduate from high school. Only a few shoppers I had to contact were born in countries where other languages were spoken.

I applaud those of you who can clearly understand what the OP was trying to say; I really do. I can't make heads or tails out of it, other than that I believe she is confusing actual "reviews" for what we do here (informed commentary). There's a difference; you go on Yelp or Google to leave a review. She seems to think that negative comments here or on reports are "unfair." Even if a negative report is warranted.

I'd say that a company is rarely "trashed" here on this forum. Lots of negative opinions at times, but generally based on fact. It seems this forum is good at weeding out negative comments by shoppers who have an unwarranted gripe versus discussing legitimate complaints.

So, as to the OP's comments, I'm at a loss.... Although I suspect this person may be an employee of an MSC or someone who's part of ownership.

@BirdyC wrote:

So, as to the OP's comments, I'm at a loss.... Although I suspect this person may be an employee of an MSC or someone who's part of ownership.

So perhaps the thread should be titled "Bogus Complaint" rather than "Bogus Review"?

I was wondering that, too, which would make whatever complaint she is referring to much more personal.

@BirdyC wrote:

Although I suspect this person may be an employee of an MSC or someone who's part of ownership.

I have read the Forum everyday for several years. There are a lot of intelligent people, experienced, and have Mystery shopped for years. Usually the shoppers who put down MSC, editors, and schedulers have their own personal reasons. What I don't understand is why they are mystery shopping. This should not reflect on me, I don't agree with all the problems some have, usually they cause their own problems. My goal has always been to work as a team, do your shop and get along with your schedulers and editors. If you don't like this forum get off it.

I would remind OP that she must declare her affiliation with an MSC.

@Flash wrote:

@BirdyC wrote:

So, as to the OP's comments, I'm at a loss.... Although I suspect this person may be an employee of an MSC or someone who's part of ownership.

So perhaps the thread should be titled "Bogus Complaint" rather than "Bogus Review"?

Well, I don't know; that surely would be better. But I do know that when I read the thread title and the first couple of sentences, I was confused as hell.