Hi! New here, first post!

I do several shops a month for them ~ but only when the fees go up to something reasonable.

The ones that pay $3 & $4, for what amounts to at least an hour's work (counting in the store & doing the report) are just asinine. I can't believe people actually accept those assignments, but they do!

I live near several small towns & outlying areas, so the fees for assignments there sometimes go up ~ WAY up ~ which is when I snag them! One day, I made $58 for a little less than three hours work, counting travel time as well. Another day I made just under $100 for about six hours work, counting travel.

I wish others would get a clue, and NOT ACCEPT JOBS at those obscenely low rates.

I have always been paid quickly & the full agreed-on amounts.

Oh ~ and once when I had just been through the loss of a close friend, I went to an out-of-town audit & realized I had forgotten my paperwork, including the letter the employee had to sign. Nearly in tears, I drove home & emailed the scheduler, explaining the situation. She re-scheduled me for two days out, no problem, and was very kind in her email. (This was a nice, high-pay one, too!)

Yes, I agree. Each time I get an email from CRI with their "commissions have increased" I laugh. The one for doing a gas station in my area is $3.42. By the time I took their test, read the shop details, did the shop and drove home, and write up the report. What would I be making $1.50 an hour? I'd rather just enter contests or do surveys online.

StormCloud Wrote:
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> I had forgotten my paperwork,
> including the letter the employee had to sign.
> Nearly in tears, I drove home & emailed the
> scheduler, explaining the situation.

Glad they worked it out for you. This has happened to me a time or two, and I went to the nearest Staples with a stick drive, used one of their laptops to get the file, and asked the print center to print out a copy. Just an idea, might not always be possible, but sometimes it's better than wasting a long drive.

davedecot, that is a good idea that I hadn't thought of!

In this particular circumstance it wouldn't have worked, because the location was really, REALLY, out in the sticks. Along the road through the canyon, on the way up into the mountains. The nearest city was where I lived!

But I'll have to keep this in mind for when I'm out on the road, in an actual city!

I have done several shops for them in the past. They have lowered their shop fees now and reduced number of shops. I only do them if it is convenient for me and fee is enough. I don't turn on computer for some of the low fees that are posted on their site.

For this company, many of the actual locations are remote and far from the listed city. That caught me on one of the first one several years ago.

I can't help but notice that CRI is playing a game of Chicken to see who is going to budge first ... them or the shoppers, as far as not raising their rates for all the Fuel station jobs in my area.

They are offering $6 for their Distributor shops of the main client, with a mandatory REVEAL (yeah, for $6 ... not happening) and $6 for the new Fuel client. The Distributor shop rates haven't even increased a cent since they were posted late last month ... and we are already over the half point of the month.

The other shops ... many of which are still at the original rate of $4, have gone up about 2 bucks, but still nothing Earth-shattering.

I guess their mentality is that since Fuel has gone up so much, people need to do shops to support their income ... where as shoppers are from the perspective that Fuel has gone up, so it's not worth their while even to drive a few miles up the road and waste fuel, unless it's actually worthwhile.

Just who is going to budge first? Interesting game of Chicken being played here, as normally their rates are much better at least by the half point of the month.

Mystkwizard, I totally agree with you. It is a game of chicken. Would it kill them to compensate a little more? No. They are just that greedy. Fuel is $4.01 here where I am. The one fuel shop reimburses for $1 in gas. What the heck? You would think one of the largest oil companies in the world would allow more. Maybe they do, but CRI keeps it for themselves. I have refused to do the $6 reveal shops. They lock you out for the next 45 days.

I can understand that a reveal is good once in a while for a store to see, as they actually physically get to see that they really are shopped and that there are people in the stores evaluating them ... as opposed to the higher-ups simply making up data. So a reveal actually sinks in with the employees.

At the same time and from my perspective, $6 is simply not worth my time for a reveal, in which you have to put up with the employee following you around, or asking questions, or that type of thing when you are in the store. If it paid about $15 or so, I would consider doing them, but $6 ... for a reveal ... no way.

I found it takes longer to submit the receipts for their shops than to do the shop.
Can anyone tell me of a company that pays better

Pick a company, any company. CRI is notorious for being the lowest paying company out there. Most shoppers bother with them only when the shops get bonused to what they consider fair pay. It may happen in your area, it may not. In mine these days it is a rare shop that rises to $10 and my minimum to leave the driveway is $15, thus I have not worked with them in a number of years.

CRI now handles another fuel company shops...I so miss who had them before. The schedulers were awesome to work with. Now the report focuses more on "How do you feel " about the shop. I am finding it more difficult to write a narrative describing how the shop made me feel.

I actually find the new shops easier to deal with from the new client, as opposed to the old client. The old client, you had to provide an explanation for everything .... good or bad, where as you don't have to with the new client. Plus, the new client provides a $3 fuel reimbursement as opposed to $1 from the old client .. at least making it a little more reasonable.

Whoa...the old MSC paid $4 in fuel and $1 for an instore purchase. I wonder if different regions are paid different amounts. I am in New England.

I wait until their shops pay something that is worth doing the shop for. I talked with one of their reps and was told they pay what they do because they have plenty of shoppers who are willing to do the shops. Their pay is really to low. I suggest that people stop shopping for them until they raise the pay. A person is better off training to become silver certified MSPA and paying the $15.00 rather than do the training for this company. My opinion though.

I agree -- most of their payments are far too low, where if calculated by the hour would be less than minimum wage. Ridiculously low.

However, I'm lucky enough that I live near some areas where the pay goes up to be reasonable, and sometimes actually really good for the time required. Those are the ones I take!

I also take their new drive-thru ones, only if I'm doing other better-paid shops (for them or someone else) in the area. They're really easy, and you get your lunch reimbursed.

The convenience store audits in my town, I will sometimes even take at the base rate, if I really need some extra money. Although for some reason they seem to go up (at least a couple of bucks) really quickly. But even at their base rate, I've done so many of them, that I can do them quickly enough to make it worth the time. The ones in nearby, but "outlying" small towns seem to go up nicely, fairly quickly.

At least for me, so far, the locations given have always been accurate.

They have other shops that I've done when the pay gets high enough, that I really enjoy; but they usually want to pay $4 for a job that (counting reporting) takes a little over an hour! I wish these paid better, because I find them fun.

Really, though, they should be ashamed of the low starting pay for most of their jobs!

Ron and I (separately - no team shopping) have done 37 of the gas shops for the main gas client this past month. 29 of them paid $10/$1. The others paid $7.50 but were close to home in town. If we don't get those for less, someone else takes them.

We like the new format. Mystery shop the inside and then present a Letter of Authorization in order to freely take pictures outside. I find I am able to better address issues and take more and better pictures when not sneaking around. Also, after I finish taking pictures I sit in the car on the lot and assemble my notes, upload my pictures to the shop file and staple my receipt to the front page of the paperwork (the only part I print). I have the shop memorized because i do so many so I don't really even need to print that. Once when my printer was out of ink, I wrote the address of each shop on a separate page in a notebook and just jotted my notes down on the page and stapled the receipt to that. Basically, by the time I pull off the lot, the report is ready to zap at the next WiFi or when i get home and the GPS is safely set for the next stop.


We buy nearly all the family's sodas at gas shops, one bottle at a time or $3/$3.33 or whatever deal is going on. When we get $1 of it back it makes it pretty comparable to buying them at the grocery.

I don't take the shops at ridiculously low fees. I'll take 5-13 pictures and do a report for $7.50 if it's close by and on the way to somewhere else. I don't leave home to go do just one. I don't do a hardware store the size of Kansas for $4 but I'll do one for $25 in a town 40 miles away if I can also do 6 gas stations along the way for $10/$1 each. I can usually add more shops for the day too. CRI plus shipping shops fill in my anchor shops to make a huge difference in our home.

Ron works a full time job and I draw disability and mystery shop when I'm able. My daughter is disabled too but isn't drawing disability yet. With three adults to feed and house and buy medicine for and pay doctors for, mystery shopping makes a big difference.

CRI comes in handy because my check is gone by the first week of the month when we pay rent and utilities. I always have something coming in from CRI because Ron and I make sure to do some shops for them each week. Then there's money on the Paypal card every Friday for groceries, meds and copays. Now we squeak by most months but we don't crash and burn.

There's not much on the board right now for me. I have to be home by 1:30 pm for Ron to take the car and go to work. I hope I get my car back pretty soon so I can really get back to work. I miss those long distance routes in the country and right now the dogwoods and redbuds are blooming and the roads are calling me. Then there's a paycheck at the end of the daffodil trails. lol

Geez, I was waiting for the hardware store pay to go up to something reasonable... it finally did ~ and someone beat me to it! Rats. It was only a few hours between times I checked, too. Sigh! (And iblessyah, the size of Kansas is a perfect description!)

Also, I apparently needed to re-do my training for the housewares store. I did the slide presentation rather than video, since others in the house were watching TV. Has anyone else seen it? The typos, spelling, and grammatical errors were horrendous! At least one in nearly every slide. Did a 10 year old write and/or proofread it?! Although, I had better English skills when *I* was 10! Sheesh!

There sure aren't many jobs in my area right now, though. I need more money this month!

Beware of the invisible emails from them. If they ask for clarification and you do not get it they will not pay. Even if they email was NEVER received in spam or regular.