To JulieAce: I am sorry to have made you cry and in no way intended to bully anyone or create drama. It has been said that you are kind. Okay, that is good. And subjective. But I do not personally know you or anyone else in the mystery shopping world. We are not friends. We are business associates related only to mystery shopping. You may indeed be saintly and I admire your ability to plan ahead in order to keep your business afloat during hard times. I have too, all with just the tiny bit of common sense that I already possess. I still stand by my original negative opinion, though, as to the appropriateness of your solicitous email for the following reasons:
1. The address you used for me is for my mystery shopping business communications. It is not for personal email or get-rich-quick schemes.
2. The email I received followed the exact same format as any other that can be found in my spam folder at any given time. In it, there was excessive excitement over the program and a lot of exclamation marks which are two key elements of a con. Also included was a miraculous success testimonial. You’ve posted several more here on this thread, all of which could be found (maybe even verbatim) on any commercial or “Paid programming” charade.
3. This is not the first time that an MSC or representative of one has contacted the shopper database in an effort to involve them in whatever scheme they are selling/promoting/recommending.
4. If my best friend of more than 40 years had sent me the same email you sent, my first thought would have been, “Oh, no. What has she gotten herself into?” I would have done my best to get her out of that pyramid.
5. Most MCSs care very little for shoppers which is evident by the very low fees, late payments and, sometimes, no payment at all. If your company is different, I earnestly thank you. As you well know from being in the MSC climate for many years, we have good and legitimate reason to always be wary.
6. If your email and program peddling were actually in good faith and an effort to help others, I apologize, but it certainly did not sound that way. At all. So bringing it to the forum was a way for me to find out if I was being overly suspicious, for my own reference, or whether anyone else knew more about your program. That is what the forum is for, to give/take/share mystery shopping knowledge.
I will now delete and move on as someone suggested and, again, apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you.