Yesterday, 1/20, Intellishop posted a notice on their log-in page which said, "Due to the U.S. federal holiday on Monday, shopper payments have been delayed a day and will be paid out on or before 1/21/22. Please wait until end of day on 1/21/22 to confirm receipt of any anticipated shopper payments."

Has anyone received an Intellishop payment yet? It is now 7:38 PM EST, and nothing has come to me, yet.

Shortly before that time, I checked e-mail, PayPal and shopper log for the umpteenth time. At last! My shop log showed that payments were 'pending' and I felt better. Nothing shows in PayPal yet. Payments probably will appear tomorrow, after today's work has been processed overnight.

Nothing yet as of today!

Mine has showing as pending for 2 days, but nothing in PayPal yet. Hopefully soon.

I should have added, they always pay. I don't do much for them but I never worry about payment.

Totally agree. Ive never had a problem with them.

It is late and I still haven't gotten paid. I hate to be so worried about it. It does say pending.

I live in California. Still have not been paid for the shops that were due to be paid on 1/20/2022. It is now 12:21 AM PST on Saturday morning, January 22. This is NOT good. It makes me nervous to do any further shops for them. I wonder what is really going on with their company.

I haven't been paid yet either. However my shop log does say that payment is pending.

leverly...I don't know what your definition of a 'problem' is, but this appears to be a 'problem' now!

Well, my shop log still says 'pending', but I have not been paid yet via Paypal. It is 9:25 AM EST, 1/22/2022. Intellishop is pretty strict regarding due dates for our shops....clearly they do not apply that same standard of timliness to themselves, even after promising, in writing, their own date for paying us! I think that is called hypocrisy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2022 03:31PM by salisburync.

They’re my main shopping company. They’re professional. They pay. Things happen.

My pay, of which I never had the slightest concern, arrived 1/2 hr. ago. As I had time today, I checked back through the 16+ years I have been associated with Intelli-shop. According to my log, they have been consistently prompt, predicated upon contract terms, with remittance to me.

As stated above, intellishop is professional and prompt when it comes to pay. Although this month was somewhat unusual, the payment arrived for me this morning. I had 109 new emails from PayPal notifying me that I had been paid for each of the 109 shops that I completed last month.

01/22 update: My money arrived in PayPal. All is well.

I did get paid also.

Why do so many people here freak out when a payment is even a half day late?

Susan, I got paid as well, early this evening (1/22). However, know this: This was not a half day late...it was two and a half days late, and it is one of the biggest MSCs, AND Intellishop posted, on their own, a very specific message which said all pay would be sent by the end of the day on 1/21. They need to do as they say when they post stuff like that!!! ESPECIALLY when they demand such timliness on the part of all shoppers!

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2022 04:37AM by salisburync.

Due to the federal holiday on January 17th, all my reports for the rest of the month will be late and half-finished.

If anyone has followed my posts over the last few years, I'm generally pretty grumpy, and I like to complain. I hold companies to a very high standard. Without a doubt, intellishop is the most professional and responsive company I have ever worked for. I'm willing to give them a pass on this. I strongly encourage everyone else to do so as well. However, if you choose not to work for them due to this two day delay, then that means more work for me.

Good question. I am not prone to a freak out, generally, and my companies pay as promised.

At least one of the Intellishop clients has included a disclaimer via Intellishop that even if a shop is accepted by the Intellishop team, the client might not accept the shop. I have not missed a client's payment, but what happens when a shop is accepted by beloved Intellishop and rejected by the client? Will we be paid anyway? Will we not be paid? I need to find out more about this situation.

The question for anyone who knows is: If Intellishop accepts our shops but the client rejects our shops/reports, are we paid anyway? Or, do we not receive payment for shops which were accepted at one level but not at the other? Inquiring minds and rabid budgeters want to know. tia.

@Susan L. wrote:

Why do so many people here freak out when a payment is even a half day late?

Two points on this subject:

1-Predicated upon the date of the 20th, my money was 35+ hrs. tardy, BUT, if payment were based on the holiday week, it was only 11+ hours late. As this was an anomaly, either situation is acceptable to me.

2-As to acceptance by the MSC, but rejection by the client, I have zero recollection that has occurred. If in the future that happens, I am relatively certain I would accept the matter as a peril of business.

shopper Bob,...and what would you call their reslut on this last pay cycle? Curious to see if you are willing to call a spade a spade!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2022 09:42PM by salisburync.

Ok, this is beating a dead horse, I admit! But, in 'regular' business, accounting departments are expected to manage A/P work in SPITE of holidays, etc. Using the holiday (especially one that is not observed by at least half the business in the U.S. (including all of the clients I work for via Intellishop!), is a sign of weakness or greed....I feel relieved that Intellishop paid, but they did 'miss' paying me two shops that were marked as "received" , and those two were completed in early January. One of the reasons I do take some Intellishop work is because of their timely payment, despite their low pay (in general). When they are late, even a little, it makes the compromise somewhat less attractive. Tracking the shops/payments back through multiple pay cycles is arduous, which further makes the compromise less attractive. In simple terms (IMHO) Intellishop needs to be more timely, all things considered, but especially when they state their reasons for being late, and issue a promise.

Over a 15 yr, period, I have completed 112 jobs for Intelli-shop, with 47 of that number being last year. Although there could be several reasons for that radical increase, there, in fact, is only one: More money. As it applies to me, the purse has been opening wider and much more frequently, but I certainly respect that others are not of like mind.

I've never had IntelliShop have a client reject any report I've done and I've done well over 3,000 shops for them.

I have had clients fail to pay for shops when I was an editor and that's usually because while the report looked fine on our end, there was some kind of issue with the client IE they proved that the shopper wasn't there during the time they said they were or had some material misrepresentation in the report that they were able to prove. I've only had that happen a handful of times. Usually if that happens, the shoppers not around much longer!

I've also had clients choose not to accept a report for whatever reason and if it was accepted by the company we would typically pay the shopper. This is usually in the case when the shopper didn't do anything wrong but the client had some sort of reason for wanting a reshop.

My payment arrived on the 22nd. I typically don't expect a payment from them until the 25th, so this was no big deal.

I didn't have any shops for them to be paid this past pay period, but they said to wait until end of day on 1/21. It looks like many shoppers got paid on 1/22 and for others, the payments were marked as "pending," meaning they would be completed.

Honestly, I don't understand why this sends people into panic mode, especially with a company like Intellishop, which always pays and generally right on time. Stuff happens. It'd be one thing if the payments that were to be made on 1/21 didn't get made or marked as pending for 5 days, but a day or two?

It was something salisburync said about corporate A/P systems, etc. that caught my attention. I suspect that many new shoppers come from that world, where the organization they work(ed) for makes a direct deposit to their bank account, like clockwork, on a specific date--like the 1st and 15th of each month, in the accounts by either 12:00 noon or 5:00 PM.

Working and getting paid as a contractor is not like that. You are not protected by labor laws that cover employees, including very strict laws that govern when and how an employee is paid, and thus there are no severe penalties for not following those laws.

Most of the MS companies try to pay by deadlines they have quoted, but as smaller businesses their payments take the maze of a route compared to a large corporate or government employer. MS money goes from their client's bank to their bank, then from there to (possibly) a payroll company, then there may be two or more additional levels before reaching paypal or our banks. One or more of those steps may even involve snail mail--and we know what that's like these days. There can be delays and glitches at any step.

As a contractor, it might be useful to think in terms of payments due by the month when it comes to getting paid for services rendered. Not specific dates--even dates quoted by the MS company. As long as the payment arrives within the next month, it's okay. For a shop done on June 1, I expect to be paid in July--and I give the company until July 31 to make good before I look into it. That's some 60 days after the shop.

I keep track of expected payments by month. For the month of January I have listed in my book all the MS companies I did services for and how much is due (reimbursements and shop fees) from each, with payment expected in February. I check off as each payment arrives. If it's a partial payment I make note of it and how much is still due. 99% of the time pay arrives the month after the shop month, February in this example, as expected. The remaining 2% tend to be companies (like Ath Power or HS Brands) that reliably pay in 60 to 90 days and state their terms on their web sites.

Only once in my 15 years of mystery shopping has something really weird happened over payment dates. That was when Marketforce had a major computer glitch a couple of years ago. No malfeasance or wrong-doing--just a glitch. And even they paid in full, like all the others, in the month I expected.