All I can tell you is that if you have any type of problem, you are screwed. They tell you up front that they will no longer contact you if there is a problem, but out of the kindess of their big corporate heart, they will send you a message after the deadline telling you to correct the problem by yesterday or you will lose the job. The report a problem link is just a bad joke as is any tech support. The last job I lost, I also had the confirmation #, but it made no difference.

Vero4112's experience is typical. I did two shops for them in California
last year when visiting my grandchildren. I had permission to fax my
receipts in and have them uploaded because my daughters computer does
not have a scanner. The did not get one of the receipts but admitted
getting the other. THEY WERE ON ONE PAGE.

Boy, with all the problems all of you have experienced with CRI, I don't think I'm going to do any for them. I had trouble passing the test and was going to try again. I am getting email from CRI with a long list of shops in my area. Some are right down the street from me. No wonder no one else has been taking them. I'm going to remove myself from their database, if I can. LOL

As long as you don't do the ones that require pictures, they're not bad.(if you wait it out for the bonuses at the end of the month) Just be sure that your receipts are dark and clear.

I have my epson scanner set for:
"grayscale picture"
contrast= 77
brightness= -8
resolution= 200

I've never had a receipt issue once I figured out these settings-even with the lightest receipts.

Thank you, Joan. I'll give it a try.

Today I finally got a phone call, that they will look into technical problems, if I can send them proof, that I upload the pictures in jpg.
Any idea how I can proof this???
The report, which I can print shows only the pictures with a .tmp.

If you send an email jpg. attachment, it will show as a jpg in the email

That's correct Joann, but it still doesn't prove, that it was sent as jpg in the report.
I didn't find any way yet to save their reports.
I tried it with roboform, but the fields where you upload the pictures, don't have the entry.
I tried to save it as text, as single web, as complete web - nothing works.
I can't save their reports to show them proof.
The only thing, what I can print out is the report after you submitt, but this shows for the pictures only .tmp.

It depends on your scanner mfg. Mine is Hewlett Packard. If you
have them, get on the on line technical chat,free, and your tech will
e mail you that it is in jpg if you scan it as a picture, not a document.
I suspect other manufacturers will do similar things if the scanner is
still under warranty.Mine shows the scans with jpg under them.Use print screen
feature on most pc's and send them a copy showing the jpg label under the
scanned item.

.tmp is a very unusual format. Generally it is reserved for "temporary" files that are created when a piece of software is installed that will be cleared out at a later date. Have you used the "Detail" option on your directory tree to see how the file is actually saved to your hard drive? If it is indeed in jpg format I would try to print a page of my directory tree showing that date and time the file was saved as a jpg and argue it that way. If the date and time correspond to when you would have been uploading the shop, that should be a good indicator that you were attempting to upload a proper file and somehow their software changed it to a .tmp in the transmission. I would scan the printout of that section of my directory tree and attach it to an email to whomever you have been having the conversation with.

Thanks for the advice, my e-mail attachments and my file folder all show that it is jpg.
When I am in the report and hit browse, I load it as jpg from my picture folder.
The line in the report says the correct location of my picture file with jpg.

Then I hit submitt the report. I get the confirmation number. Then I can print out their odd format of the report. In this report it says
C:\windows\temp\saD1D9.tmp.
My picture came from:
C:\windows\user\vero\pictures\gasstation\pump.jpg
or \overall.jpg
or etc. (name of the picture).

I think it says in the report tmp because the computer loads my picture temporary in the report until they receive it. I think this tmp doesn't change my loaded pictures.
But I am not a computer freak.
Maybe someone of you is more into computer and can help out.

I don't think it's on my end, because some reports (30%) have no problems.
I do every report the same way.

My scanner is a Lexmark Scanner and it scans automatic in:
jepeg (*jpg,*jpe,*jpeg,*jtf).
My saved picture says jepeg image.
After I resize it it says .jpg.

Where is the COMPUTER EXPERT ???????

I hope I don't enoy you guys, but I realy would be happy, if I wouldn't have to waste my time resending pictures in e-mails. My daughter loves the gas stations.

I suspect that the "clue" here may be "saD1D9.tmp" The saD1D9 does not sound like a name that your camera would give to a photo and certainly does not sound like a name you as a user would give it. My old camera names a photo DSC00093 and my new camera names them 100_0093. This would indicate that the "saD1D9.tmp" itself is generated by the recipient of the upload rather than the sender.

Thanks Flash, that's what I thought too.

You called: I do computer repair.

Vero, you can save reports as a series of screenshots. Hit the PrintScreen key, which saves the screen image to the clipboard, then open Paint and paste it in. Save as a jpg. You now have an image of that window.

Scroll down, hit Print Screen again, until you've saved the whole thing as separate images. If you have PhotoShop or Paint Shop Pro, you can glue the screenshots together. But if you need a one image from each, don't bother reconstructing the whole report.

As for your .tmp file problem, I'm not sure exactly what you're doing, but: When you send an attachment as an email, and the recipient don't specify where she want them downloaded to, some programs save the attachment in the C:\Windows\Temp folder. It's saves as a .tmp. If it's in their Temp folder, they don't know what to do with it.

Re: having your pics in C:\windows\user\vero\pictures\gasstation\pump.jpg

YOU DON'T EVER PUT ANY DATA INTO THE WINDOWS FOLDER. That folder is strictly for system files. The only place you can personally add to is in C:\Windows\Web\wallpaper if you want to create additional wallpapers for the desktop.

Take your folder out of there, and put it in My Documents or directly under C. You may be screwing this up yourself.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2008 04:57AM by sneakers.

I guess I had beginner's luck. I just started mystery shopping and did 4 end of the month shops for CRI for what I thought to be fairly good fees. I didn't run into any tech problems with uploading photos or filling the reports. It sounds like I should be glad about that! I do believe it would be great if all shoppers would ban together and NOT take their early jobs for such low prices. But I do like what Evilnerd suggested about making them an offer. I'll have to try that next month. Thanks for all the good imput everybody. It helps us Newbies!

What we should all do is not take the end of month jobs just one month.
Leave them stuck with them. Maybe they will pay more earlier and even
out everyone's work load.

Dream on, John. In my area most of the gas stations disappear 24 hours after they post at that wonderful $4. There aren't enough in my area to do their touted routes of "100 for $8 ea or 200 for $10 ea" or whatever the pay scale is. There are probably a dozen within 50 miles of me that get posted. There is only one marginal location that usually goes to $18 but this month made it to $30 before it got snagged. At $30 it gets reasonable. Because of where it is, it will always be an orphan shop. I've never run into any fellow shoppers from my area on forums, so I have to assume it is only a very small fraction of shoppers who even know forums exist.

John, There are tens of thousands of shoppers who never see our forums. And to some young people, $4 for a little job is found money.

See if Ritter does your area. Their gas shops go up to $12 at month's end with $5 gas.

Thanks sneakers, I'll try it.

I dont do any assignments with that co. because of the pay scale, I dont believe what they offer to pay people, I will not work for that, it costs to much today for gas. Plus they want you to complete there training programs, add up all the time with everything and the pay is very little. Your better off signing up with more companys and trying to get more jobs.
Phyllis

Thanks Phyllis.

I started out with this company because CR and MF were the only ones I could find at that time, and they have a lot of hobs around here.
But with your guys help, I found some other ones. The problem is, that these 2 have the most jobs in my town.
But after all the hassle and the small pay, I decided, that I do the gas station only when I go to do another job, and I need gas, or when the prices go up.

CSI just posted some new gas station shops. Who are they kidding with $1.00 in store purchase and $1.00 gas purchase in addition to a $7.00 commission? Please somebody tell me what you think of this? I think we're getting shafted.

You are only getting shafted if you do the job for pay you believe is too low. We do have choices and one of those choices is to just ignore them.

Amen, Jude. And it looks like they've eliminated the $1 for gas in my area. Nice to see you back on the board, Charlene. Slow day today?

Yea, kind of. I had a credit union and two fast food drive-ins. Gave out some more OOPs cards. They were so close to getting a really good reward.

When flying from tree to tree with the chimps, being close to catching the next grape vine doesn't help much


. . . . . . . . splat

George, George, George of the Jungle - - - Look out for that tree e e e e e e

I guess I was lucky from reading what others have said. I accidentally submitted a wrong picture in an upload area. Someone contacted me to correct it, so I fixed it and got paid.

I did one of those digital pizza shops and it's not worth the $6 or whatever. I picked up a last minute one the other day for $22, something worthwhile for me.

Amanda Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I did one of those digital pizza shops and it's
> not worth the $6 or whatever. I picked up a last
> minute one the other day for $22, something
> worthwhile for me.


I did the same PLUS picked up a non digital for $16 at work. Great pay....will wait till end of month to do these in future. Hard to do them for less now!!

Any thime they are hurting, ask for gas money. I did a shop today that had
been upped from $8 to $18. They still kicked in and extra $19 for gas. I wonder if they will ever wise up to the fact that a lot of their better shoppers
are sitting back in ambush for when they get desparate. The thing that bugs
me is that can and will pay more, but expect us fools to work for below minimum
wage if we are stupid enough to do it.