OK, so every single month there are issues of one sort or another with this company. Am I crazy or do you have problems with this MSP that you don't have with other MSPs?
The current issue is that I had a red, white, and blue gas station easy shop for only $10. I did it and that night I put the majority of the questions on and all of the pictures. I had 3 errors left I was extremely tired and had another report to do so I stopped and went to the other report. It was after 2:30 AM. The report was not due yet and I was supposed to have 24 hours to complete it. The following day I went to complete it and it says it was graded and received a 1. I did not get an email from ANYONE, IPSOS or an editor. So I emailed them to ask why was it taken off my board. They claim that somehow I was able to override the errors and submit it anyway! First, of all on the Sassie platform it stops you and tells you the errors and does not let you submit so how is it that I submitted an incomplete report? It was not removed as not done by the due date where you can reschedule the assignment it was done like a completed shop and put me on rotation.
A few months back they sent me to a red and blue gas station in a private community and I was charged $10 to get through the gate! I emailed them about this, but they never reimbursed my $10 dollars nor did they even bother answering my email.
Every month it seems there are issues. You have been doing something the same way for 5 years and then all of a sudden they write on your report or send your report back saying do it a different way but never update you via the guidelines or the update letter!
None of the other MSPs give me as many problems as this one. And they know since they are the largest MSP with the most contracts they can get away with treating us shoppers poorly because we make most of our money off of them!

The rant overlies a greater problem -- viz. accepting any shop with such low fee.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2023 10:06PM by Rousseau.

**They make most of their money off us, not the other way around. . Don't forget that. You'll have to learn to escalate within IPSOS. The generic mailbox doesn't work, they don't have anyone monitoring it. You can contact them on Facebook, or look at the leadership contacts on the Shopmetric side's homepage and contact them directly. They make a killing of your work, so advocate for yourself!

@F and L TeleComm wrote:

OK, so every single month there are issues of one sort or another with this company. Am I crazy or do you have problems with this MSP that you don't have with other MSPs?
The current issue is that I had a red, white, and blue gas station easy shop for only $10. I did it and that night I put the majority of the questions on and all of the pictures. I had 3 errors left I was extremely tired and had another report to do so I stopped and went to the other report. It was after 2:30 AM. The report was not due yet and I was supposed to have 24 hours to complete it. The following day I went to complete it and it says it was graded and received a 1. I did not get an email from ANYONE, IPSOS or an editor. So I emailed them to ask why was it taken off my board. They claim that somehow I was able to override the errors and submit it anyway! First, of all on the Sassie platform it stops you and tells you the errors and does not let you submit so how is it that I submitted an incomplete report? It was not removed as not done by the due date where you can reschedule the assignment it was done like a completed shop and put me on rotation.
A few months back they sent me to a red and blue gas station in a private community and I was charged $10 to get through the gate! I emailed them about this, but they never reimbursed my $10 dollars nor did they even bother answering my email.
Every month it seems there are issues. You have been doing something the same way for 5 years and then all of a sudden they write on your report or send your report back saying do it a different way but never update you via the guidelines or the update letter!
None of the other MSPs give me as many problems as this one. And they know since they are the largest MSP with the most contracts they can get away with treating us shoppers poorly because we make most of our money off of them!

You are not crazy, in 10 years of shopping, I've only had issues with Ipsos. And it's the only company who deactivated my profile, without warning or email, because "I was encouraging other shoppers" to not work with them. One could argue forever about the validity of that deactivation, or the reason why I was upset at them, but at the end of the day, as you say, there are ALWAYS issues with them. And unlike other companies, you, as the shopper, are always wrong.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2023 03:17PM by charlhenri.

Yea, well maybe I better shut up then. Funny how the antitrust laws only work for phones. My water bill, I only have one option...a lot of things the monopolies are the worst ones. I don't have a choice and I'm many other shoppers are in the same boat as me!

It gets better - when I reached out to them, they provided the name of someone with an email, saying that if I wanted to be reinstated, I should email them and explain myself. I needed the documents in my profile for tax purposes, so I emailed, explained myself, etc... they did not even bother to answer. It says it all about what kind of company they are. Luckily for me, I have enough contacts with other schedulers to keep me busy and mystery shopping is not my sole source of income. One more reason for shoppers everywhere to sign up with as many companies as possible

If you do a Google search of IPSOS newsletters, blogs, Twitter and press releases, you can often find project managers’ emails attached. They’re very chatty when they land a new client. I have a nice little collection of managers’ contact information (NOT schedulers) at this point.

@charlhenri wrote:

when I reached out to them, they provided the name of someone with an email, saying that if I wanted to be reinstated, I should email them and explain myself.

I’m so cynical and jaded at this point, I’d employ my ChatGPT program to write that explanatory email, and laugh heartily if it was accepted.

I had a similar experience with them the other week. Grabbed a debrand gas station audit, and the directions first looked like a simple 2 pics - overview of the store and canopy and done. There was not a separate guideline attachment, it was all baked into the comments.

You were not supposed to go on the property but try to do it from across the street or a neighboring business, then as you actually filled out the report, they wanted pictures of the pumps! Um, what?

It paid a little higher, and luckily, that location was only 3 miles from me so I went back and grabbed the pics, but I put into the commentary that they did not provide adequate instruction of the required pics and that it was not appropriate to require additional pictures WHILE submitting the report. Spell it all out up front.

Mine was approved and I got paid already, but it was super frustrating. I don't do many shops for them but will most definitely scrutinize any further shops I take.

If someone would send me the secret email address I'm ready to tell them to f off for the second time in 4 years. I guess I should be happy to get paid for every other shop with the answer " you did it wrong" with no further explanation. They are a scam company, walk away happy you are only out 10.00.

I just did around $1500. Now they made up stuff not to pay. Most of the shops had been accepted.
I swear if you make too much they just don’t pay and don’t care if they lose a shopper. Look at presidents or vp. Their email address is always first name.last name at ipsos.com
I’ve never seen a place lie so much. They tried to tell me they run facial recolonization on the shops that require selfies. Bs. The geo tag is over my face so I bet they do. Then they tried to say that they couldn’t find me on video. Yet I have a time/date/location in the store. Oh and if their client is just a brand the store carries they don’t have access to a big national retailers cameras. That would require a warrant. Why do they even suggest such things? Any one would know better.

Same thing to me. See my other post.

I did shops for over a year that required a selfie. No problem. Then a year later they deactivated my account because I was wearing a mask in my selfie. Never said anything prior. Then the manager is so dumb she said it was because it required a selfie. It’s still a selfie with a mask on. Then she told me to take my mask off for a few seconds for the selfie. You can’t ask people to do that in public anymore.

if you have reached out to mystery.shopping@ipsos.com and not gotten the answers that you are happy with you can contact carey.medina@ipsos.com and she will look into it.

Masks haven't been required in public spaces for at least a year. Are you in the US?

@Shopsf wrote:

I did shops for over a year that required a selfie. No problem. Then a year later they deactivated my account because I was wearing a mask in my selfie. Never said anything prior. Then the manager is so dumb she said it was because it required a selfie. It’s still a selfie with a mask on. Then she told me to take my mask off for a few seconds for the selfie. You can’t ask people to do that in public anymore.