They resolved it to my satisfaction by reassigning the store I had just completed and are going to assign the second store to me on the next rotation.

My concern is I got a confirmation e-mail stating both stores had been assigned to me and then they were no longer in my to do list AFTER I had already completed one shop.

I've always liked working the grocery shops for this company.

Today I got an e-mail stating they urgently needed these shops done. I accepted two of them and they were in my "My Jobs" folder.

I accepted one of them scheduled for today. I went and did the job. Having some spare time, I logged in on my phone to complete the report and there were no jobs showing in my "My Jobs" folder!

I called and talked to Bethany. I explained my concern.

When I got home, I found an e-mail stating:

"I spoke to my supervisor and it looks like you self-assigned the shops at almost the exact same time she was assigning those shops to someone else. The other shopper had not done them yet, so we moved back the shop that you completed today to you so you can fill that out!"

I saw both shops in my "My Jobs" folder, accepted today's and headed out to do it.

The second shop that was appearing for me to do tomorrow is no longer in my queue. I hadn't accepted it yet, but I hadn't rejected it either.

My question is, if the jobs were assigned to me, how can they haphazardly just remove them and assign them to someone else?

This really disappoints me as Alta360 has been one of the MSCs that I've really enjoyed working with in the past.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2023 11:25PM by wrosie.

I do a lot of work for Alta360. I hate this happened to you. Did you end up being able to report the job you did today?

It sounds like a timing and system issue. I had something similar happen once, I self assigned a shop that I know is hard to fill, so I know it wasn't that another shopper grabbed it. I then did the shop and it disappeared. It happened to be right at the time that she was updating dates on it, so they gave it to me to submit. When you self assigned, did you also hit the accept button, or was it still waiting to be accepted?

I had actually hit the accept button on one shop before I went to do it. The due date was today.

I did not hit the accept button on the shop I requested for tomorrow. But I believe if it is in your bucket, either way, it should stay that way until you flake.

I know that may cause a missed date, but removing it within hours of my getting an assignment e-mail from them is just bad business.

What if I had just seen the assignment e-mail and gone and done the shop without going to the website to hit the accept button? And apparently even hitting the accept button didn't preclude them from assigning the shop to someone else.

What if I only check my e-mail at night. I would have seen the e-mail before I even had a chance to accept it on the website, but when I go to accept it, the shop isn't in my assigned shops?

That's not really appealing to me.

They then had to reassign the shop I did today which generated a new e-mail stating it had been assigned to me.

And I'm still out $25 shop fee and $10 reimbursement because of the MSC's problem. To me that's just not right, sorry.

ArkLaMissshopping,

I was able to report the shop today, but apparently lost out on the shop for tomorrow. I was very upset due to the bad shopping experience I had, and then when I went to report it having it gone.........

Bethany fixed it to allow me to report today's shop. Since it's the weekend and the shops have an end date of Sunday. I'm ticked off I'm missing $35 of compensation that they somehow determined another shopper deserved more that me when all I did was follow their rules and self assign it to me on their website.

I am going to ask them for the $25 shopper fee as a good will gesture, since someone at their company took the shop away from me. But my guess is I've got a snowball's chance in hell for getting it.

I don't believe that they personally felt like you didn't deserve it or that it was anything personal against you. Hitting the accept button is the confirmation that you are committing to do it. From their perspective, let's say tomorrow comes, and you decline it, on something with a deadline of tomorrow, then they might have to scramble to find another shopper to fill. I would consider it a lesson learned.

joanna81,

The due date is Sunday. They don't work on the weekends. If I self assign a shop, I should be given the time to do the shop especially since I have a long track record with the MSC. I've done out of the way outlying shops for them.

Also, they reassigned the shop I had ALREADY ACCEPTED and completed. So what would hitting the accept confirmation button have accomplished for me on the shop that was due tomorrow?

Like I initially said, I think it was a timing and system issue, they sent out a mass email, someone responded, you had grabbed them too, and they probably don't look at shopper history when they are trying to fill weekend shops on Friday. I think they tried to make it right by giving you back today's shop, which in essence, they took the shop for today from another shopper, so you're not the only one who lost out but I still don't believe it was personal or intentional, just an unfortunate timing matter.

@wrosie wrote:

joanna81,

The due date is Sunday. They don't work on the weekends. If I self assign a shop, I should be given the time to do the shop especially since I have a long track record with the MSC. I've done out of the way outlying shops for them.

Also, they reassigned the shop I had ALREADY ACCEPTED and completed. So what would hitting the accept confirmation button have accomplished for me on the shop that was due tomorrow?

Would these two shops be in New York?

@buteos27 wrote:

Would these two shops be in New York?

Yes they are in Upstate, really upstate, north of White Plains. Why do you ask?

@joanna81 wrote:

Like I initially said, I think it was a timing and system issue, they sent out a mass email, someone responded, you had grabbed them too, and they probably don't look at shopper history when they are trying to fill weekend shops on Friday. I think they tried to make it right by giving you back today's shop, which in essence, they took the shop for today from another shopper, so you're not the only one who lost out but I still don't believe it was personal or intentional, just an unfortunate timing matter.

Joanna,

I don't understand how a computer system could assign the shops to two people. Logically, the shops where there, I took them. That should have removed them from the available shop list. They showed up in my jobs to do box. The computer could not have then taken them out and given them to someone else. That's just not logical, nor the way computers work.

A person could have manipulated the computer to remove them from being assigned to me and reassigned them to someone else. That's the part you are not grasping.

The shop is either in or out. It can't be in both places in the Shopmetrics system at once.

There was no computer glitch, there was human intervention that changed the shop assignments. That's what you are not understanding.

I get what you're saying and I'm not here to argue with you, I had something similar happen but it was when they were updating dates. You don't need to be condescending. Good luck getting your courtesy fee from them.

@wrosie wrote:

@joanna81 wrote:

Like I initially said, I think it was a timing and system issue, they sent out a mass email, someone responded, you had grabbed them too, and they probably don't look at shopper history when they are trying to fill weekend shops on Friday. I think they tried to make it right by giving you back today's shop, which in essence, they took the shop for today from another shopper, so you're not the only one who lost out but I still don't believe it was personal or intentional, just an unfortunate timing matter.

Joanna,

I don't understand how a computer system could assign the shops to two people. Logically, the shops where there, I took them. That should have removed them from the available shop list. They showed up in my jobs to do box. The computer could not have then taken them out and given them to someone else. That's just not logical, nor the way computers work.

A person could have manipulated the computer to remove them from being assigned to me and reassigned them to someone else. That's the part you are not grasping.

The shop is either in or out. It can't be in both places in the Shopmetrics system at once.

There was no computer glitch, there was human intervention that changed the shop assignments. That's what you are not understanding.

Triple coupons! Those were the days.

buteos27 may be the other shopper.

@BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz wrote:

buteos27 may be the other shopper.

You think?

@sestrahelena wrote:

Triple coupons! Those were the days.

Huh? I haven't couponed in years, but I remember those Sunday paper, paper coupons.

If a system glitch did not allow you and the supervisor to self-assign/assign the shop at the same time, then it was sketchy for Alte360 to take the first shop from you (especially without letting you know). If you had actually self-assigned the shop first and then the supervisor removed your shop and assigned it to another shopper, then it was plain wrong. Alta360 corrected the mistake though.

You didn't accept the second shop and therefore it was not yours. It meant nothing that you hadn't rejected it. You could have accepted or rejected the shop but you decided not to, thereby leaving Alta360 hanging. They made the decision for you.

If you really want to do a shop, accept it. Two wrongs don't make a right.

You're right about one thing. You don't understand.

Computer systems don't always work on a should-have basis. That's why IP address conflicts and other similar issues (of a single thing being assigned to two different people or devices all at once) exist.

@wrosie wrote:

@joanna81 wrote:

Like I initially said, I think it was a timing and system issue, they sent out a mass email, someone responded, you had grabbed them too, and they probably don't look at shopper history when they are trying to fill weekend shops on Friday. I think they tried to make it right by giving you back today's shop, which in essence, they took the shop for today from another shopper, so you're not the only one who lost out but I still don't believe it was personal or intentional, just an unfortunate timing matter.

Joanna,

I don't understand how a computer system could assign the shops to two people. Logically, the shops where there, I took them. That should have removed them from the available shop list. They showed up in my jobs to do box. The computer could not have then taken them out and given them to someone else. That's just not logical, nor the way computers work.

A person could have manipulated the computer to remove them from being assigned to me and reassigned them to someone else. That's the part you are not grasping.

The shop is either in or out. It can't be in both places in the Shopmetrics system at once.

There was no computer glitch, there was human intervention that changed the shop assignments. That's what you are not understanding.

She did "accept" both shops. One for today and the other for another day. Triple coupons and triple reading.

"The second shop that was appearing for me to do tomorrow is no longer in my queue. I hadn't accepted it yet, but I hadn't rejected it either."

"I did not hit the accept button on the shop I requested for tomorrow. But I believe if it is in your bucket, either way, it should stay that way until you flake."

@purpleicee wrote:

She did "accept" both shops. One for today and the other for another day. Triple coupons and triple reading.

So sorry @BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz - You are correct. Triple read I will do indeed! I was looking at this part from the very beginning and did not realize the conflict:

"I accepted two of them and they were in my "My Jobs" folder."

@purpleicee No problem! It's easy to think wrosie accepted both jobs because it doesn't make sense to accept one job but not the other if the intention was to do both jobs (albeit on different days).

"Alta360 Did Me Wrong" < what is this, the title of a new country music song?

"You picked a fine time to leave me Alt360...Four hungry children and crops in the field..."

ROFL

You can self-assign Alta360 shops?

I think "Accept" and "Confirm" were used interchangeably whereas they are two different steps.

I just saw this because I was busy doing five shops yesterday. I asked because I was negotiating with a scheduler for a route of shops when two of them were taken by another scheduler. I told her that I could not do the route without the two locations that were taken. About half an hour later, I was contacted by the scheduler telling me that the two shops had been dropped by the shopper and offered them to me. So I did the five shops yesterday. I usually do a 10 to 12 location route for them but only had time for five yesterday. Alta 360 has always done right by me, and I have been doing these shops for years.

@buteos27 - So, since you did get the two shops and was able to complete them, I guess they were not the same shops that were discussed in this thread, but rather, just offered by the same company.

I have done that to a shopper before - but in my case, I was assigning a shop to a shopper and then right before i hit assign, it popped up that another shopper had self-assigned and it was really just a split second thing and if I hadn't been watching I wouldn't have seen it - since I did see it I was able to give it back to the first shopper, and assign the 2nd shopper another shop - and they both did receive emails saying they were assigned, because 1 was assigned and then right after I assigned mine - the system actually had the same timestamp for both of the shops. So i do think that if a shopper is self-assigning and does it a split second before a scheduler assigns it - it can happen. I have a client that has different types of shops at each location, and as soon as 1 is assigned, the other shops at that location are removed, and about twice a month we have 2 shoppers that will each sign up for a different type of shop at the same location at the exact same time and I have to remove one of them and find them another shop. Weird but I think it happens.

Purpleicee, I would have no idea whether the two shops in question were the same two that I ended up getting. I asked if the two were in New York because of what happened but most of these shops are in New York State.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2023 06:46PM by buteos27.

@maverick1 wrote:

"Alta360 Did Me Wrong" < what is this, the title of a new country music song?

"You picked a fine time to leave me Alt360...Four hungry children and crops in the field..."

ROFL

I always thought it was four hundred children and a crop in the field. Makes more sense now. Great song