Please share your stories.
Thank you.

I've never done anything for them, but for years they have been talked about on here. [www.mysteryshopforum.com]

I did a few jobs in the past. I liked the job of going to houses that were for sale and taking photos. However, getting paid was ridiculous. First off, they say up front it is 90 days for payments, then you have to bug them after the 90 days for payment constantly. It was just annoying and the fun was not worth the hassle when could get jobs from company that pay in a timely manner and I do not have to hassle to get my money.

I have four apartment shops I was never paid. I threatened to go to court to get the batch before that paid. I would never ever do any work for this company again.

Used to be my bread and butter when the goal was to build up receivables as opposed to generating more immediate cash flow.

Back then it was worth the hassles, and I ended up getting some one-off jobs because of the relationships I developed with an account manager and the owner.

Now they are an instant pass...

I have the same response each time this question is asked - run Forest, run!

Cool, you were the resident expert for all things Cirrus. Why did you quit them (other than faster pay)?

@CoolMusic wrote:

Used to be my bread and butter when the goal was to build up receivables as opposed to generating more immediate cash flow.

Back then it was worth the hassles, and I ended up getting some one-off jobs because of the relationships I developed with an account manager and the owner.

Now they are an instant pass...

I was never paid for the work I did for them.

I just did 2 apartment shops and one scheduled for today for them. God I hope they don't give me any issues.

@HonnyBrown wrote:

Cool, you were the resident expert for all things Cirrus. Why did you quit them (other than faster pay)?

That was it.

Back in the day, as long as I had money showing up each week, the fact they were painfully slow(est) to pay was not an issue. They were my #1 vendor for years.

Current conditions call for much more immediate cash flow. I can no longer afford to wait 3+ months to be paid for time spent doing anything.

I'll admit to a bit of burnout as well.

With Grace Hill/EPMS servicing the other sizable chunk in the market niche, I find I'm snagging all the revealed community standards shops I can, while instantly deleting any shop emails that are for onsite mystery shops.

I would still grab EPMS video shops with big bonuses until they stopped loaning out the equipment. I will not miss their horrible online reporting experience.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2025 01:53PM by CoolMusic.

I don't mind following up with a MSC on a short payment or if a payment fell threw the cracks. That is part of the life of having your how business and we are all human, which makes subject to making an error.

However, it should not be a norm. With Cirrus you will literally chase down every single payment. If you chose to do work for them my best advice is to start emailing on day 91 and follow-up every week thereafter. Plan to spend time on collecting payments.

I have done two shops for these people. The first one the scheduler abruptly cancelled the shop AFTER I had already done it. I forgot why she said she did it. I never did the report or got paid for the shop. Years later I gave them one last try, and did a shop for them in January 2025. I still haven't been paid. They said I would be paid Friday, and then they said they are having an issue with Paypay. I checked with Paypay and my account is fine. I sent them an invoice to make it easier for them to pay me and it has been ignored. I will never work for this using company again. They are horrible and don't want to pay shoppers after we have worked hard.

Appreciate your replies. I was wondering if it was just me...

I completed over 40 apartment shops for this company about two years ago, dedicating an entire month to the assignments because each shop was listed at $100. Despite my efforts, I was never paid. I reached out multiple times via phone and email, but received no response. I even went to the address they provided, only to find it was a mailbox and not a physical office. I attempted to file a claim in small claims court, but the paperwork couldn’t be served due to the lack of a valid business address. I also visited the Chamber of Commerce in the city where they are registered and learned that several other complaints had been filed against them. It’s deeply concerning, and I don’t understand how they’re still operating.

You should contact the Labor Department in your State and ask for an investigation. They will let you know how to proceed, i.e., if you need to file in their state of operations as well. They can make them pay you. Also, if we shoppers are getting assigned these shops through iSecret shop then we need to be filing complaints with them so they can get kicked off that platform. They should not be hosting a company that won't pay people. I will never work for them again.

This is one of the few companies I won't shop for. I had to chase payment years ago when they had the nightmare Swedish furniture store shop and I haven't done anything since. Sounds like they haven't improved...or have gotten worse!

That one and Elite. You have chase your payments down like a track star and some have never been paid.

@girasol You could've looked up the address to see if it was a store that has mailboxes like the UPS Store or Mailbox Express for the address on Katella Ave instead of going over there. When I googled them it says permanently closed.

I did a few things for them and was paid, but consider myself one of the lucky ones compared to so many that didn't get paid for all the work they did. It shouldn't be this way. The terms were horrible to begin with: have to send an invoice at the end of the month even though they graded your work and approved it, wait around 100 days to get paid, but actually longer because you had to schedule a reminder by email to send to them that you haven't received your money. Yes, I knew the long pay cycle ahead of time, but it wasn't until after the first expected pay date came and went that I realized I needed to send them the reminder every time.

They posted tasks on the magic site and last year moved their listings to another shopper site. Maybe people complained to the magic site about not getting paid and they were dropped. No idea, just speculating. I guess they exhausted their pool of shoppers and needed a fresh start.

I am positive that contacting the client directly and advising them that you haven't received payment is a violation of the ToS. What would Cirrus do - pay you? I feel that they should be made aware of this because if they continue to use Cirrus, then they are complicit in the scheme. You would think at least one of the other MSPs would bring this up and say Cirrus has a bad history of not paying workers to get them to switch.

The first location I did for them, the manager asked me why they always sent someone different. They told me that they used to work in a different industry, a gas station, and would see a regular batch of 2 or 3 familiar faces, but never for this field. Looking back, if I were smart, I should've flaked, which is something I don't do, at that moment and realized something was up and chalked up the over 1.5 hours invested in training, test taking,, and driving to the location as a lesson. The total time commitment and pay was not worth it on an hourly basis.

I will never do anything else for them, unless they are going to send me the money first. We know that isn't going to happen.

What is the magic site?

I did a job with them through iSecretShop a year ago. They were scheduled to pay out in 90 days. More than 5 months passed, and I forgot about them until I was cleaning my inbox. I reached out and asked for the status payment. No one responded or apologized, but money was sent immediately.

I'm not sure how they are still scheduling assignments?

The told me they were having issues with Paypal. Well, then just mail me a check. I have not gotten a response from them about my payment. Now I am getting ignored. They stretch out their payments so far in hopes that we forget. However, I always remember the work I do. Never again!