Mercantile Systems…?

Insights and experiences with this MSC?

Just saw a post for a Marriott quality control “package” of overnight, bar, and in-house restaurant assignments with multi section reports plus food reviews plus photos…paying $10-20 with “up to $50 reimbursement (for the overnight…the rest are less) in urban Oakland CA.
Are they serious?
You can’t even get a room in a fleabag motel for $50. We also have to pay for parking/valet (it’s not safe to street park even if it were available).
That leaves us with less than $5/hour before the detailed, time-framed reports, and reimbursement that won’t even cover the costs for the requirements.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2025 05:48PM by SBP.

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I have not seen this posting. I've done shops for Mercantile for many years. Most "food" shops do not have fees attached. They rarely pay a fee to shop a fast casual place. I have not completed any non-food assignments for them.

Maybe they want you to visit in the middle of the night to do the shop and it's not an "overnight stay" like you were expecting. Like I said, I do not see this shop, so I do not know what exactly they want. But certainly if they expect you to STAY overnight, they better cover that or no one will really want to do the assignment.

It could be they are just reversing the charges so there is no reimbursement as well. Maybe they wrote up the instrx poorly.

The following was my experience with my first and last shop for Merc. Even by ordering the least required items, I needed to pull $8+ out of my pocket. The payment terms were Net 45. As I am easy going, I waited 70+ days before I contacted the company. After several broken promises, I was finally paid at the 101 day mark.

Approx. 2 yrs. later, I was contacted by phone concerning a reestablishment of our relationship; I declined.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2025 08:40PM by shopperbob.

You have MSC and client mentioned together in this post.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.

@SBP wrote:

Insights and experiences with this MSC?

Just saw a post for a (redacted client) quality control “package” of overnight, bar, and in-house restaurant assignments with multi section reports plus food reviews plus photos…paying $10-20 with “up to $50 reimbursement (for the overnight…the rest are less) in urban Oakland CA.
Are they serious?
You can’t even get a room in a fleabag motel for $50. We also have to pay for parking/valet (it’s not safe to street park even if it were available).
That leaves us with less than $5/hour before the detailed, time-framed reports, and reimbursement that won’t even cover the costs for the requirements.

It's not even safe to valet in Oakland. I believe that a guest was jumped in the porte cochere when they opened up the trunk of the vehicle. Pretty impressive, but that is Oakland. Yep.The downtown location had a robbery in 2021 (the one I am thinking of) and a different location of the same brand had a robbery in 2023.

Oakland is a cesspool.

And we’re 1099’s so we take the loss with no recourse.

Even if the overnight portion paid $500 it’s not worth the risk.

We are not “chump change,”

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2025 06:56PM by SBP.

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