I apologize if I'm gonna sound rude, it's unintended. But...
I never worry about who sends a 1099 and who doesn't. I barely look at the 1099s that I get. As long as the amounts seem to be accurate, that will be the last time that I look at it.
You guys should be keeping accurate records throughout the year. I use Excel. At year's end I have all of the totals at the bottom of the spreadsh
I just did a convenience store shop for them today. They just picked up a grocery store client in my area and have several grocery store shops available in my area (it's a regional grocery chain headquartered in Iowa, the official grocery store of Iowa Hawkeyes). I've done 3 or 4 shops for them in the past year. I've also known them years ago as Sights on Service in addition to their current n
Years ago I did many photo audits for them and had absolutely no issues.
Then in 2023 or 2024 I had a small streak of rejections, so I basically stopped taking jobs offered by them.
But in 2025 I did 3 or so photo audits for them and they were all accepted.
Go figure.
I made 1103 individual site visits in 2025. Each visit paid anywhere between $2 and $400.
The $2 visits were about 10 stops where I did the quick "take a photo" for Fotopay when I was driving right past the location. The $400 was the initial fee for a credit card sign up that I did for Mintel.
Ok, I guess 4 of the individual visits I didn't really visit anywhere, as I did those from home (lik
FWIW, this is my experience with Bestmark. I've done jobs for them dating back 25 years.
Twenty years ago or so, I did a lot of casino shops for Bestmark. Had only positive experiences with them, always got paid on time.
Then I stopped doing most fieldwork jobs for 10 years after I got a different job and could make more working extra for my job versus fieldwork side hustle jobs. After retir
One word: Spreadsheet
I have 1 Excel spreadsheet that serves as my calendar, keeps track of the status of all fees/reimbursements, logs my mileage.
I do have a separate spreadsheet specifically for RQA where I keep track of all activity, miles driven, and purchases. I submit a screenshot of the spreadsheet when submitting my expenses to RQA because one time long ago they got a little chippy w
For those of you that don't frequent places that you shop (or vice versa), that means that you never go to the gas stations that you regularly audit? Really? Back in ancient times when I did Shell audits for Maritz, there was one station that I visited both as auditor and normal customer. When I entered the store one of the clerks would often ask, "What is it today, business or pleasure?"
Several companies that I work for do only direct deposit. I do the PayPal direct deposit that is being discussed in this thread.
It works perfectly.
The setup is no different than for any other direct deposit.
You fill out whatever needs to be filled out through the MSC with the voided check or whatever form they require.
I encountered no delays or glitches.
You actually get paid the night
To Gigishopper:
Way back in time i worked for a company called Signal Auditing Inc. I'm not sure if they are still in business, as they no longer seem to have a website and there is chatter on some forums about them having not paid their auditors back 5 or so years ago.
Anyways, I did some jobs/investigations for Signal Auditing Inc checking PPV boxing and MMA, NFL, NCAA basketball tournament,
My slower than average months this year have been March, May, and July. June for me was well above average, with the rest of the months being average.
What I already have scheduled for October will make it an average month without taking on any additional work. The additional work that I will take on in addition to what I already have scheduled will most likely make October a highly above avera
How are everyone's tru fru recall visits going? I was happy to see a $20/store fee.
I did 10 stores today that were all local in my city, and it took 5 hours for the total trip of 54 miles. The only stores that had any affected product were 2 CVS pharmacy stores, and they did not have the product pulled. The affected items were locked out of their system, however, so nobody (including me) w
Several years ago I did some "green" debranding shops for IPSOS after a local chain that was branded "green" was bought by the #3 convenience chain (by store count) that is based in Iowa. They paid $25 or so that I can remember, and were very easy to do if the store was debranded.
However....
Stuck in the list was a station that was supposed to be DEbranding but was actually REbranding to "gre
I do the hotel event board audits for Bestmark. I still use the Bestmark shopper site to enter my reports. It's the same shopper site that I've always used, all the way back at least 15 years.
I did get an email, must have been 2 years ago, where they told me that the event board audits would be the final projects that would migrate over to some new shopper site, but to this date that hasn't h
Are you guys seeing anything more than what I'm seeing when it comes to these apps?
Premise: For quite some time I see, "Nothing to show you today, but check back soon."
Fotopay: The little wheel spins and spins. I deleted and reinstall the app, but no change in what I see.
Gigwalk: For quite some time I see nothing more than that insurance website thing that is always there.
Thanks every
I've been doing the sneaky hotel event board audits for Bestmark for the past 2.5 years. Their payments at the beginning were shaky...3 days late here, 8 days late there. Since the first few months they have paid accurately and on time each month since. It's quite surprising the polar opposite experiences. But then again nothing surprises me in this business anymore! Cheers.
@MSF, it's just part of the gig. The interaction might be uncomfortable, but it will be uncomfortable for about 1 minute. You'll be exiting the property immediately, and your email to the MSC explaining the interaction is something they have seen many times before. Trust me, you're not the first person to email them and tell that you got kicked off a property.
I've been kicked off property tw
@jazzzyjd, the pay is just the flat fee with no reimbursements for parking or anything else.
For my 5 assigned hotels, 2 of them are in a suburban area and have large parking lots and unattended front entrances, so parking at those is not an issue.
The other 3 hotels that I visit are downtown. They all have valet attended front entrances. There was 1 single time that I parked at the front ent
I've done the event board audits for a little over 2.5 years now. I currently have 5 that I visit. I visit them 3 days per week (T/W/SA). Over the 30 months I have been to 11 different hotels. Of the 6 that I no longer visit, there were 3 of them where I obtained little/no valuable information and I was told to not visit them anymore. Another location I'm not sure why they told me not to vis
To @Jusa:
Is your nearby FedEx location a FedEx Office retail location, or a FedEx Express depot, or a FedEx Ground depot? I've been shipping containers of gasoline for over 10 years (and other random hazmat stuff for much longer), and the only location that will accept/ship stuff like that is a FedEx Ground depot, at least in my area anyway. The FedEx driver will pick up the shipment from you
I'm doing a shop at a Bank of the West (which has since been absorbed by some other bank) where I have to interact with a teller for some sort of goofy non-customer transaction. I then have to stand around in the lobby until someone interacts with me and asks if I need additional assistance, and I proceed to a personal banker's office to inquire about some type of account.
While I'm looking lik
One of my biggest pet peeves of being on the contractor end of this industry is the sometimes huge disconnect between what the people at the different companies think happens or might happen when a contractor is out on a job and what actually happens or might happen.
For instance...When I do a job for RQA, I keep EXTREMELY good track of my time. On one job many years ago I got an email from the
Random thoughts:
1) The PAD with Trendsource is kinda fun from a mischievous point of view. I sometimes like to enter a reasonable but very high PAD with an explanation of the PAD amount in order to educate and also mess with them a little.
2) I got a direct email from a person at a relatively unknown company about doing some production code audits. A small store pays $15 for an estimated 1
To @Jusa
Yes I remember the RQA/Stericycle era. The sale to Stericycle, and the resurrection and creation of RQA 2.0, and the lawsuit over the Servicemanager and whatever else was in the lawsuit. I wish i could access someone that knows all of the details of the story and timeline, but then again maybe I should be doing something constructive! Cheers.
To @weatherman2111
Not true, sorry. The Market Force "purple" site does offer some movie jobs. We have a rare drive-in theater in my area and there are movie jobs there that are offered by MF.
To @BarefootBliss,
After signing up with RQA you should probably head over and do the same with Sedgwick. They also do product withdrawl projects at the store level and consumer retrievals just like RQA does.
To @Jusa,
I have worked for RQA on countless jobs for over 25 years. I still use the paper airbills. I have several of them on the counter downstairs in my home along with my other mailing/shipping supplies, and I believe that I replenished my supply just a few months ago by picking up some paper airbills at a local FedEx store. I used one just last month when shipping an item to Food Forensic
Second to None bought Bestmark awhile back and together they are known as the CX Group, www.cxgroup.com
For the past 2.5 years I have done the sneaky event board audits for Bestmark.