Getting Paid to Tell Lies: Mystery Shopping as a Frugal Hack
Published on - December 21st, 2010 (by Donna Freedman) This post is from new GRS staff writer Donna Freedman. Donna writes the Living With Less personal finance column for MSN Money, and writes about frugality and intentional living at Surviving And Thriving.
Two persistent rumors about mystery shopping:
- It’s a scam.
- It’s not a scam — and you can get rich doing it!
Allow me to set these rumors to rest:
- Mystery shopping is not a scam. (Well, sometimes it is. More on that later.)
- You won’t get rich, but you can make a little extra — plus get free stuff.
- You should never pay for mystery shopping info.
My daughter Abby has been doing “shops” for a decade, and I’ve done them off and on for six years. We’ve gotten free steaks, hotel rooms, oil changes, booze, pet food, lodging, nights at a casino, rental cars, and molten chocolate cake.
Not that it’s all frou-frou stuff: Shops exist for things like vision exams, oil changes, vitamins, pet checkups, bone-density testing. You could get paid to drink microbrews, test-drive a sports car, visit an amusement park, or shop for groceries.
As a mystery shopper, you’re paid to be the eyes and ears of a restaurant, a specialty store, a hotel. That means legwork. You have to fill out multi-page reports (and if you do it wrong, they won’t pay you).
But the more shops you do, the better you get at it — and the more likely that shop providers will call and offer you first pick.
Don’t ever pay for it
Recently I received e-mails from two different companies asking me to mystery-shop. Both told me to “register” with my bank-account, credit-card and Social Security numbers. Riiiight.
Two legitimate sources for mystery shopping are Volition.com and an industry group called the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. Both have lists of companies that offer jobs by region.
Don’t expect to be sent to a pricey steakhouse right off the bat. You’ll have to take lower-end gigs (fast food, coffee shop) to prove yourself. In fact, you may even have to do a make-believe “sample shop” to prove you can write in the style they request.
About that style: “The waiter was really good” doesn’t mean much. What made him good? Did he offer to start you off with something to drink? Did he check back during your meal to make sure everything was OK? Did he tell you the tofu is made in-house?
A specific list of things to watch for will be provided to you. Very specific, as in “Did your glass ever become less than half-full?” or “Did the rental car agent offer you the satellite radio option?”
You may be asked to follow a script, i.e., become a good liar. For example, my daughter was told to go to a pet-food store and say she had two dogs. At the time, she didn’t own so much as a goldfish.
At times you’ll be sent to places normally out of your league. Once, Abby was sent to a pricey-chic clothing store and allowed up to $30 worth of purchases in addition to the shop payment. The only two things she could get were a keychain or a pair of $27 bikini underpants (honest!).
- Unemployed or underemployed? Sign up for as many restaurant shops as you can.
- Seeking new specs? I’ve seen vision-care shops that reimburse $100.
- Got kids? Take them to the water park or a pizza joint on someone else’s dime.
- Hotel shops are a mini-staycation. The pool, the room service (you will probably be required to order it), the novelty of having a telephone in the bathroom…OK, so I’m easily amused. You might be, too.
- Parents aging? Look for shops of retirement homes/assisted living facilities. If nothing else, this might give you an idea of where not to put Mom and Dad.
- Too broke to date? Invite that special someone to a night at the casino.
- Living the car-free life? Use auto-rental shops to visit a friend who lives two towns over. Go to the pet-food warehouse and buy giant sacks of kibble. Hit the warehouse club for six months’ worth of toilet paper.
- Want to treat a friend? Take him out for a glass of wine.
- Need to send money to a relative, either as a gift or repayment of a loan? Watch for shops that pay you to get money orders.
- Want to go downtown? Find one or two parking-garage shops. This means not just parking reimbursement but an extra $10 or $20 toward whatever you want to do. (A frugal culture hack, maybe?)
What’s in it for you?
For most restaurant shops, the fee is small or even nonexistent — you’re generally in it for the free lunch. For others, the pay range is generally $10 to $35 plus product reimbursement.
However, I’ve earned as much as $95 for a banking assignment that took several visits. Some shops have bonuses because they’re due immediately (another shopper flaked out, leaving the provider in the lurch).
Three things you’ll need:
- A separate e-mail account. The notifications can pile up pretty quickly. Check it regularly because the popular shops go fast.
- A watch that times in minutes and seconds.
- A PayPal account. Some companies reimburse only electronically.
Does all this sound like a lot of work? It is and it isn’t. How many times have you raved to your pals about a great restaurant or groused about a crummy one? This time you’ll be doing it in writing. It’s like Yelp, except that you get paid (or at least fed) to do it.
If you’re strapped for cash but still love the mall, then mystery shopping gives you a little money to feed your hobby. The temptation to keep spending might be strong, however, so consider choosing assignments that don’t have anything to do with your weaknesses (sports cars, nickel slots, really cute shoes).
Nobody gets rich doing this. But it’s a way a little cash to do things you might want to do anyway, such as having lunch out or wandering through a nice store. Or marveling at $27 underpants.
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I’ve always wondered about secret shopping, and have been curious to try it myself.
I think I would have a problem with lying though. I’m a pretty honest person, and I don’t think I would be able to tell an employee that I had two dogs when I’ve only walked a few dogs in my lifetime.
Also, you didn’t mention any compensation. Is the only benefit the free stuff? Or do you actually get paid as well?
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She said the compensation was usually between $10 and $35 in addition to the free stuff (but restaurants it was usually just the free meal), and that she made $95 reviewing a bank.
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I presume they reimburse you for expenses after the mystery shopping occurs. How much do you generally have to “front” ahead of time for purchases? I could see things like hotels and steakhouses being pretty pricey, if you don’t get reimbursed promptly.
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Great post, although I would have liked to have read more about the “scam” aspect. The “More on that later” turned out to be just 3 sentences about not supplying your bank account, credit card, or social.
People should know that there is a VERY common “mystery shopper” scam that involves recruiting people to “mystery shop” a wire transfer store. They take all your information, send you official looking forms and everything. They ask you to visit a particular Western Union and wire $x,000 to a particular individual (“Keep your receipt, don’t worry, you’ll be reimbursed”), and write up a whole report on how well the cashier performed his/her duties.
Of course, you never hear from them again. It was just a scam to get you to wire $x,000 to some scammer in Nigeria.
This exact scam has been run over and over again, and is almost single-handedly the reason why “mystery shopping” has such a negative reputation.
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I worked in retail during college and I remember thinking that using “mystery shoppers” was a very sneaky and underhanded thing for an employer to do. As an employee it basically says to me “we don’t trust you to actually do what you’re supposed to be doing, so instead of being better managers, we are going to spy on you.” Not a very good way to build a trusting employee-employer relationship.
The time and effort they spend on this would be better put to use providing incentives and other perks that help keep their employees happy – which also keeps them performing well.
To each their own, but I’ve got better things to do than be a tattletale on people who are likely not making much more than minimum wage.
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I heard about this a year ago and signed up with a company and promptly forgot about it. About a month ago I got an email about doing a shop at a restaurant. I was surprised at *how specific* you have to be about things. And you can’t use subjective words to describe things. It took about 3.5 hours to do the writeup. In the end, I got a free* lunch with a friend in a restaurant I like and will go back to. It’s a fun gig, but it’s probably not worth the low per-hour pay to make a career out of it.
Compensation depends on the gig. If you buy something, it should always be reimbursed to you. Sometimes that’s the only compensation. Other times maybe they’ll offer $50 or so to do the shop.
(*I still haven’t been paid, but they said it takes up to 6 weeks)
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I’ve seen a few free movies out of it, but I just don’t have enough free time to mystery shop. When I retire, maybe I would do more just for entertainment.
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I second Nancy L’s question #3:
I presume they reimburse you for expenses after the mystery shopping occurs. How much do you generally have to “front” ahead of time for purchases? I could see things like hotels and steakhouses being pretty pricey, if you don’t get reimbursed promptly.
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I did mystery shopping for retail stores. Most times they required me to buy something that they weren’t reimbursing me for. I was allowed to return it, but I had to wait a minimum of 30-60 minutes before I could say that I changed my mind. I would use that time to sit in my car and make notes because I then had to go home and type up the visit on their survey site. Then I had to scan my receipts and email them in. The hourly wage was way below minimum wage when you considered the time to and from the store, then time required to stay in the store (usually a minimum of 30 minutes), waiting to return the item and get reimbursed, and then writing up your store visit. I never had a problem being paid though.
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I’ve been mystery shopping for 10 years or so. It’s not just reporting on an employee, though. It’s things like “there is no coat/purse hook on the stall door in the women’s restroom” and “the restaurant was cold — several customers were overheard complaining that it was too cold to sit and eat.” Both semi-real examples of things I have reported over the years.
There are questions about garbage cans being emptied and windows cleaned, as well as were you greeted politely within xx seconds of entering the store and did the person who waited on you give you their undivided attention?
I’m never going to get rich this way, but my husband and I went out for our anniversary the year he was laid off on someone else’s dime. I shipped christmas gifts to relatives across the country for just a couple of bucks this year (not counting what I was paid–that’s just the reimbursement).
I usually get paid in 2 to 6 weeks, depending when I do the shop. One company pays the 15th of the following month, so if I shop March 1, I don’t get reimbursed or paid until April 15. On the other hand, I get paid April 15 for shops done on March 31, too.
I have a mystery shopping line item in my budget to pay for things until I get reimbursed, and a completely separate savings account that all of my direct deposits go to (and that my paypal is linked to). Every month I transfer the budgeted amount to my checking account, then move the earnings to my sinking funds for Christmas shopping and travel. That also keeps the amount in my mystery shopping account low so that if I do get scammed, they won’t get much. But I only take shops from companies that I have found on Volition.
I try to average $40 to $50 in pay per month doing shops, and while some months (like January and April) can be pretty slim, December is often very lucrative because people just don’t have the time to do shops (or the desire to go shopping when the holiday shopping is done and the hordes of last-minute shoppers are out there).
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Retail stores used to use them all the time. I was mystery shopped twice when I worked in the mall.
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Kevin @4 – this lead to an amusing conversation I had. Apparently when legitimate wire companies want to do a mystery shop, the companies that manage mystery shopping projects are unwilling to take the study.
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I would just warn newbies to make sure a shop seems “doable” before you sign up. I once did one where I had to make a reservation for dinner – at a casual brewpub that did not, as a rule, take reservations. Since reservations were a requirement of the assignment, we made them – and then the reimbursement was refused because the reservation had outed us as shoppers!
Use your common sense, was the lesson there.
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I have been mystery shopping for about 10 years now. I started when I was in college to get to eat at nicer restaurants. I really enjoy doing the shops. I do a variety of shops. As for getting paid for the shops, almost all of them require you to pay for your meal and then after you submit your receipts and your approved report, you are reimbursed 6-8 weeks later. I signed up at each mystery shopping company’s website and kept track of which company I applied with to make sure that I was approved. I also kept a Word document with my answers to common questions that almost every company asks (i.e. Why do you want to be a mystery shopper?). It saves time when filling in the forms and you don’t have to come up with new reasons every single time.
My advice is to use your cell phone and take notes. It is hard to remember names, times, questions, etc and appear that you are a normal customer. Everyone is on the phone these days, so if it looks like you are texting, then you will fit right in with the crowd!
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Just one point to make, like with any additional ‘income’ you may earn make sure you keep detailed records. You won’t be taxed on what you receive for your reimbursed items, but any payment you make mystery shopping IS taxable and you need to report it… the company paying you certainly will! Always put 30% of your earning aside just in case you have to pay Uncle Sam, since most companies treat you as an independent contractor and do not take taxes out of your paycheck.
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@#5: Nick
The information secret shoppers provide show the customer’s point of view of the things management has already implemented. For instance, if the word from on high is that CSRs should tell the customer where an item is vs. walking them to the item and asking if they need anything else, a secret shopper can say they had a hard time finding the item, etc. It’s not “spying”. It’s evaluation. From what I understand, secret shopping only provides data to make the customer experience better and helps the employee provide the service that keeps ‘em coming back.
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My husband and I mystery shopped a chain of wireless phone stores for about 5 years, and I have to agree with the other shoppers above. It is WAY more work to write up the reports than this article makes it seem. It is NOT like writing a review for Yelp. You have to be very specific – I had a checklist with 75 things on it I had to check off then write a paragraph on each one. Try just REMEMBERING 75 things! I used to spend a total of 3-4 hours on a shop, including the time spent in the store.
On the other hand, I was shocked when I saw one of my recommendations put into place. I had noted for several months that it was frustrating not to be able to read the store hours from the car as I pulled up in front of the shop. I’d have to get out to look, and that was problematic in high traffic areas. After about 6 months of this, I got to a store one day to find the hours on the window in large 4 inch letters! Now I may not have been the only shopper to mention this, but I have to think my recommendations made a difference. So there are rewards other than the money
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“Or marveling at $27 underpants.”
But I always buy the $27 (not bikini) designer underpants.
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I was a mystery shopper for a couple of years. I made a few bucks, enjoyed a few free overnight hotel stays. The thing to point our here is that you are paid rather poorly for what is expected (lengthy, extremely detailed reports) and while you are getting a free meal or hotel stay, you are very limited, and you ARE working the entire time. Free goods at a retail shop usually means $3.00 to $5.00 compensation to buy something in a store that doesn’t have anything for $3.00 to $5.00 bucks. Atleast not anything you want or need.
There are high end shops that pay more….but you do a lot for it. I once did a Louis Vuitton shop, for example. I had to make a purchase, and no, I did not get to keep it. I had to ship it to a location provided to me in the instructions. They were very prcise about the shop instructions and interactions, time of day, etc. The report was rather intense.
In other words, don’t expect to go out shopping and come home with a free sweater or purse for your efforts. You might get $10.00.
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I do occasional work as a secret shopper for a consumer publication. My advice is to keep records of everything. I don’t know about other companies, but the one I do work for seems to forget to pay me once in a while. Then I have to keep hassling them to send the check (no direct deposit). Honestly, I’m wondering if it’s even worth it (as I’m waiting now for a job I did months ago).
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I also have been mystery shopping for about 6 years (Liz, your write-up would be very similar to mine!). Point is you will not get rich doing mystery shopping. I make it a point to schedule something when I know I’ll be in the area (like visiting a travel center) since I’ll be there anyway, or when my annual eye appt is due (for me and my family).
Yes, some of the shops are for reimbursement, but some are not. For example, the eye exam will pay a set amount, regardless of what I spend, and since my insurance pays for my exam it’s money in the pocket for me. And it takes a while to work up to the “big” jobs, the first ones you will do are easy shops to show you are detail-oriented. I wouldn’t recommend mystery shopping to someone who isn’t observant or a fast reader/typist because it won’t be worth your time if you can’t crank out the reports quickly. It is a nice way to get a little extra on the side without much effort, as long as you aren’t going out of your way to complete the shops.
Also, NEVER pay to get “access” to mystery shopping. This was my rookie mistake, and although I did get access to many companies, I could have easily found the information on my own if I would have known what to look for. Hindsight is 20/20, no?
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I’ve been on both ends of the secret shopper spectrum (some days I’d use my lunch break from the retail store I worked at to go shop another retail store). My first few shops took a long time to write out, but once you get used to the format and the types of things to look out for (even in different types of shops), the process goes much more quickly.
The few extra bucks I made here and there helped me pay off debt, but now I only do shops if there’s a substantial bonus – $10 is just not worth 2 hours of my time.
I’ve also been shopped in various jobs (bank teller, retail sales associate, etc), and a lot of training had to do with catering to a secret shopper (i.e., how to tell if you’re being secret shopped – like the commenter above who noted that by making a reservation she outed herself as a shopper).
I always hated being shopped because it makes the job so robotic and unnatural and the script you’re supposed to follow is not always realistic for the average customer.
Favorably scored shops usually resulted in some kind of bonus for the individual and the branch, and everyone reads the shopper’s review, so people took them very seriously.
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I’m a long-time mystery shopper as well. Most of the shops I’ve done are fairly simple–McDonalds, Arby’s, etc. You typically get paid $7.50 plus the cost of the value meal, just for reporting if the place was clean and if the cashier suggested this month’s promo. I’ve also done shops at gas stations (how’s $10 of free gas?) and at some higher end spots. One of my favorites was dinner for me and a guest at Bennihana’s, with a reimbursed budget up to $98.
The best shops are things you do anyway. I found a shopping company that has Kroger as a client. Every month, I shop my local grocery store and get paid $6 plus $14 worth of groceries. I basically do my regular monthly shopping, and get a $20 discount off the top.
Only points I would echo are NEVER to pay to be a shopper. If the company is charging you, walk away. Also, it’s not always bad to give a bank account number and SSN, but only AFTER you are approved and working. Some companies pay by direct deposit, and if you earn over a certain amount they have to report it to the IRS.
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Another follow-up post: Volition.com is a great resource. It’s basically a directory of mystery shopping companies.
Companies I’ve had a good experience with include Service Intelligence, MarketForce, MSI, National Shopping Service, SecretShopper.com, and Shoppers Critique International.
Many companies specialize in local or regional clients–not everyone can have McDonalds. What this means is that you may sign up and find that there are never any listings in your area. If that happens, just try another company. Also, shops are typically released the first part of the month. That means that if you sign up and log in on the 20th, you won’t see any available. Come back on the 1st and take your pick.
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I’ve been looking for a way to get into mystery shopping, so thanks for posting your trusted sources. Hopefully it can be a side gig I can get into in 2011
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Is your time really only worth $5 per hour?
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When I worked retail sometimes we’d get a heads up that secret shoppers might be coming through in the next month (or so) and to be sharp about everything.
@ Nick it’s really not telling on anyone, it’s an evaluation method to find out if everyone in the store is doing what they should. And to find out if there are problems that shoppers see that people inside the company might not.
Sometimes corporate can’t know if things are going smoothly in stores and need outside eyes.
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@ Joe M – No. Most shops are not worth the money standing alone (but some are). However, if you can combine a shop with something you’re doing anyway, it’s definitely worth it. I do an occasional McDonalds shop. I need to eat lunch anyway–may as well get paid for it. Same with the grocery shops I do.
Other times I get to do something I’ll enjoy but usually don’t budget money for. I’ve eaten out a few times at Outback Steakhouse, for example, thanks to mystery shopping picking up the bill.
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Following up on Nick’s comment: Not every mystery shop program is the same. I once did a series of shops for a sub sandwich chain. They sent me a $10 Visa gift card and a small “congratulations” certificate. I went to the restaurant to order a sandwich, and if the employee did three pre-set things (mention the special, upsell, and thank), I was to pull out the certificate and gift card on the spot and present it to the employee. That was a fun one. It make the employee’s night and in my opinion was a great incentive program.
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Agreed — it’s not worthwhile as a primary job if you have a real income option. I shopped on the side while I was in grad school — the extra ~$80/month was a nice boost to a college student’s income, not to mention free lunches. (Particularly the ones that require both dine-in and drive-through — eat lunch in the restaurant, take your notes and run another errand or two, then get dinner at the drive-through and stick it in the fridge!)
I generally shopped fast food and occasional gas stations, office supply stores, etc. I stopped once I graduated and had a full-time job.
I generally found no need to lie — the closest I came was going to Best Buy and saying I was looking at a new TV. And I was looking at TVs…. just not planning to buy one!
The amusing thing is that now, I go to these places, and I know when they’re exceeding their internal customer service goals.
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I do mystery shopping for extra income. It isn’t too much money but I only do the shops I like or that have big bonuses. Most of the shops aren’t worth doing at the starting rate. It would be a difficult to make a living at it.
I did do a movie shop this weekend that paid $130 but it was over two days and took a lot of time.
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Mystery shopping….I love it! Yes, I will never get rich doing this. but, it’s something to do in my “spare time”. I enjoy picking up the restaurant shops and smaller retail shops. I have yet to do a hotel shop but am hoping for this in 2011. I’ve only had problems getting paid for an apartment shop I performed. It took over a year for the company to pay me. Needless to say I perform no shops for that company now. I especially enjoy the internet and telephone shops. I can sit in my pj’s and get paid to surf the net or talk on the phone. I usually request payment via PayPal, once my account reaches $200 I transfer the funds to my checking. Granted this may take up to 6 or 8 months, but $200 in 8 months is better than $0. If you are interested in giving Mystery Shopping a try I would suggest starting small with a fast restaurant, internet or phone shop.
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#6 is Too broke to date? Invite that special someone to a night at the casino.
It sounds like a good comedy bit.
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This is the only way we eat pizza nowadays. It’s not money for nothing – I have to fill out a report, detailing if the person answering the phone told me about a promo, what the weather was like, if the delivery guy thanked me for my business.
All of my mystery shops have required digital photos, so (for me) a digital camera is a requirement, as is a printer to print out the forms that need to be in the pictures.
The pizza is a good gig- you wait for it to come to you and make much more than $5 an hour.
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Did restaurant visits in the UK while I lived there and it was pretty nice. But, here in the USA, I question the economics of them …
Are you keeping track of your additional expenses? Gas? Use of vehicle? Public Transit?
For instance, here in the DC area, if I did what I did in Oxford, it could cost me anywhere from $5 to $25 to pay for metro or parking. Yesterday, went into the District with my mom and the Metro alone cost us nearly $9 per person to get in, get around, and get home.
Also, in the UK, we got a hard ceiling for reimbursement. For example, the regular dinner reimbursement was £30 but it was rare that two people could dine for under that at the restaurants we were assigned unless we were very careful about what was ordered. So, it meant that dinners cost me £5 to £10 of my payment for the shop – which was generally only £15.
Like with many things, mystery shopping is something that you really have to do the math on to determine if it will actually benefit your bottomline. Currently, I can’t see that it will help my family.
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Mystery shopping is something I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the time or energy to invest. While this obviously won’t work for everyone, it is a good thing. Mystery shopping helps keep sales associates and store on their toes and gives shoppers a chance to earn something back.
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I did this for years and it was good some gigs and bad for others. Sometimes you have to take the bad gigs for the month to get the good ones. The best ones at the time I was doing it was the Target shops. You received $50 for evaluating whether or not a employee asked you for help and how long it took for them to do it. Then when they did ask, you gave them a $50 voucher they could redeem with their manager. If the register employee asked if “you would like to save 15% on your purchase today by signing up for a target Credit card”, you gave them a $50 voucher as well. That was fun!
But to get the target shops I had to do some $10 shops at subway or something.
I can be worth it if you get good at writing up the reviews at the end. Someone in the comments said it took them 3 hours to complete a review. wow. At first it might take an hour but once you get their lingo down, a person can write up a review in 30 minutes.
In the end I probably was making about $15-$20/hour. I don’t see how someone could make this a full time job however.
I did my shopping through bestmark.com.
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I think the previous comment says a lot. If you have to drive all over town, buy a bunch of junk you otherwise wouldn’t, and make only about $15, is it really worth your time? Especially when there is about a 99% chance the company that is soliciting you IS a scam, the benefits are simply not worth the cost. I have never met in real life anyone that was paid to shop, however, I have met quite a few people that have lost a ton of money from these schemes.
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#38 Chris: “I have never met in real life anyone that was paid to shop, however, I have met quite a few people that have lost a ton of money from these schemes.”
Well, I’ve never met anyone who was paid to play professional baseball — but that doesn’t mean such people don’t exist.
My daughter and I have both been paid to shop, and that we did not have to buy junk we wouldn’t otherwise have bought.
In fact, we have gotten things we WOULD have bought anyway, such as free oil changes or downtown parking. We’ve gone out to eat, enjoyed evenings at an arcade and gotten overnights in nice hotels.
Obviously one needs to be careful and also practical. For example, it wouldn’t be worth it to drive 35 miles each way to do a $10 shop. But my daughter had to drive the car about two blocks to get the free oil change. I’d say that was worth it.
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My wife signed up to be a mystery shopper but she never got past the “testing” phase with nothing but fast food and other things she wasn’t interested in.
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I’m interested in learning more about becomeing a mystery shopper. Do I have to provide my social security # to the companies? What personal information do they need?
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Sara, yes, they require your SSN. They require all the information you’d find on a W-2 or 1099.
I did mystery shopping for a little bit a couple years ago when I was in college. I think a lot of the opportunities have to do with what location you’re in. Now, that I’m in Flint, there aren’t any opportunities that I’ve seen on the sites I’m signed up on. When I was attending CMU, though, there were a few, but it was mostly Cigarette shops, where I’d go and attempt to buy cigarettes without a driver’s license to see if the folks are carding people (I can pass for 16 or 17 even though I’m 24). It paid $8 a shop but since I was going to nearby cities it just didn’t pay enough to cover gas.
Roth is right – you’re not going to get rich, but as long as you’re a) in a city with a lot of shops, b) persistent about it, and c)okay with acting, then you’ll be able to make some money with it.
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@Sara #41: They will need SSN info to pay you. However, do *NOT* respond to e-mail offers for mystery shopping. There’s one going around right now (which I referenced) that is a pure scam. If one of these con artists gets your SSN and your bank info, you’re sunk.
Go through the two places noted in the article — Volition.com or the Mystery Shopping Providers Association — to find legitimate companies.
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My first job, at sixteen, was at a national fast food chain in Southern California and the employees (including myself) were always fearful of a mystery shopper coming in.
I’m not sure if the company used a third-party, but we would get copies of the mystery shopper write-up and the manager would reprimand an employee if there was a “bad” review…no wonder we were all fearful.
We would get a new review every couple of months and the company/franchise took them very seriously. So I can see why they would want a detailed review from mystery shoppers.
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@Gloria: These reports are extremely detailed, but all the questions correspond to company policies that supervisors (allegedly) teach to employees. Things like, “Did your beverage glass ever become less than half-full?” or “Were you greeted within 30 seconds of arrival?”
It used to annoy me when I would order a burger and fries at McDonald’s and the employee would say, “Would you like to add a hot apple pie to that order?” Now I realize that they’re just doing what they’ve been told to do: Up-sell. I’m sure it’s no fun for them.
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@Donna, you’re right. That’s what we did (back when I worked at McD’s). It just becomes routine. When I worked there I was mystery shopped twice. It’s really interesting to see feedback on what you did during the shop. I got a 100% both times.
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@Charlie F #46: My daughter worked at a movie theater as a teen. One night she was “shopped” and later her supervisor told her she’d be given an extra $5 or $10 (I forget which) in her paycheck that week because she had done everything right.
This was in 1995 dollars, of course, so it meant a little more then than it would now.
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That’s a great incentive for employees to do the right thing every time. It’s really hard to tell who’s a shopper and who isn’t (unless you’ve been one yourself).
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I respectfully disagree that a life can not be etched from mystery shopping. I think it may depend on where you live. In a large city I made 800.00 plus a month, not including free eye exams, 100.00 off of glasses, exotic dinners at a VA resport area, free oil changes and free ice cream. (yum) One company called me every month to check if their products were in date. I made a ton of cash on that assignment. I think it is like anything else. Slow to start, people need to know they can count on you. Well written naratives using their lingo are a must. After a while the reports go so quickly that you have time to do additional shops each day.
Being certified brings lots of good opportunities too.
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I did this for a few years and my conclusion is that it is a total waste of time and effort. You will work for less than minimum wage when you calculate it. ( and if you are doing what your supposed to pay taxes on it too) You will have these companies owing you money for months so you could eat for free? Just use a radio station discount, Groupon or Living Social if you want to eat out for less.
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Sorry your experience wasn’t great. Mystery shopping doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for many.
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