I've gotten myself into a pickle. Which MSC for the shop?

Yesterday or the day before I signed up for two shops. One was for a gas station just down the road from me and the other was a banking shop. Now I can't remember what MSC the gas one is for... I don't see a confirmation in my email and I've been frantically going through the companies I'm signed up with trying to find it. Ack!!! Has this ever happened to you? What did you do? If I knew which MSC handles this gas station company it would be easy but I don't think there is a way to just figure that out. I should have typed it into my spreadsheet immediately. I don't know why I didn't.

I will know I'm a successful MS'er when I make enough to pay someone else to scrub my toilets.

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Perhaps the gas station was for Stericycle. OR MaritzCX for both the Bank and gas station. OR maybe its was just Marketforce. There, three choices that does those types of shops. I find that if I am during GSs on a regular bases for the MSC, a confirmation letter rarely is sent. It just shows up on my assignment ledger.

It is a frequent dilemma of shoppers. Take a deep breath. Did you apply for the shop based on an email that sent you to the website? Were you just checking the MSCs you work with?

Your browser history for yesterday may well show you the companies you visited yesterday and if you got the gas shop before the bank, look at those visits first. If you got the gas shop after the bank, revisit your history after the MSC with the bank.

Yes, that happens to all of us, and more often than most would like to admit.

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

Off topic, but I've been with MF since June and I've never seen a gas station shop. Is that unusual?

Figured it out ! It was Maritz. Weird though, it's not in my shops list and it's also not shown as available anymore. I wonder if I didn't actually sign up for it and someone else already snatched it! I did call and leave a message maybe they'll call me back.

I will know I'm a successful MS'er when I make enough to pay someone else to scrub my toilets.

@AnneAshley wrote:

Off topic, but I've been with MF since June and I've never seen a gas station shop. Is that unusual?

Sometimes it is in the area in which you resides. I wish my area had GSshops. Right now I am leery to park at one of there lo-cals in which I know of

@AnneAshley wrote:

Off topic, but I've been with MF since June and I've never seen a gas station shop. Is that unusual?

No, I grab them all

20 this month, 30 last month.
The gas station shopped is most likely not in your area. Try widening your search.

I got an email this morning - It turns out that I did NOT actually get the shop. Someone else snatched it up. I'm thinking I applied but someone got to it just before I did. There is another shop from a different MSC that went up this morning for a store (that I love) less than 3 miles from my house, so I tried to pounce on it but it was already gone. Methinks I have MS competition in my neighborhood. LOL!

I will know I'm a successful MS'er when I make enough to pay someone else to scrub my toilets.

@sstazz wrote:

@AnneAshley wrote:

Off topic, but I've been with MF since June and I've never seen a gas station shop. Is that unusual?
No, I grab them all 20 this month, 30 last month.
The gas station shopped is most likely not in your area. Try widening your search.

I widened my search to 200 miles which is the most you can, and no gas stations. I guess they aren't in Florida. Why do you like them so much?

@MrsJennyK wrote:

Figured it out ! It was Maritz. Weird though, it's not in my shops list and it's also not shown as available anymore. I wonder if I didn't actually sign up for it and someone else already snatched it! I did call and leave a message maybe they'll call me back.

You may have applied for it and it wasn't assigned to you. Or it was assigned to you and then one of the favorites requested the shop and it was given to them instead. Maritz does that kind of thing, and quite often too.

Maritz did that to me. I was assigned three gas station shops. I write my shops for the day on plain printing paper, paper punch them, put the date and day on the top and just fill it out as I get shops and then I write the mileage down on that paper also. So, I open my book for the day, go to all the websites of the assignments I have before I leave the house every morning. Takes just a minute but helps for lots of reasons. Low and behold the shops are not there. I thought I made a mistake but then I went back and checked my email printscreens in the file on the computer and there they were. {{{Mod note: edited for ICA violation.}}}
Now they're calling me leaving messages to pick up the shops on the bad side of town and the outlying cities. I told them if they had not taken the cherry shops I would have picked up the crappy ones. Now they can tell cheesecake to pick them up.

@spicy1 wrote:

A different scheduler gave them to someone else. You know how I know? I went to the station and asked if the auditor had been here already. THEY HAD. Now they're calling me leaving messages to pick up the shops on the bad side of town and the outlying cities. I told them if they had not taken the cherry shops I would have picked up the crappy ones. Now they can tell cheesecake to pick them up.

So you spent your time and gas to drive around to three locations that were NOT assigned to you to "prove" that another scheduler assigned them to another shopper? I guess time and money is not as valuable to you as it is to some of us.

@spicy1 wrote:

You know how I know? I went to the station and asked if the auditor had been here already. THEY HAD. Now they're calling me leaving messages to pick up the shops on the bad side of town and the outlying cities. I told them if they had not taken the cherry shops I would have picked up the crappy ones. Now they can tell cheesecake to pick them up.

You went to the station and asked if the auditor had been there already? So you contacted the client? Sounds like an ICA violation to me.

@AustinMom, I was thinking the same thing but I wasn't sure. Thanks for clarifying.

ICA or not, just asking if the auditor had been there doesn't guarantee it was the same auditor for the same project for the same MSC. Most gas stations have "auditors" in there all the time and don't even keep track of what each was doing. I was chatting with the manager at my local BP just this week and we were laughing because as soon as she sees someone pulling out a letter she just tells them to go do whatever they have to do. She knows they have to be done and doesn't bother to find out the who or what each time.

Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie.
"I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag." -Molly Ivins
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of your time and it really annoys the pig.

I'm sure I have other Mystery shoppers in my area but it does not bother me. To say it's "my city" would be rather arrogant.

Some locations can't be continuously shopped by the same shopper for obvious reasons.

I actually think it would be nice to meet the other shoppers.

apercu, I actually know one other shopper in my area rather well. She and I email and text each other from time to time. We are both merchandisers also and I met her at an electronics store reset a few years back. Sometimes she will text me with a question about a shop or a particular MSC that we both shop for. I have met a few other shoppers in my area when we all attended the Chipotle training back in 2006 or 2007 (can't remember) and I did email some leads to one of them for awhile, but she is much older than I am and has since retired from MSing.

@LisaSTL wrote:

ICA or not, just asking if the auditor had been there doesn't guarantee it was the same auditor for the same project for the same MSC. Most gas stations have "auditors" in there all the time and don't even keep track of what each was doing.

This. Exactly.

I was once at a Red and Blue gas station, doing an audit and another shopper showed up just a few minutes behind me. She was there to do an audit for the gas company and I was there to do an audit for the convenience store owner. The audits are almost identical. We were literally taking pictures of the exact same thing at almost the same time.

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I've gotten myself into a pickle. Which MSC for the shop?

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