Flash, Sneakers, Mert and those I have missed that are long time contributors and high ranking members.

Please give us your intro's. We would love to hear how you started, when and where you are located. You have given us so much in the advice, tips and warnings departments. It still would be nice to find out where you are, how and when you got started. Don't hold out too long.

Thanks for all your contributions. I have taken a lot of your advice and tips and put them to work. You all contribute so much more as you are the voice of experience.

Bravo and Thank you!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2009 04:46AM by Beverly Weakley.

I guess my intro got lost somewhere back before the thread got reworked

I started mystery shopping back in the 1960s when it was done through market research firms with part time and full time employees. The company I worked with had jobs from many different companies and the nature of them was very different than today as it focused more on brand representation in stores and on consumer opinions than on customer service. We did door-to-door surveys, telephone surveys, brand facings in the stores and such. I worked summers, vacations and weekends in high school and summers and vacations when I would come home from college.

I returned to mystery shopping in its current form when I took early retirement from the securities brokerage/financial planning business about five years ago. My goal was not making a living at this but rather supplementing retirement income by letting shopping make my health insurance a business expense. 2008 was the first year that shopping has not been profitable and from the looks of it, 2009 will not be a profitable year either. I find that having a specific $ goal for a month helps keep me motivated, though it is very discouraging to realize that the same $ goal took about 30 shops to reach in 2005-2007 and is taking close to twice that many shops to achieve in 2008 and 2009--if I can even find enough reasonable shops to do.

I live in Florida, where I have a small farm on the edge of a small city with many closely surrounding communities that constitute my "shopping area". I have used computers since college, where my research was fed into the campus computer on punch cards. Our first 'home computer' was a Commodore 64 shortly after they were released. Both of my sons grew up with the computer as their fascination and toy and have gone on to careers in computer related areas. I taught them until they could teach me and now they are so far beyond what I ever knew that I can turn over my computer problems to them and live the 'entitled' life of being just an 'end user' .

I've been with this forum since early 2008, though this is not the first forum or only forum I am or have been a member of. I post because I believe it is important to the respect that all shoppers are given for each shopper to behave in a competent and reliable fashion. I receive no financial benefit from this forum at all.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2009 04:10PM by Flash.

Well said, cowgirl1. I get a lot of helpful info from the ones that have been here quite a while and contribute often. Thanks to all..Now let's hear from some of the other seasoned shoppers!

After my kids were born, I stayed home with them and did odd jobs to keep my sanity. Years ago, I was working part-time at a copy center/shipping store. As the employee, I was mystery shopped. The owner shared the results of the report with me, that had been shared with her by corporate. I was appalled at the inaccuracies and felt, as did my boss, helpless to defend. My introduction to ms'ing was negative.

A little over two years ago, I started shopping. Small at first, maybe 10 shops a month, then 20 . . . Wow! I get paid for this. Enough to keep at it. I like the freedom of choice and I take it seriously. I found this forum, and two other shopping forums in 08. I like it here. I'm nothing more than a member.

I live on the border of NC/SC. I have both city and rural shops in my radius, which is usually 20 miles from home.

I got my start 15 years ago, shortly after i got married. I found an ad in the newspaper classifieds asking for a shopper in my area. I called the number and here I am. Back then nothing was computerized around here and you got your assignments on the phone and sent your evaluation by mailing it in. I live right on the NY-PA border in a rural podunk town so my shopping area is a triangle roughly 35 miles in any direction. Things are rural enough here that you have to drive 12 miles each way just to go to the grocery store so I grab the few larger towns around here and in PA. We have to drive 35 miles to go to church so I try to snag a shop or so on Sundays whenever possible to help with the gas.

As some of my shopping friends know, I have had more than my share of odd adventures while shopping, from being covered with the fallout from a dumping garbage truck to being chased by a love-struck goat and having to take a sink apart during a restaurant shop to get my wedding ring back. Yes, I'll be writing a book about mystery shopping and will include my adventures.

I have been shopping for 4 years now. I started on the mainland during graduate school in MD as a way to go out to eat more often. For free.
:-)

I graduated and got a job teaching digital art at the college level home in HI. It doesn't pay the bills, especially all those college loans, and it is very expensive to live in Honolulu. I started doing 30-plus shops a month to help us survive. I do anywhere from 30-70 shops a month, depending on my teaching load. This semester, I keep it close to 30, as I am teaching 4 classes.

I am married to someone working in the fish industry, and we have a 10 year old son.

I live in paradise, but we pay the economic and time price for that. However, this is our home, and for however long we can afford to stay, we will.

I am lucky in that this is a parochial area that is insular - that means some things that would be done by national msc's elsewhere are subcontracted to local ones, and local ones use the local co.'s, and I have a good track record with these firms here.

I am also lucky that I live less than 2 miles from most shops in my area, and
can pick and choose to some degree, based on the fact that HNL is NOT overpopulated with shoppers. However, our economy continues to worsen due to the lack of tourists that are the major engine of our economy, and companies are having themselves shopped less frequently, so I can only hope my luck doesn't run out too soon.

I still do lots of FD shops, even though the narratives are a PITA, as I love to eat out, and this way I can. But I do all kinds of shops that either pay well-enough, or reimburse for things I need, like groceries. I rarely do FF, though, but will if it is a walk-in only and I will be in the area doing other shops at the same time.

Okay, nuff bout me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2009 09:44AM by dee shops.

Hello everyone! I am in Tacoma, WA........just about 40 miles south of Seattle..

I have been msing since 2004. Read an article in the newspaper....for Ropernop (now known as GFK) logged on and have been hooked ever since. I do this part time as I have full time job at post office.........well, until July 2010 when I will be retiring. I will then venture more into hotel/resort shops. My hubby of almost 30 years is retiring January 2010 so he will be ready.

I help newbies all the time usually via email. I have 2-4 contact me a day. Why?? Because when I started in this industry....I was overwhelmed and would have loved someone I could email some of my questions to..........decided that once I had a handle on this stuff......I would make myself accessible to newbies.

I am 53.........have one son,27 and lovely DIL.

My greatest joys and blessings in my life (besides my hubby, of course) are my two beautiful grandchildren.

Hello ya'll,

I thought I'd join in, tonight. I usually just check in and read what's on the forum to see what's happening, but don't chime in too much. I'm a Louisiana gal and have been msing since November 2007. I got started by signing up with Shadow Shopper and became Silver Certified. I didn't know that you didn't have to pay to become a MS because I had no clue as to what exactly a MS was. The emails started coming from the MSPs and I applied for the shops. I did my first shop with Intellishop and got a HERO citation for doing an electronic store. It's now out of business. I wonder if I had anything to do with that! LOL! I really got excited about the emails I was getting. I began getting phone calls also. They found me, I guess,by way of my profile on Shadow Shopper.

Hurricane Katrina chased my hubby and I up here, outside of Baton Rouge in 2005. I quit a great paying job because of my husband' health and my oldest son death in an accident. It was a very life changing year to say the least. We lost our weekly job incomes and have used up our savings. I get a pension, a small SS payment. My hubby gets SS. We needed to do something to get up out of the house and make some money.

My hubby drives me to my shops. He stays in the car and listens to the radio or gets on the cell phone, while I go in to do the shop. Sometimes we do them together without breaking the rules. He's a big help in getting names and descriptions. Today we traveled on a route and did five e...asy shops with bonuses. We have three more to do on Thursday. While he's driving, I've got the route mapped out. I haven't tried a GPS. I don't know how to use one.

The MSing really helped out with gas when it was so high. I do a lot of gas shops when they come available, but now a different MSP has them and they are not being shopped as much. I was running out of gas containers because my car gas tank doesn't hold but about 12 gallons.

When I found this forum, I was so happy because I felt I was in this alone. I never met anyone locally. It's been great to be a part of the wonderful ladies and gentlemen who contribute so much to this forum. They have helped me tremendously!

Hi,my name is rob.I've only been shopping for about a month now,but I'm doing pretty good I guess.I just found this forum and started reading.All of your comments are very interesting and I hope to learn from y'all.I'm semi-retired,
59yrs.young, and hoping to make some money.I live in northern Texas now,I was raised and grew up in Los Angeles.I have traveled and lived in various parts of the US and Hawaii.Would love to hear any advice.
Thanks,
Rob Mendez

I started shopping in 1999 right after my son was born and I left my real job. I was on a new mom website looking to trade coupons for diapers and the like, and saw a post about working from home. One of the posts was about mystery shopping. I researched it myself and started from there.

Those were the days when I could take him as a baby in his stroller, and I hand-wrote all the details on special pieces of paper and had to drop them into a special box in Macy's by the customer service department. Looking back, it was almost comical how it was done.

I stopped woking for a while when my daughter was born,and then started up again about a year ago. AT one point I was doing 2-3 shops a day, but recently decided that 3-4 shops a week is a much better pace for me so I'm not entering shops past midnight every night!

I enjoyed reading what everyone had to say...keep em' coming!!

You People are amazing I have only done five and they make my adrenaline go. I am kind of nervous, when I go shop but I love it Thanks for the stories.

You will get over the nerves. At first you will be SURE they have figured out you are the shopper--either that or that they figure you are a shoplifter You will hunker down after a while and it will be only occasionally you figure you may have been 'made', so it is time to do something 'unshopperly' to throw them off the scent.

So true. I've been told I don't have a poker face, so the first month or so I shopped, I was afraid to even make eye contact - which normally is a required observation. No longer a problem though. I'm prepared and comfortable not only with shops that go according to plan, but also shops that are unexpectedly odd throwing unforeseen curve balls at me. They're now the ones that are the most fun!

The shops where something is amiss, or employees don't follow guidelines are the ones that take me the most time reporting. Jobs can be on the line. Some clients balk at the negative reports, and others may try to reject them. I dot every i and cross every t, and choose my words carefully. These shops are the ones I wouldn't schedule to shop again for a while as I'd expect to more likely be remembered.

Hi All,

I'm located in Long Island, New York. I've been independently shopping for the last year but mystery shopped as part of my responsibility as a supervisor for a large home improvement company. When I knew the sub company I was working for was probably going to close I started researching online. I knew the mystery shopping company that my company used and started with them. I found a link to the MSPA.org website and the rest as they say is history.

I'm still new to this part of the shopping industry in that they are so many different types of shops out there. I had no idea how varied the shops can be. This forum has definitely helped me out tremendously and I thank all of you for your tidbits and willingness to share. There is one type of shop thus far that is my absolute favorite and that is an integrity shop. Contact human resources at your local department store and ask if they use integrity shoppers. Some store have shopper's on their own payroll and others hire MS companies. The MS company I am registered with shop the one department store and it involves no paperwork just a bit of acting. They, also, pay pretty well.

I am always willing to share what I know just PM me. Good luck!

Hi everyone:

I am new to this forum but have been a shopper since 1999.
My daughter was just born and I wanted something I could do in my spare time while caring for her. I was fortunate enough to work from home working for a publishing company doing research work p/t, but I really can't recall how I came about doing msing. I do remember doing airport shops when security was much more lax at the time and walking around the airports was no problem.
I am amazed at how things have changed since with the use of the internet. I used to get mailed my assignments and had to respond by a certain date if I wanted to accept the assignments or not. There was no such thing as getting paid via paypal! lol. I stopped msing for awhile when my second and third children were born and then I worked at home as a customer service rep. for a company with clients from infommercials to big chain stores.
I have now taken up msing again since my children have become school-aged and can shop while they are in school. I wish it had been this easy to register and find all these companies to work for back then as it is now. This forum is a great source and wished this was around back then too. lol.

Very true about the nerves passing. I can do any shop now, no problem, no confidence issues, no second guessing myself. Upsale store, you bet. Bank, you bet. Grocery, you bet. Like anything else it gets easier the more you do it. I hate to say it, but it's just a job!