Has anyone here had this experience? firstly, I did a furniture shop a year ago and recently i did a second one there,unfortunately the salesperson said hi to me and followed it with "youve been here before shopping for a bed I had to think quickly and said "yes, I was here last Sept. but we had to go out of t own suddenly and i was unable to continue my search til just recently !!"apparently she accepted this and we went on with the shop.The second time this happened was yesterdaySat.)i had to go to wendy's and order lunch both through drive thru first,and dine in next.Well,I had just ordered my second lunch when the gal who served me the first one saw me and said " you must of eaten that sandwich fast "i said that i intended to take it home but it smelled so good i had to come in and get one for myself!!I'me sure gload i can think quickly ! anyone elso have experienced like this ?

As shoppers we need to think fast to come up with the plausible tale when something like that happens. Sounds like you did well I tend to blame the 'been here before' on my 'sister in town who looks a lot like me' so that they can't scrimp on the explanations. I may even make a follow up during the course of the conversation when I want to elicit more information such as, "My sister mentioned something about that, but she sort of had it confused."

I find the drive through + dine in shops abhorrent because they are prone to just the type of situation you are talking about. I won't take one where I can't do the drive through after the dine in because there is a better chance at getting untainted observations if they aren't trying to figure out why you are looking at more food. I have gotten questioning comments at the drive through window, but I'm 'picking up for my husband'. Though it is also tempting to say that I have an eating disorder and leave it at that

I try to change my hair (either put it up or take it down), take off my glasses and maybe put on a jacket when I go inside the store after the drive through. Some locations are pretty busy. But during some of the breakfast shops I've done, there were no other customers. Once I even had one person hand me my drive thru order only to find out that she is also helping out at the front counter. That was pretty awkward!!!

Yes - - as I approached the kiosk to do a cell phone shop the Rep looked familiar. Too late to abort, the shop was due that day and he was the only one there. But most times I re-shop they don't remember me. Well, this one did. He commented that he remembered seeing me "in before" and I said yes, I've been thinking about changing my service but just haven't gotten around to actually doing it, make me an offer I can't pass up. Turns out he was reassigned from another location - I shopped him almost a year ago at another location! Good thing they don't all have memories like that one!

Good customer service foils again. Drat.

I got caught taking a picture of a closed-during-regular-business-hours T-mobile shop yesterday. I was taking a photograph of the timing, thankfully only that, and just said I was trying to get a picture of the timings so I could try again later. He seemed to accept it, especially when I played dumb and said I was new in town and didn't know my way to the other location he recommended. I'm worried about doing cellphone shops over and over (yesterday was my first), everyone remembers us, even if we've been gone a year - we often spend our autumn/winter/spring in Dubai and then our summers in the States, though now we're going to stay semi-permanently in the States and so we'd often be gone for nearly a year, come back and people are like "Oh, the Russians!". I'm not sure I'd bother doing a second visit to the same location on a cellphone shop because I'm sure I'd just give myself away.

I experienced that shopping at a cell phone provider. I shopped that company in one city one week and then two weeks later, I shopped the branch in a city about a half hour away. The same associate was at both stores. He recognized me and I just said that I was grocery shopping out of town today and decided to see if they had any new offers.

About six months ago, I had been doing all these bank shops for the same bank but different branches. Apparently they sometimes move personel from one branch to another. I don't always have the same look. I have wavy hair which I sometimes wear curly or straigt or in pony tail. However, I was told by MS Company a few mystery shoppers were spotted and I was one of them. I really felt badly because I was getting these shops on rotation every week.

Yes, I got spotted on a bank and disqualified from shopping the bank in any location. I suspect the recognition came from the fact that I was probably the only customer in there that afternoon, so easily memorable. And since an account transaction was required with a receipt, it would have been all too easy to see who had performed a transaction inside the bank. I was identified by name.

I supposedly got spotted at a grocery last summer. I heard the story the MSC related back (kid taking notes behind me-no way) and said, "NOT!" I pushed back and it turned out it was a totally different day than I had been there, and it was not me (I knew that.) So I went from persona non gratis who could not shop that particular branch again to favored daughter who can do it if I ask, and I do, a lot...

And you have to have some respect for an MSP that will work with you to get it straightened out and if it WASN'T you try to ease things over for your trouble. I was scheduled to shop a bank at location A a while back. I went in the first day of my window and before I had settled down to write the report, got a phone call from the scheduler saying the bank believed they had just been shopped. She worked it a different way. She told me not to write up the report, that she would send in a second shopper, and she gave me a different location instead. So yes, I wasted about a half hour of my time, but there was no suggestion of terminating me as a shopper. The record shows a different shopper/date for the job and I just keep shopping.

Do you think with the bank jobs, especially the teller ones, if they pull up your account and see a bunch of easy transactions within several days, that raises a flag to them?

To tell you the truth, I've never seen a teller until I started doing these shops. I have always used ATMs for withdrawals AND deposits. Every time I go in to do these shops, I feel like how can they not wonder why this person is in line to do this simple transaction that takes only seconds over at the ATM.

With new account shops, it's even worth. I feel like who would take the time to go wait for the banker, talk to them and then not open the account. Nowadays, all this info is online. You go in, you already know all the rates and rules. You spend sometimes up to an hour at the bank, and you leave without opening an account. To me that's a clear sign.

I think it might be just me, because I am so used to doing all of my banking online, even opening accounts. I try to sell it well, but inside it makes me laugh when I do bank shops, because I think, in my real life, I would never find myself here, doing this.

I have had ongoing 'chats' with my most clear headed bank scheduler. I shop about 12 locations of one bank for her and my first concern was when I was having sit downs with folks well away from my home address. These days I route all my bank accounts to my PO Box so it is a little less obvious that I stopped into a branch 30 miles from my home to ask about adding a credit card to my accounts with them. Of course if asked there is always a relative who 'lives nearby' who I visit several times a week, with the 'nearby' defined as some community or residential neighborhood within a couple of miles beyond the bank from my home. By now I have about a dozen 'mother in laws' around the area and I'm not even married

I have been concerned that inquiries about credit cards or mortgages or CDs etc. might get listed on my customer account with the bank. The scheduler did a check and determined that although notes of visits can be saved, they are only accessible to the branch where the inquiry was made. So I do keep a record of what I have asked about at which branch and when it is a repeat I am prepared with, "Yes, last May I was considering refinancing the house, but the numbers didn't work. Now I have found a really nice house we want to move to, but it is going to need some work so we can't sell our current house yet. Now once I sell the current house, I can pay down the new mortgage with no pre-payment penalties, can't I?"

Frequent deposits all over the landscape have never been questioned, but I feel sure they are a 'tell' because once a platform person accesses my account they seem to sit up straighter and I get a detailed presentation and good cross sells. We are combatting that by opening accounts in my significant other's name that I can make deposits to all across the landscape and have him cut a check back to me as the balance builds up. This means when I go sit down with a platform person, I am using my own account ID and there is odd activity during the month rather than all in the first two weeks of the month at a handful of different locations each month. Luckily significant other is ready, willing and able to help like this and his account will not link back to mine because he uses the street address while I use the PO Box, we use his cell phone number rather than the house number and of course last names are different.