Panda-reimbursement too low...

@hbbigdaddy wrote:

I know this is going to upset some people....

Let be realistic, just reimburse the price of the meal. Simple as that. I don't want to file a report for what's essentially a "coupon." Coupons are free.

A Dad shopping the Ark-LA-Tex and beyond.

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More About Reimbursements

I hear you...but I haven't seen Panda offer coupons :-P.

While this shop should reimburse enough for 2 item plate, it's truly not a terrible shop at standard starting rate of $8 reimb/$8 pay. The report is easy. You might come out of pocket $1 when ordering a BOWL They do bonus it and by the end of the period, the bonuses can be generous, usually more generous than other MSC bonus.

There are plenty of other fast food with other MSC that give you reimburse only with NO pay and more complicated reports/guidelines and more uploads.

I will take PANDA all day every day over the following options

* Church's chicken (reimburse $10/No starting pay)
* Newer CJ/Hardees ($12 reimburse/$6 pay) where you have to obtain the order taker name while at the speaker/menu board and basically be told what you have to order
* Raising Cane's $8.50 reimburse/NO starting pay)
* Arby's ($12 reimburse/$5 pay) where you are told what you have to order and have specific time (lunch/dinner) requirement

@ShoppingDad wrote:

@hbbigdaddy wrote:

I know this is going to upset some people....

Let be realistic, just reimburse the price of the meal. Simple as that. I don't want to file a report for what's essentially a "coupon." Coupons are free.

One way to look at it is a $16 flat fee, and you are free to spend anywhere from $9 to $13 on your meal. I do agree with the above. It's not bad compared to some others.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2022 10:37PM by thunderdeacon.

And I want to do it as I have not had "Chinese" food in a while. I am not really that interested in shops with burger after burger after burger.
As for the test, after I took it about 8 times I heard from the scheduler but her help referred to one of the 8 tests I took and I had no idea which one. There were two multi choice answers where you could select as many as you thought were correct. It was a huge number of combinations between those 8 possible answers when 2 or all of them in different combos could be correct.
Hbbig daddy, I have been waiting for a bonus since they brought these shops back months ago. But so far in my area never a bonus. I can drive a ways and get a $2 bonus if I am lucky but it is not worth an extra $2 for the time that would take. So Saturday I am happy to report I will spend $1 of my fee for tax and have eggplant and tofu.

Most of the URBAN southern california shops will not get bonused. You have to head out to the desert or under-populated areas.

I have seen the shops start at the $8 pay and then go to $13 pay, then go to $18 pay, then to $23 pay.

that has been the pattern the last 3 months.

I took NO shops this time around at the $8 pay. I'm over panda-ed at this point. Even with a family of 4, they are tire of it too.

last time i did one, i did 7 shops all at bonus. none of us wanted the food, but the pay was well worth it! The dogs like the rice/chow mein

Prior to July, I could count on some decent bonuses, Since then, we must have gotten a new shopper or 2 who don't know how the pay structure works. There was only one bonused shop in July at a campus location where parking is a bear and it was only for $5. August shops have been flying off the board too and it doesn't look like any will be left by the time they start to bonus. I actually like their highly sugared Sweetfire Chicken Breast.

I wait till the bonus go to a certain amount and I'd take it if I happen to be around that area. Otherwise it's a pass

I work for cash; I don't work for coupons.

If anyone is reading right now I have a job in a few hours. What sort of photo do they want of the food? Tops off I assume, inside or outside the bag? show all utensils , sauces etc in the photo? not picky and they do not care?

Just take a picture of what you are given. Food, utensils, fortune cookie. It's 2 uploads. 1 is receipt and 1 is food. I just take picture of anything I was given (not what I retrieved myself).

If I had to guess, they are wanting to check portions and what the food looks like. I don't know if they care if you had a sauce packet(s) or fortune cookie in your picture. But I just take the 1 picture of all of it.

@sandyf wrote:

If anyone is reading right now I have a job in a few hours. What sort of photo do they want of the food? Tops off I assume, inside or outside the bag? show all utensils , sauces etc in the photo? not picky and they do not care?

Tops off, overhead shot, NOT blurry.

I have never eaten at a Panda Express, though I have peeked in and taken a look once or twice. Their food and their stores just do not appeal to me AT ALL, especially after living so many years in NYC with all the excellent, high-quality Chinese, Japanese, and Thai restaurants. I just could not make myself eat at Panda. No way. Therefore, I never even looked at those shops. I had no idea they pay so low. IMHO, if it's not food I would enjoy or get excited about, and the pay sucks as much as the food does, it's not worth it to me to do a shop like that.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2022 06:52AM by shopnyc.

I don't know what you were expecting. They are like the McDonald's of Chinese food. A large company with many locations and fast service. I don't think most people think of this chain as being high-quality. It's just an alternative to burger fast food. Yes, the pay is not fantastic, but when you compare similar fast food places, the starting $8/$8 pay/reimburse is as good as most if not better

@shopnyc wrote:

I have never eaten at a Panda Express, though I have peeked in and taken a look once or twice. Their food and their stores just do not appeal to me AT ALL, especially after living so many years in NYC with all the excellent, high-quality Chinese, Japanese, and Thai restaurants. I just could not make myself eat at Panda. No way. Therefore, I never even looked at those shops. I had no idea they pay so low. IMHO, if it's not food I would enjoy or get excited about, and the pay sucks as much as the food does, it's not worth it to me to do a shop like that.

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@hbbigdaddy wrote:

I don't know what you were expecting. They are like the McDonald's of Chinese food. A large company with many locations and fast service. I don't think most people think of this chain as being high-quality. It's just an alternative to burger fast food. Yes, the pay is not fantastic, but when you compare similar fast food places, the starting $8/$8 pay/reimburse is as good as most if not better

I didn't say I expected it to be high quality. I'm saying it always looked like crappy, unappealing food to me, so I had never even considered doing a Panda shop. I always thought, "Eww, no way," whenever I walked past a Panda, so even if someone wanted to pay me to eat there, I wouldn't. I have a background in the restaurant industry, and am a bit of a foodie, so I generally don't eat much fast food. I have done quite a few restaurant shops in good to excellent restaurants, but I do not see any appeal in doing fast food shops because the food is bad. Add to that a low shop pay and, for me, it's not worth the time and bellyache afterwards. But if it works for you and others, go for it. To each their own.

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Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2022 04:24PM by shopnyc.

@shopnyc....I hear you. It sounded like you were complaining about the quality of Panda when in general if sounds like fast food does not appeal to you whether it's JITB, MCD, Panda or whatever. That is fine It is NOT great food. It is tolerable and I would pick Panda over McDonalds for the most part, but that is not saying Panda is great.

As far as pay, you need to compare like for like. Panda shops are no worse paying and better than some other fast food alternatives.

@hbbigdaddy wrote:

@shopnyc....I hear you. It sounded like you were complaining about the quality of Panda when in general if sounds like fast food does not appeal to you whether it's JITB, MCD, Panda or whatever.

Yeah, I don't even know what JITB stands for. I'm assuming MCD is McDonald's.

12 months or so ago, a Panda Express opened approx. seven miles for my house, I had heard of the eatery, so being curious,when a shop appeared @ $5+$8 and being partial to Oriental food, I selected the job, The food was OK, but not to the extent I would dine on my dime, I rate my meal a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5. For me to consider returning for work, my bottom fee would be $12+$12.

Ambiance and/or appearance has no dining.importance to me.

@shopnyc... JITB is Jack In The Box

@shopperbob... I agree with ambiance/appearance. For fast food, you are eating that food for one of a few reasons, cheaper, quicker, road trip stop, or it's a shop. for Panda, I rarely do the Dine-In scenario. I will do take-out or drive-thru so the ambience and appearance is irrelevant.

as far as the pay, I will do $8/$8, but I have skipped this round. I did too many and need more $ to get me motivated to do it again. I think the dogs are tired of the chow mein/rice too :-)

Last round I did some on the last few days of the period and the pay was $20 and higher.

And I did my first one in many years even though the reimbursement did not even cover the required order. To top that off the lowest priced required order was not really a full dinner amount and I do not think the noodles were as good as they were years ago. I happily ate my eggplant and tofu dish which was actually not bad and pretty much the only chance for mystery shop food that is not a burger, or a taco filled with burger meat or a steak place where you cannot afford to buy the steak with the reimbursement they provide around here since Chipotle and Blaze pizza left the mystery shop world.

You just have to face reality; You are not in New York anymore, and I am not in China anymore.

@AZwolfman wrote:

You just have to face reality; You are not in New York anymore, and I am not in China anymore.

Was that directed at me? If so, I don't see how I am not facing reality simply because I prefer to eat good food that I enjoy rather than crappy, greasy fast food. I never said I would expect Panda to be as good as the better Chinese restaurants I had available to me in NYC. It is obvious that Panda is not high quality. The beauty of being an indie contractor is that I get to choose what shops I want to do, and so - with my feet firmly planted in reality - I choose not to do fast food shops. And that makes me happy.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2022 07:53PM by shopnyc.

The only Chinese food in China that I ever had that tasted like typical "Chinese" food in the US was General Tso's Chicken. That puzzled me until I learned that General Tso's Chicken was actually developed in the US and went from the US to China. Are there Chinese restaurants in the US with food that tastes like some of the food in China? Sure, but to get the authentic taste, I have found that I need to dine with someone who can order in Chinese.

Edited to add: Have I eaten at Panda Express? Yes, but I don't expect it to taste like the food I have eaten in China or even Chinese food from Chinatown in Philadelphia, NYC, or San Francisco.

Taco Bell made a deluded attempt to enter the food market in Mexico by advertising that they serve Mexican food. They do not. About 10 years later, they re-entered the market in Mexico and all the advertisements say, "Esto no es comida Mexicana," which translates as "This is not Mexican food". They are very successful selling food there now since it allows Mexicans to taste what they consider to be American food.

@AZwolfman wrote:

You just have to face reality; You are not in New York anymore, and I am not in China anymore.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2022 01:54AM by myst4au.

We have a Panda near us and have had food from there once. It was good, but not great. But the biggest issue we had was that the portions were pretty small compared to most Chinese places. I'd do a shop to eat there again, but wouldn't eat totally on my own dime. But our local one has no shops. I keep an eye out for one, but although I see them come up, there's never any for this one. Are these franchise places, where some owners opt out of the MS program? Or could another shopper be getting offered them before they go up on the board?

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2022 02:10AM by BirdyC.

Honestly folks, Panda Express is Panda Express. Just like Taco Bell is Taco Bell, not Mexican food. If you go into Taco Bell expecting Mexican food, you'll always be angry and disappointed. Same with Panda Express. Take it for what it is, Panda Express is a cuisine onto itself. If you're looking for a fast food option that is not burger and fries, that has at least some vegetables, then pick up a Panda shop. I've eaten real, home-cooked Chinese food all my life, and I still love a crispy Beijing Beef and Orange Chicken - but I don't see those dishes as trying to be anything other than what it is.

@BirdyC - Panda Express locations are all corporate owned and operated...no franchisees....

The Orange Chicken at some of the Panda Express shops is so bitter that I can't eat it. At other restaurants likely by the same franchisee...very mellow.

Is the Teryaki Chicken any good? I have a drive-through coming up on the 20th and I think I may take the plunge.

@metro25782 wrote:

The Orange Chicken at some of the Panda Express shops is so bitter that I can't eat it. At other restaurants likely by the same franchisee...very mellow.

Is the Teryaki Chicken any good? I have a drive-through coming up on the 20th and I think I may take the plunge.

The teriyaki chicken should taste like Barbecued chicken without sauce, and should be slightly crispy on the edges. And then you pour sweet teriyaki sauce over it and ruin it completely. Most of the stores, around here at least, don't season it well, it always seems to need just a bit more salt or soy sauce. And their teriyaki sauce is far too sweet, I almost never use it. Sometimes I do, simply because I really dislike dark meat chicken, And teriyaki sauce makes it feel less slimy in my mouth.

Not sure if anyone out there is in the Del Rio area of Texas but the Panda shops out in Eagle Pass are heavily bonused right now....$92 bonus!!!

California locations went to $20 pay today. I think the end of this current period is in about 1 week (beginning of september some time). I think the last period ended August 6th, so we are getting close.

@metro25782 wrote:

Not sure if anyone out there is in the Del Rio area of Texas but the Panda shops out in Eagle Pass are heavily bonused right now....$92 bonus!!!

Another. $100 and I'll rent a car to go to TX.. LOL

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