Hello. I've been lurking this forum for a while now, but I'm making my first post to ask a question.

So, I have been shopping with BMA for almost 7 months now. They were actually the first company I signed up with and the first one I did a mystery shop for. They have been very good about paying me on time and for every single shop I've done. Pretty much all the shops I've done for them have been cell phone shops. However, last month I did a different type of shop. This was a shop where I had to buy a pair of shoes and then return them. In the report, I had to describe my experience. It said in the instructions that the report had to be submitted the same day the shop was done (AKA before Midnight). Normally, this would not have been a problem. I'm usually really good about turning my reports in before they're due.

I left the location around 8ish and should have been home no later then 9. However, I ended up getting into a bad car accident right after leaving the location. My car was totaled and the other person in the car with me was injured. I had to be checked out for possible injuries too, so an ambulance took us to the emergency room. I had sent an e-mail from my phone to the scheduler telling them that I was in the emergency room, so my report would be delayed. I couldn't access the BMA site from my phone.

I didn't get home until nearly 6:00 AM. Both because they took so long in the ER and because I had to wait for someone come to pick me up (since I had no car to drive myself home in). I sat down and wrote my report as soon as I got home. Unfortuantely, I was stupid and had forgotten to take my notes out of the car before it was towed away, so I had to go by memory (thankfully, the receipts and photos I needed were safe inside my purse). I was also exhausted and still in shock from the accident. Needless to say, I was extremely out of it when I wrote my report. Still, I'm pretty sure I did what they wanted. They had wanted a whole lot of details about my experience with tons of paragraphs to be written in the form of a story. It took me until around 8:00 AM to finish. When I finally submitted my report, I e-mailed the scheduler to say my report was submitted and scanned a note I got from the hospital as proof that I was there. I never heard backfrom the scheduler, so I assumed that everything was ok. After all, they would have contacted me if there was a problem, right?

This was in late April. It said in the instructions that payment would be issued on the 15th of the following month and would go to my Paypal account. I got nothing on the 15th. But then I remembered that BMA usually issues payments around the 17th/18th and sends them all at once. So I decided to wait it out a couple of days. Then I recieve a payment from them on the 18th. But it's only for the one cell phone shop I did in April and there is nothing for the shoe store.

Has anything like this ever happened to anyone else with this company? Do they usually contact shoppers if there's a problem with their reports? I would think if I didn't write it out the way they wanted it or if they coudn't accept it because it was late, I would have heard something about it by now. But I have to wonder why I haven't been payed when this company is usually so good about that.

Does anyone who has shopped with BMA know who I should contact to ask about this? The scheduler or the person with Tory Dolan who issued the payment for last month? Or should I just wait it out a little longer?

Sorry this post is so long. I feel like I should thank every single person on here who actually stuck around to read this whole thing! Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks guys!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 02:16AM by Isabella.

My favorite scheduler, Kim at CTCSS, schedules for BMA. I don't have a contact at BMA, I have always gone through Kim for jobs. Then do the jobs and get paid, never talk to anyone. If I were in your place, I would e-mail Kim and ask her if she can help you. She's great. I'm betting if she cannot help you she will give you a contact. Good luck!


Edited to say: I forgot to add Kim's e-mail address: kimforctcss@gmail.com

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 02:50AM by AustinMom.

Are you and your friend all right? No residual side effects from the crash? I am so sorry. I googled BMA and wound up with the Troy Dolan group. You might want to copy and paste your post into an email with the subject line, "Please help." Send it to
info@troydolan.com

Do include the date and whatever identification you can provide on the shop along with your Shopper ID and contact information. Chances are, someone can do right by you. I will award you a vital gold medal for valor and perseverance.

?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 02:48AM by audrialyn30.

Hi Isabella,

I would definitely contact Kim @ CTCSS and also then directly email to the address that Joan gave you.

I did a job (same shop different location) on April 22. I was paid via paypal for it on May 18th.

Good luck, I'm sure you won't have any problems, particularly since you really did have an emergency.

BTW - did you print out a copy of your "Confirmation #"? That will be a HUGE help, since the Prophet system has (for me at least) always had one of those confirmation pages. Make sure you print those out!!

Hi everyone!

Thanks for all of your replies!

AustinMom: Thank you for giving me Kim's e-mail. The only thing is, she wasn't my scheduler for this shop. Do you really think it would be better to contact her instead of the person who was my scheduler? I do find it odd that I never heard back from my original scheduler after I sent those 2 e-mails (not sure if I should post the name here or not, this scheduler does read these boreds), but I just assumed that no news is good news.

Joan_InDE: My friend had some minor injuries, but is recovering and doing better now. I was in a state of shock for a few days, but I'm fine now. My car is a different story though. I'm just grateful the accident wasn't as bad as it could have been. Thank you for asking. And also for the Tory Dolan e-mail. I think I will definitely e-mail them.

audrialyn30: Guess my post was kind of confusing, huh? Or perhaps just too long. Sorry about that.

r@inyDayZ3: I actually wrote my confirmation # down, so I definitely have it. I've always figured it was a good idea to write them down and save them, in case something like this ever happened. It does concern me a bit that you got payed for this shop on the date that I should have been paid for it too. I did mine on April 28th (was the 29th by the time I submitted my report), Not sure if Kim was your scheduler or not, but she wasn't mine. Do you think she might be better to contact than my scheduler though? I never heard back from my scheduler after I sent the doctor's note, so I'm not sure if she even knows whats going on.

Thank you once again! I will definitely keep all of you posted. If you have any other suggestions, definitely let me know!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 06:04AM by Isabella.

Isabella,

Just contact them in a friendly way and ask if you were on the pay cycle, if you received the medical emergency attachment from the car accident, etc.

I'm wondering if by chance you may have been on a different pay cycle because you shopped & turned in your report at the end of April.

I went back through my paypal, and came up with this:

Shop Performed 11/20/11 - Paid on 1/17/12** NOT same shop diff. client
Shop Performed 02/05/12 - Paid on 3/14/12
Shop Performed 04/22/12 - Paid on 5/18/12

My husband did this shop on 10/01/11 - Paid 11/10/11.

It looks like it is a 30-45 day pay cycle. So it *may* be possible that you are not at the 30 days yet.

I agree with rainy, Isabella, just contact them in a friendly way. The scheduler you contact depends on who your scheduler was.....there are several but I know Kim best so I would probably go to her if it had happened to me since I know and have worked with her and I know how responsive she is. I once did 4 last minute BMA shops and was inputting all 4 at 10PM. I made a no-brainer mistake on report #3 and realized as soon as I hit submit - I e-mailed Kim my OMG! mistake! and the right answer, then did the 5-minute report #4. When I finished the report there was already an e-mail back from Kim saying she had gone in and changed my report to the correct answer and a thank you for "handling the shops and turning in great reports."

I think probably there is nothing wrong ...... you surely would have heard from them if something was wrong with your report.

I would absolutely contact the scheduler before going directly to the company, period. The Customer 1st and BMA schedulers have a close relationship with the parent company.

You might have just missed the cutoff date/time to be paid in the last pay period. I did three of those P&R shoes in the same day in an area where they were short on shoppers. After a long day and long drive, I was able to get one shop in the same day. I got the remaining two shops in the following morning. This was pretty much pre-arranged for helping them out so technically I was not late. But I did only get paid for one shop on one pay period and then the remaining two shops showed up on the next pay period.

Even though all three shops were performed on the same day, they were submitted on different days. I probably missed the cutoff point between the two days so maybe this happened to you also. I did get paid properly for all three shops. Good luck!

I'm guessing BMA is Shopmetrics. Haven't shopped for them in awhile and my laptop broke so I don't have everything set up on this one. But being due by midnight and getting a confirmation number makes me think they use Shopmetrics for their platform.

You can email them and explain. The fact that you were able to submit the report means it got in before it was canceled. If there was an issue, you should've heard back. You also provided proof of the accident so they know you're not flaking. Did you leave a comment in the New Notes section on the report? That's for anything you need to tell the company/editor. Schedulers don't see it unless they open the report since that's the only way to view it.

Let them know about the job that didn't get paid. You can provide the confirmation number but I don't have the slightest clue how to look up reports by that. It's usually by name and/or email and client. They'll have a record of it. In all likelihood, it was an oversight. There are certain buttons we need to press so that the report is paid to the shopper and billed to the client. One of them could've gotten overlooked. It happens. Happened to me twice last month with two companies. But it's an easy fix, too.

They use Prophet. But they also use an outside scheduling company.

Thanks Shop2LiveinFL. I got my laptop up and running temporarily with an external monitor and checked to see them. I haven't done anything with them recently but apparently I did update my address sometime within the last year.

Even with it being Prophet, if the shop's there and the shopper was able to submit it, then it wasn't canceled.

BMA - Sharon I believe is the scheduler is very flexible. Just email her.

I don't believe the outside scheduling company has anything to do with late or non-payments. You have to deal with the MSC directly for payment issues.

BMA, like most companies, has different schedulers, depending on the shop and/or region. Regarding dealing with schedulers for payment issues, yes, sometimes that is the best route to take initially -- depends on the situation. I've had payment issues resolved via their mediation.