Is anyone familiar with this company? I responded to a posting on guru.com for mystery shoppers. Their reply sent me to a site with no info, just a link to download info. Obviously I don't want to download anything from a company I know nothing about. Anyone have experience with them?

Don't know them, never heard of them. I would judge it by how hyped up the ad was on guru.com. There are a whole lot of "jobs" out there on various employment boards (not mystery shopping websites) that make mystery shopping look like an exciting, fun, very lucrative business to get into. Step #1 is always to send them money for 'leads', Run, don't walk, away from these things. Any Joe Blow can sell you a list of shopping companies that you can get for free here, at Volition.com or on the MSPA web site. Those 'employment' boards are also often rife with making money by processing rebates, making money stuffing envelopes and all the 'standard' scams. While there may possibly be legitimate business opportunities in these areas, you will NOT get a decent and no cost start through the ads.

If you are interested in shopping, go to the Company list at the top of the Mystery Shopping Company Discussion area of this forum. If you want to know what is entailed in being a shopper, check the sticky threads at the top of the New Mystery Shopper section of this forum.

I've been doing mystery shops for almost two years, just hadn't heard of this company. The ad wasn't overly hyped up -- the one other tidbit I found on the company said they pay $1 per online shop and "most shoppers" complete 10 per hour, which may or may not be legit. I just figured I'd see if anyone here had heard of them.

I just found them on allfreelancework.com. and remoteguru.com. The ads are low-key, Flash. Since it's phone work, you might follow it up, and stop if there's any talk of sending them money. Don't worry about downloading instructions if it's a pdf or doc file. They can't have viruses, provided there's no other extension after the pdf or doc. .

As far as making $10/hr doing phone shops, it ain't necessarily so. I did a supposed $5 phone shop for Ann Michaels Inc. a perfectly reputable company, got voicemail twice, had to call back several times, etc.

katybongo--

I signed up as a member of www.allfreelancework with my standard phony name and disposable email address. I'm just curious about the guy with the phone jobs, and maybe some other ads they might have. I'm a geek and an internet power user, and I don't get sucked into anything shady. Will report back to this forum. I can afford to waste a half-hour because I'm already signed up with about 175 legit companies.

Meanwhile, speaking of phone shops, do you know which companies have some?

Bare International sometimes has phone shops. I've done a few for them in the past. They are the only one that comes to mind at the moment. If I think of others, I'll let you know.

Thanks.

I downloaded the file the website is for mysterywebshopping.com. To me, it sounds a lot like the the whole project payday freebie sites.

Yeah, I downloaded it too and decided it wasn't for me.

Sneakers, you asked about companies offering phone shops - I did some really easy ones for MarketForce once. They only paid $1.75 as I recall, but the month I did them, I self-assigned 8 in 3 nights. Called a pizza chain, placed an order, cancelled my order, and filled out a short report.

They also have pet grooming ones from time to time for $3 that aren't bad. But you only get to self-assign a couple of them in the month's group.

Flash Wrote:
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> They also have pet grooming ones from time to time
> for $3 that aren't bad. But you only get to
> self-assign a couple of them in the month's group.

Also MFI?

They have only one pizza anywhere near me. If I owned that store, I'd be mad as heck

Yes.

As for the pizza place . . . I've not done that one (or seen it) but my understanding from other shoppers is that you call back really fast so they haven't gotten the pizza in the oven yet. When you buy a franchise you agree to a fair amount of nonsense such as being mystery shopped, so the 'mad as heck' should only be happening if you get a doodoo shopper who forgets to call back promptly to cancel.

Of course the "unseen" cost of phone shops is the time involved. I did a bank phone call for Informa the other day for $8. The call went well, I spent about 9 minutes on the phone with a charming and well informed banker. It was rather that it took nearly an hour and a half to enter the report that burned me. The "Save" feature on their site was not working after about 90 seconds, so I entered the full form the first time and couldn't send so lost the whole thing. I then tried one question and "Save" and it worked fine, so I finished the report and attempted to "Save" and it wouldn't. I then started the form a third time and tried "Save" about half way through--no dice. So my fourth attempt I saved after every darn question and reluctantly and erratically it saved although a few times I had to re-enter the question from the previously saved version. My internet connection was fine and other websites were working well.

The guidelines on the pizza order/cancel shop were to cancel before the end of the phone call, giving an explanation such as "I've got to take an important call on the other line", etc. No chance that the pizza would be made.

Reports that don't save are maddening, and there's nothing else to do except re-do.

Yup, so all you have wasted is a bit of their time.

Yes, when I find they don't go I snag off any narratives to Word and then go on and print the form too make re-entry faster.