Reminds me of an episode of Twilight Zone when Burgess Meridith was a near sighted banker with thick glasses. If I recall it was called "Time Enough at Last".

I'm curious how many people saw the horrid things he wrote to the rep at Bestmark before they were edited. In addition to being vile they were racist as hell.

Yep.

I read the original post and quoted the objectionable parts in my first response. Here they are again:

> >
> > Your Department and your man
> > that has this attitude. I can see you have a
> > selected reading disorder. May Islam take your
> > family
> >
>
> > Oh that's is right I live and work in USA not
> in
> > the third world company you want me to work for.

Other than that, it was a bunch of IC violations and personal information that was edited out.

I don't see anything I consider racist. To me "May Islam take your family" is kind of like "to hell with all of you". For all I know it means the same thing, which is nothing. I'd have to have more information on Muslim curses to know whether it's any worse than "to hell with all of you" or not. Maybe it's kind of like "@#$%& you and the horse you rode up on, too". I think it's objectionable and I don't like seeing it here. I'm glad it was moderated and I'm counting on the scrambler to work on my own applicable quotes and clean them up.

"I can see you have a selected reading disorder" is mild compared to a lot of what slides by. The next comment about the third world company is just a jab at Best Mark. In my opinion BestMark had that one coming. I didn't like the response either. If I don't want to accept 35 cents a mile that doesn't mean maybe I should not be mystery shopping and I take issue they would make that suggestion. That suggestion sets tall in the saddle on that horse they rode up on, too.

This is nothing more than a new shopper getting into a tiff with an MSC. The shopper is new, but the MSC has been around a long time and should have known how to gracefully and tactfully say they were not willing to pay more than 35 cents a mile but perhaps we can do something together another time. If their attitude is that anyone who is not willing to accept 35 cents a mile should be not be mystery shopping, I think maybe they have a problem bigger than a reading disorder.

May your family be murdered by one specific religious group is not exactly the equivalent of to hell with you and the implications about Muslims go without saying.

Yep. I saw them. If someone made threats like that where I work, they could get fired. I know Bestmark frequents this forum. I wonder if they saw them before they were edited.

I already stated I'm glad the comment was moderated out, and I said in my first response I understood why BestMark dropped him. He shouldn't have made that comment, it was out of line, and they did the right thing terminating the relationship. I'm also saying I don't understand how serious the comment was. If Geary is intending to take out someone's family I certainly would not condone that. If BestMark or if anyone here feels it is a terrorist threat, then they should report it to the authorities for investigation rather than simply complaining about it on a forum.

Agreeing Geary shouldn't have said that does not mean they handled the situation well up to that point, but like always we never know all the particulars. In this case we only know what Geary told us but it does look like their comment that he shouldn't be mystery shopping is what set him off. I'm saying both sides here could have done a better job resolving their problem and it should have never come here in the first place.

As to implications about Muslims, I learned all I want to know on 911 and every day since on the news. There may have been a racist related comment in one of the emails, but I truly believe this is not a racist issue. The issue here is over the amount of the mileage offered and rejected and the subsequent suggestion that Geary should not be mystery shopping. The suggestion doesn't seem like the sort of thing a professional company would say to someone.

It seems they made that decision before he made the comment, right?

Not sure, I'll read again.

Linda, I believe you're right. It looks like they terminated him after the comment about the third world country. The comment we've been discussing seems to have been included in his answering email back to them, so they didn't terminate based on a perceived threat but terminated over his attitude toward the mileage offered.

I think the source of the conflict was when OP erroneously believed he was entitled to 56 cents a mile just because the IRS allows that for a deduction. He did not realize that the incremental operating cost of most vehicles is in the 30-40 cent range, and the rest of the allowance is for things he would pay for even if the car never left the garage, such as insurance and depreciation.

So he felt 35 cents a mile was an insult, which it was not, even if he did not feel it was quite enough (it does not compensate for driving time). I suspect he has not been self-employed long and is used to getting the full 56 cents for business travel from employers. Somewhere he missed the part about when you're self-employed, you pay your own operating costs. If you can negotiate a bonus, that's great, but the MSC doesn't owe it to the shopper just because the shopper wants to shop out of their immediate area.

His comment about the third world country had to do with the lower pay rates in those areas, where 35 cents a mile might be a windfall. I'm not sure where the Islam comment came from but it was in extremely poor taste to make it and could be construed as a threat.

It appears he has left the building now, but if he is going to make it as a shopper he has a lot to learn. Primarily that the pay rates are set by the MSC and client, not the shopper. You either take the offer, make a counteroffer, or don't do the shop.

If he keeps burning bridges like this he's going to find himself on a lot of blacklists and no shops to do anyway at any price.

I had a similar experience at bestmark that was not this nasty.
I did a shop for them once when was an add on to an out of area route.


A couple years later BM asks if I am available to do that location again.
I stated no, it was to far.
They stated I had done it before and I explained it was part of a out of area route.
They offered a whopping 20% bonus. $ 4 on a $20 shop.

It was a 150 mile each way and I was NOT driving 300 miles roundtrip for one shop for $24.

The scheduler responded I should not be signed up a mystery shopper if I am not going to accept work that was presented to me.

It did not get nasty and I was not threatened with termination but there was a definite attitude on their part I should drop what I am doing and run anytime they contact me to do work no matter what.

jackaroe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> The scheduler responded I should not be signed up
> a mystery shopper if I am not going to accept work
> that was presented to me.
>


Uh, that would make us employees. If a scheduler ever said that to me I would tell them to go pound sand. And then I would try to find the scheduler's supervisor to let them know the scheduler was violating their own ICA by trying to "assign" work to me without permission.

jackaroe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> The scheduler responded I should not be signed up
> a mystery shopper if I am not going to accept work
> that was presented to me.
>

Congrats on not letting it get nasty after that. I couldn't have kept my cool. I have a line and that would have crossed it. I'm afraid I'd have to go all spider monkey on that scheduler.

I had a similar situation with Maritz. I had a route to a city 90 miles away [180-200 mile round trip]. I picked up a couple of their shops down there. I still get calls asking me to do them again. They have always been polite when I explained the situation...but if I'm ever there again, I will check their site to see if I can get anything in the area.


jackaroe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had a similar experience at bestmark that was
> not this nasty.
> I did a shop for them once when was an add on to
> an out of area route.
>
>
> A couple years later BM asks if I am available to
> do that location again.
> I stated no, it was to far.
> They stated I had done it before and I explained
> it was part of a out of area route.
> They offered a whopping 20% bonus. $ 4 on a $20
> shop.
>
> It was a 150 mile each way and I was NOT driving
> 300 miles roundtrip for one shop for $24.
>
>

My experience is similar to James. I do shops far from home when I am visiting family. I get many phone calls asking if I will go to these places.No,one has been nasty to me but I usually have repeat my explanation of how far away it is.

I believe that if the company pays 35 cents and the IRS allows more you can put the difference on your taxes. I just wonder why someone would drive that far away to do a shop. I have some here in Denver for Vail that have what seems to be large bonuses of $50.00 plus but when you add in the mileage and time are not worth it unless you are going there, same for some small town phone shops. When there are shops that have a negative to them, like airport shops I will email the scheduler and say I will do them if i can get all 3 since then the drive and hassle of getting onto the concourse is reduced. No hard feelings if they say no, it is all a matter of they don't have to offer any more incentives and I don't have to take any shop.

The IRS allows us to claim 0.56 per mile as a deductible expense. What we ask the MSC to pay, what the MSC is willing to pay, or what we actually spend to own/operate the vehicle has no bearing on the 0.56 mileage rate the IRS allows us to claim.

My one and only experience with BestMark was just as ugly as Geary's. They have the social grace of barn animals over there.

However, threatening a total stranger's family over a rude comment and refusal to pay your quoted rate? WTF?
This is not a new shopper misunderstanding how things work. This is a guy with some anger issues and a hair trigger.

I understand the effort to be nice and all but seriously. Why would we want to even suggest these kinds of comments are acceptable under any circumstances?

This is sort of a weird thread, but the IRS does NOT pay .56 per mile. They let you deduct that much. Ergo, if you are reimbursed .35/mile, you can deduct an additional .21/mile, when you file your taxes, and .56/mile, if you get NO reimbursement. Just sayin..

A fomer scheduler for Mercantile told me if I did not accept a $15 shop 40 miles from home (that I had previusly done as part of a route) I woud never see another of their high end hotel shops (for which myaverage score was 10). The ensuing investigation apparently revealed that this was part of her MO. She was terminated and I was invited to again apply for their hotel shops.

Does anyone here actually consider taking work that works out to 35 cents a mile? That's really low, at least from my experience. Maybe my situation is more unique than I think, and if that's the case I certainly apologize if I'm offending. When I did freelance fieldwork (MSing, merchandising, facility audits, product retrieval, whatever someone would pay me to do) full time a few years back I would basically do a lap around my city of 40-45 miles performing jobs and I would make $80-$120 on average. I always look at jobs from 2 angles, dollars per hour and dollars per mile. Fifty cents per mile is about as low I will go. A dollar per mile is ok, and 2 bucks per mile is really good. There's no way I would drive over 100 miles for a job that would make me 35 cents a mile. I do jobs now for my "honeyhole" company that routinely pay me over $3 a mile (it's amazing!).

Teacherguy - There are still people here who insist that recovering the cost of gasoline is all that is required per mile since they would be paying for everything else anyway. How they can rationalize that when it comes to tire wear, oil changes, brakes and many other things is beyond my ability to understand. I do my best to point out the IRS mileage rate whenever the opportunity arises, but some people are still convinced that paying for their gasoline is all that matters. There is some basis for saying that car insurance is paid for anyway.

I subtract the mileage (at the IRS rate) for each job, and then ask if the fee which remains is enough for the time invested. You seem to roll it all together. Since I generally find that 1/3 of fees is used for mileage, that would suggest that I average $1.68 per mile if I don't subtract the IRS mileage rate off the top.

I calculated a rate of 40 cents a mile for operating costs for my car. Insurance, depreciation, wiper blades, car washes are part of the 56 cents a mile allowance but are averages based on factors other than miles (wiper blades dry and crack whether you use them or not; cars get dirty even sitting in a garage; insurance and license must be paid regardless of miles; even tires will age and crack and need to be replaced even if not worn out). Your actual cost per mile is based on your miles per gallon and whether you do some of your own services yourself or pay a dealer for those oil changes. The IRS rate I think is based on 20-23 mpg or so. Most economy cars get 30 or more. My hybrid gets 40. So the 56 cent rate is going to be very generous for most passenger cars, and inadequate for most of the rest.

Each person needs to calculate their own costs based on their own mpg and their own tires and their own service costs. If you buy 30,000 mile tires you will go through them faster than if you get 75,000 mile tires. Take the price of the set of four tires, mounted and balanced, divide it by the guaranteed mileage, and you'll get the cost per mile for the tires. $500 for 50,000 mile tires = 1 cent per mile. My next tires will be 75,000 mile tires for about $600 total so it will be even less than a penny per mile for tires. Gas is down to $2.50 a gallon or less right now. For 40 mpg, that's less than 8 cents a mile for gas. I paid $20,000 for my car and expect to drive it 80,000 miles before I get tired of it. That's only 25 cents a mile depreciation assuming I would throw it on the scrap heap at that point (and it would probably still be worth 1/3 to 1/2 of what I paid for it at that point). 25 plus 8 plus 1 cent for tires plus 2 cents for oil -- that's 36 cents a mile. So I can afford to go do a job for 40 cents a mile and know that I am not going to be out of pocket for the trip.

The point I have repeatedly tried to make is that the incremental cost of operating a typical economy car for a mile is *not* 56 cents a mile. If someone passes up work because they can't get 56 cents a mile, they may be missing an opportunity that would actually put money in their pocket even after feeding the car. On the other hand, if your only vehicle gets 15 mpg, you should plan only to do local shops because the travel cost will almost certainly eat up most of your fees.

And if the trip is for several shops, I just figure how much went to feed the car and the rest is my pay for the day. If I don't have any other options for making money that day, it's my decision if I want to go for a drive and end up with $50 net for the day when I'd rather have $100 or if I want to sit on my butt and make nothing, secure in the knowledge that I taught some cheapskate MSC a lesson -- while they simply give the job to someone else anyway and put me on their "difficult and demanding" list of shoppers to call last.

I've put $8000 in the bank *after* paying for the car expenses by taking jobs under conditions that some people here would sneer at. But I shop for my reasons, not theirs.

Each person should do their own calculations and make their own decision and figure up at the end of the year if they have more money than they would have had if they had not shopped. That's really the only thing that matters, after all. Not whether they "won" by refusing to work for less than 56 cents a mile for travel.

If you had a wage job and a 15 mile commute, that would be 150 miles a week nobody was reimbursing you for that you can't deduct from your taxes. So don't lose perspective by focusing on the notion that you should be reimbursed for driving to a mystery shop. You're self-employed. How you get to the jobsite is your problem, not the MSC's.

HA! It's kind of ironic with this OP that Bestmark just created this blog post.

[www.bestmark.com]

"Because your time is limited and precious, you will want to take on the jobs that let you make the most money. "

It's called a ROUTE, people. If one MSP offers a bonus that works out to .35/miles, toss in a few convenience stores, and possibly a bonused FF or grocery shop along that way and, voila, there's a decent day's haul.

Bravo, dspeakes, you have nailed the issue 100%.

Changed my mind about this comment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2014 01:27AM by MDavisnowell.

MDavisnowell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can understand the sexual harassment complaint
> at BBB if the staff there wear their name tags the
> same way as the staff I've shopped. The name tags
> were on lanyards booby high and were difficult to
> read. It took some intense scrutiny to come up
> with some names, and some of them were not legible
> at all. Had I been male those ladies (and their
> girls) might have taken exception.

I am a male and I can not understand why an ice cream company would want a name of the only employee in the store when a description would do. If they wanted a name it should be on the receipt. If a company wanted me to look at a female's chest area they should make the print on the name tag bigger so I can read it quickly. I could ask the young lady, (they are all young), for her name. I can understand why a female clerk would think, “Why would this "dirty old man" want to know my name?” or “This guy must be the Mystery Shopper”. I feel like a "dirty old man" or I have "mystery shopper" written on my forehead when I attempt to read a name tag. The last time I asked a clerk for her name was when I was in high school and the clerk was the same age. I did not feel awkward at all asking for her name. Yes, I did get the date more often than not. If you don't ask you don't get..they can only say yes or no. If they said, "no" I said, "next"!

Dave,
There are many, many ways to get names without being accused of ogling name tags, so maybe you need to read up on some tricks of the trade. If the client wants name,s ours not to reason why. By getting a name and a description you may have revealed, without realizing it, that the SA was wearing someone else's name tag.