AboutFace

January 21, 2010 10:29PM

Hi everyone,

I just want to put a small warning out about them. I did shops for them last April, September, and most recently in October. Every time I am supposed to get paid, I do not get payment and send an email. I am usually responded to fairly quickly with a note that they are updating their payment system and payment will be sent week of XYZ. This company is apparently updating their payment system every 3 months? Anyways - this causes them to issue payments a month later than promised.

My most recent payment was supposed to be Dec. 18th. Never got it, I emailed and was told it would come this week. Well, it finally came, and the payment was made with a credit card so the paypal fee was set up to come from ME. It was not a huge dollar amount, but that is REALLY shady. The paypal fees should be their cost, not mine.

I emailed them and will see what they say. If I get a response, I'll update this thread, but just thought I would give folks a heads up.

regards.

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January 22, 2010 01:23AM

Not good. I do few shops for them, but payment has been an issue since last summer, as noted on other threads. I also kept receiving notice of their payment system being updated. And, it seemed that when shoppers chased after a late payment, only then did they get paid. We have asked Heather, their Ambassador, to address these issues here, but she has not. I'm assuming you did not receive any communication from AF that payments using PayPal would have a fee. And, I don't recall them offering any other means of payment.

January 22, 2010 10:30AM

I have always been paid on time via check for this MSC.

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January 22, 2010 04:04PM

I did get an initial response that she was not sure what I was talking about. I sent her the paypal fee information that states the payment was made with a credit card and the sender elected to have the recipient pay the fees....and no response.
I'm not going to continue to contact them because it simply is not worth my time...I will just discontinue working with them.

Take care and happy shoppin'!

January 23, 2010 01:05AM

I quit working for this company a long tome ago.

January 23, 2010 01:50AM

joanna81, before you give up, try e-mailing Heather, heather.stokes@aboutfacecorp.com. She is their shopper ambassador and she used to be very responsive. I also quit working for them over a pay issue - I was paid less than the amount in place when I accepted the shop. Heather answered my pay inquiry immediately, telling me About Face had xmade changes to the fees of all the shops on a certain date (AFTER I accepted the shop but before I completed it). I didn't like her answer and won't shop for them again (blatently unfair to shoppers to not honor the terms/fees in place when the shopper accepts the shop!), but I appreciated that she gave me an answer, and very quickly. You may still choose to not shop for them again, but it's a shame to leave with money owed you.....

January 23, 2010 07:47PM

Hi AustinMom - thanks for the response. I agree about walking away from money - this was a matter of 62 cents....which is why I wasn't going to dedicate a lot of time to it.

I did receive another email from them about the payment. They explained that Paypal was forcing them to pay us as a service, and not a personal payment as they used to in the past...And this is what was causing the fees to be generated and taken from our payments.
She requested that I send a screen shot of the paypal fees, and refund the payment so that they could get things straightened out with Paypal. I do appreciate their responsiveness in this situation and I will continue to post updates as to how this is handled.

January 23, 2010 07:52PM

What is strange about this is - Why on earth would Paypal select only one MSC of the many who pay using them and ask them to pay as a service and the others as personal. Perhaps they have someone in accounting who decided that doing this would save them from having to pay the fee, and push it on the shopper. After all, they already discontinued bonuses and they also reneged on bonuses previously agreed to.

January 23, 2010 07:59PM

Since I did so few shops for them in the past, I never really noticed the trend of them "upgrading their payment system" all the time until this past shop.

I do also wonder why none of the other companies I shop for had this issue either. The only other company I had a problem with was one that paid me with a credit card, but I was actually aware of that up front, and they paid a bit extra to cover the fees.

January 23, 2010 08:00PM

Oh, 62 cents! guess I wouldn't bother, either .... I was thinking you were losing a whole fee..... I liked them well enough when I worked for them but really haven't missed them since last March when I stopped shopping for them. It's still a shame that About Face is not as responsive to its shoppers as it used to be. Maybe AF has lost a lot of shoppers and isn't really working on shopper relationships anymore.

January 23, 2010 08:02PM

I find it also fascinating because I know of only one other company that charges fees to use Paypal. My significant other does a fair amount of free lance work that is not mystery shopping and is paid usually $100 or more at a time via Paypal and with no fees.

I also wonder about the legality of pushing the fees onto shoppers. I don't recall whether About Face allows one to work for them if you DON'T accept Paypal. If they will send you a check by mail with no fee, then you have an option to collect your full fee. If they don't, then they are offering you no manner in which to collect your full fee as promised.

The other company that passes along Paypal fees does allow direct deposit with no reduction in contract price.

January 23, 2010 10:46PM

I'm told that their only payment option is PayPal, and although there's been no 'official' word from AF on charging shoppers a PP fee within the shop details, it does appear to be the case.

January 24, 2010 03:47AM

Well, About Face said I was the first one to report this, so perhaps it happened to other shoppers who didn't speak up. I am not shy about questioning anything when it comes to my money! LOL.

I think our fees have taken enough of a hit as it is...Let alone to let companies pass THEIR cost of doing business on to us. At the very least, it should be disclosed and if people still want to shop for them, that's their choice.

I also think the companies that pass fees on to shoppers should not be able to be part of the MSPA because essentially, if we have to pay a fee to get paid, that's the same as "paying to shop"....

I'll continue to update as I hear more info!

January 24, 2010 04:22PM

I believe that they payment issue in question may be the result of whether the sender is using mass pay when making payment. If I am not mistaken, when sending payment, unless the sender uses mass pay, the fee is charged to the recipient.

dee shops Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What is strange about this is - Why on earth would
> Paypal select only one MSC of the many who pay
> using them and ask them to pay as a service and
> the others as personal. Perhaps they have someone
> in accounting who decided that doing this would
> save them from having to pay the fee, and push it
> on the shopper. After all, they already
> discontinued bonuses and they also reneged on
> bonuses previously agreed to.

January 24, 2010 07:07PM

I think I have heard something like that about paypal and mass pay before.

But then the issue remains why the MSC is paying via a method that charges the shopper for the costs of doing business incurred by the MSC.

January 24, 2010 07:25PM

And certainly business standards say that if you are paying a debt by check you don't deduct the cost of the postage stamp from the amount due. It is rather your obligation to get the payment due, in full, to the recipient. Can you imagine if you paid your mortgage or utility bills the vendor's response if you reduced the amount of payment by your cost of a stamp and an envelope? They would slap on underpayment penalties in a heartbeat.

January 24, 2010 07:27PM

Or the IRS? LOL!

January 25, 2010 06:30AM

What is strange is that, yes, their site says they only pay by Paypal. I got doubting my memory after reading all this, so went back through my Paypal payments for the last year today. I have never received a Paypal payment from them. I have only done 3 shops for them in the past year, two have been paid, BY CHECK. The other was done at the end of December and is not due until February. I will have to wait and see what happens, but I will not take getting shorted, even for less than a dollar, lightly. They need to deal with their costs of doing business, just like we don;t charge them for any paperwork we have to scan or print for a shop. Geez. I wait, and will report here.

January 25, 2010 12:27PM

I have done two shops for them, and have had to chase them down twice. Just yesterday I received an email from Heather regarding my latest pay inquiry, with the same story that they were "updating" their system and I would be paid via paypal this week. We'll see.

January 25, 2010 04:50PM

My guess is that they may not fully comprehend how to utilize the paypal system without creating fees on the shopper end.

The mass pay requires the funds to clear into the MSCs paypal account before sending them. It's usually a few days, like when you withdraw money.

For a one-shot payment to you, they should have issued an echeck, which will make you wait those few days to get the money after it's issued, but will not result in a fee being charged.

They obviously selected 'immediate payment', which has to be backed by a credit card if they don't have the funds in their account, and that's why you were charged a fee.

January 25, 2010 05:06PM

But once again a company with payment issues--slow and tortuous. Probably time to think twice before working with this company as fees, in my experience, are not generous enough to risk non-payment, justify payment chasing or getting payments reduced because the cash flow is not there to have them fully paid by Paypal in a timely fashion.

January 27, 2010 12:28AM

Well - just for a note - I sent back the screen shot of paypal fees that was requested and refunded them the payment but have not heard back. I will email Heather and see what is going on and let you guys know.

January 27, 2010 12:39AM

SteveSoCal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My guess is that they may not fully comprehend how
> to utilize the paypal system without creating fees
> on the shopper end.
>
> The mass pay requires the funds to clear into the
> MSCs paypal account before sending them. It's
> usually a few days, like when you withdraw money.
>
> For a one-shot payment to you, they should have
> issued an echeck, which will make you wait those
> few days to get the money after it's issued, but
> will not result in a fee being charged.
>
> They obviously selected 'immediate payment', which
> has to be backed by a credit card if they don't
> have the funds in their account, and that's why
> you were charged a fee.

But why the change? Up until now, there has been no PP fee (she says, giggling) from AF during the years I've shopped for them.

January 27, 2010 01:24AM

I'm just guessing, but some undercapitalized MSCs that I have been working for have taken to just paying the 'squeaky wheels', it seems, and sending eChecks rather than using mass pay.

If AF had been using mass pay in the past and just sent a one-off payment to a 'squeaky wheel', they either did know about the eCheck process, or simply didn't have the cash in the bank to make the payment and opted for using a credit card to pay joanna....hence, the charge.

Either way, it's a bad sign for any shoppers working for this MSC.

January 27, 2010 06:21PM

Well, all, Heather was indeed very responsive to me and re-issued the payment today, which came through without any additional fees. I do appreciate her help but have decided I'd rather not work with companies that I have to chase down the payment. The time spent on the shop is enough, let alone to have to continually monitor, email, etc to get paid. There ARE companies that pay like clockwork and I'll stick with those.

January 27, 2010 07:43PM

Joanna81, a lot of us have evolved to that position. It makes sense to check forums to see if payment issues have been resolved for companies that have been an issue. Certainly most shops pay barely enough to justify getting them assigned, studied for, performed and reported. To add on the additional time and inconvenience for payment chasing just reduces their profitability. Life is a little short for that. There is only one company I still work with that has pay issues and I do a job only when I have been paid in full for the previous one.

January 28, 2010 06:34PM

I completed a shop for them Sept. 28 and just got paid yesterday!! Yikes, now I know. Took over 4 months.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2010 11:02PM by jbaetke.

January 28, 2010 06:45PM

I did a shop on December 22nd. It was scheduled to be paid on February 8th, according to their web site. I was paid today. I was paid via Paypal (first time ever from them...I checked my PP account earlier this week to make sure) and I was not charged any fees. That was a happy surprise! I was expecting it might be late and that I would have to fight over less than a dollar, given the recent feedback here.

March 06, 2010 03:29PM

Uh oh. I completed my first shops for them this past week. I believe the website says payment is issued within 45 days, so now I'll really be on alert!

March 06, 2010 05:17PM

Nicelytwicely, yep, I'd make sure to stay on top of the payment. I think for the most part, they're usually nice to deal with, if you need to ask questions or reschedule a shop. For me personally, 4 out of 4 shops for them have involved me inquiring and waiting on the payment....so...it will be rare for me to take a shop with them again.

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