@Manya88 wrote:

I'm writing this post in an effort to inform those of you who are considering work with GFK. They are difficult to work for to say the least. They are unresponsive when it does not benefit them. They will scrutinize your work with the intention of denying payment. This is how they operate. The goal is always to find some small error with your report in order to disqualify your shop. They retain all your data which they use with absolutely no payment to you. Personally, I don't know how they get away with it. In any other working environment, you would be paid for your work and allowed to make any needed corrections. Not with GFK. I'm convinced their business model is to hire for a shop, look for some error (often correctable) and deny payment. This is a cost-effective way for this company to obtain good data for their client companies for absolutely no cost to them. It's routine for GFK. Fattens up their bottom line!

There are many reputable mystery shopper companies out there. Save yourself the time effort and frustration by passing on GFK.

I just completed a detailed report for GFK and they gave me the opportunity to add to my report after I had submitted it. I had misread a few of the questions and they emailed me to re-read them and re-enter my information. I thought that was very good of them since I had made the mistake and they could have just rejected my report and re-posted the job. I will cross my fingers that all will be well with the outcome.

I have repeatedly tried to get full payment for a shop I did back in June 2015. The scheduler added a bonus to this deadline (and inconvenient for me) assignment.

Shop was completed without any communication from the scheduler or the editing department. If there was an issue with my work, I was not advised.

Within two weeks I received payment. Yeah! But only partial payment. Boo! My email query to the scheduler was immediately answered. The shop fee that I was promised was confirmed and I was assured that the partial payment would be corrected.

Well, it's now almost December and I have still not been fully paid. My emails to the scheduler and company go unanswered. I've been a full-time shopper for over 10 years, received an award from the MSPA and pride myself on doing assignments to the best of my ability. All I am asking from GFK is to be paid the promised fee for the work that I completed.

I am a very unhappy camper. Beware fellow shoppers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2015 04:32AM by JanInCalifornia.

@niclinblue wrote:

I just completed a detailed report for GFK and they gave me the opportunity to add to my report after I had submitted it. I had misread a few of the questions and they emailed me to re-read them and re-enter my information. I thought that was very good of them since I had made the mistake and they could have just rejected my report and re-posted the job. I will cross my fingers that all will be well with the outcome.

Exactly. MSCs don't want to re-post a job if just a couple tweaks from the scheduled shopper will make the report acceptable to the client. It's SO much more work to re-do the entire "post a shop/schedule it/shop it/edit it" process than to just fix minor errors in a report.

hello DanteScheduler, can you please message me to help me get ready to be a scheduler for gfk ?

I had a similar experience with a BS non-payment claim from GFK. And it bums me out because I really thought they were awesome!
In October, I performed a beverage census shop for them; these shops require detailed information on soda sales/fountains/vending along with sign info for any eligible location within a specific mapped area, selected at random. The pay was $75 base plus more based on # of auditable locations. Depending on your luck of the draw, there could be 25 places to audit or there could be none. It was fun and easy (because of the SassieRover app) and, as my usual experience, they paid within 2 weeks!
Later, I received another beverage census assignment from them that was a bit far, but had a huge bonus (total pay base of $250, with additional revenue for each location, etc.) End of the month desperation, I figured I scored!
I completed the job on time, as scheduled, meeting their rush job priority; I spent an entire Saturday afternoon doing it, 65 miles each way to a city I had lived in only 2 years earlier (read: I know that area) To my disappointment, there wasn't a single qualified establishment in the assigned map area. I am CERTAIN of this point; I drove every street twice. No establishments, only a post office, 2 schools, a huge park, a tattoo parlor, mortgage broker, and a tire repair shop. The area was bordered on the south by the freeway and on the north by a wash/creek. No biggie, though, since I'd still get the base $250.
I contacted the scheduler (who had always been great) when I hadn't received payment 3 weeks later. I was told the job was voided, payment forfeited, because "another shopper had found a qualified location, a restaurant, within the area". When pressed as to the details of said location, I was told that information was unable to be shared with me. I said that's ludicrous, that there aren't any locations there. She said I had to just accept that there WAS and forget about it. About now, her email replied to me were taking longer to receive. Since the explanation given me was, CLEARLY unacceptable, I asked for the name of someone higher up to speak with.
I called, left messages, and emailed this "supervisor" numerous times over the following two weeks; I NEVER received a response. My last attempt was to bypass both schedulers and email GFK directly, hoping to get some sorry of resolve. Never heard back from anyone.
I'm pretty confident that, because the mapped area had no qualifying locations, GFK probably wasn't going to be able to collect full payment from their client. Unfortunately, I was the loser in the transaction.
Sigh.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2016 12:46PM by medievallass.

Hi There. I remember you. You reached out to me and we had several email exchanges regarding this situation. I was the person that indicated I could not share the findings of another independent contractor with you, and I am the scheduling manager for GfK. That fact still remains. I cannot share that information with you, and it is an unfortunate situation. When our client reaches out with concerns on completion, we are able to review past data and see that, in fact, there were several 'hole in the wall' locations on your route that were missed. I am empathetic to your concerns over travel and loss of revenue, but sometimes we have to make decisions that best fit the business. In this case, the route was flagged as incomplete, and we had to research your results. It happens from time to time. Rest assured, it is not personal.

I'm sure this response doesn't help the burn of what happened, but I wanted to make sure I addressed it again since it's clearly something you feel was not handled appropriately. Feel free to contact me any time @ carey.medina@gfk.com. Keep in mind, I cannot change the decision that was made, but maybe I can help you understand the bigger picture. Either way - I wish you well.

Carey Medina
Scheduling Manager, GfK

While you didn't say specifically, can we assume GFK actually verified those locations were still in business rather than relying on previous audit data alone?

".......we are able to review past data and see that, in fact, there were several 'hole in the wall' locations on your route that were missed."

I want to say I have been working for GFK for almost a year and GFK has been nothing but a pleasure to work for! I plan my mystery shopping around GFK, they are my main! I used to do cell phone announced audits for them, and when those went away I now do electronics announced audits for them. I have found the schedulers to be extremely easy to talk to.

Were you reaching out to the incorrect email for the scheduler? All of the schedulers have two emails. One is to send auto alerts when shops are due and always end in @gfkmysteryshops.com Every email that comes with that tag says "do not reply to this email it will not be answered". The schedulers then have the email to be contacted directly, their name is the exact same as what is in front of the auto-email name, but the end tag is @ext.gfk.com.

I will say the editors are difficult to get ahold of anytime I have tried to reach out to an editor I either have to wait DAYS for the editor to get back to me or I just don't hear anything at all, but the schedulers every time I reach out to them I have never had a problem they usually get back to me in no more then 2 hours if not immediately, and I still have emailed them when it is an editor issue too (I still include the editor in the email, but the scheduler usually is the one that takes care of the issue).

GFK has been nothing but awesome! I've had route issues with bad snow where I had three days and three shops(that could only be performed one per day) one of which was in a different schedulers area. I reached out to both schedulers to switch around the shop days to better route me around the bad weather conditions and it was fixed no problem in an hour. I've reached out to schedulers 2 weeks before the next month to sign up for shops I wanted before they hit the job board and have been able to do so. I just had a scheduler yesterday give me a hero citation on my shop log for being a reliable shopper which is graded as though it's 10 shops that I got a 10 rating for! Above all else I always get payment for my shops 10-14 days after I perform the shop which is huge for me as a mystery shopper since we usually have to wait anywhere from a month to 3 months! Getting payment so fast is like heaven! I think they're the quickest paying MSC in the biz.

I have had one shop get excluded, it was an internet shop where I had to sign up for insurance. I did so on my tablet, it actually didn't say anywhere in the guidelines that I couldn't perform the shop on my tablet. The editor resubmitted asking to clarify the device I used was a tablet. I said yes it was and she excluded it as "incorrect device used". I was a bit mad about that one cause there really was nothing in the guidelines saying I couldn't use a tablet. But I also understand it was probably something where they couldn't use it for the client even though they had forgotten to mention it in the guidelines. It's a drop in the bucket to all the awesomeness of working for GFK.

GFK isn't for everyone though. If announced audits are not your thing then you probably won't like it since right now that is the only kind of shop they are posting (at least in my area). But I LOVE my announced audits! GFK is awesome, I'm sorry you had this experience but if the MSC could not submit your report due to errors that is what happens

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2016 05:04PM by 1JJ.

Absolutely. The locations were visited, verified, audited and successfully reported to our to our client during this program in 2015. Great question!

Thanks for clarifying.

Carey, thank you for responding! I assure you, there were NO QUALIFIED ESTABLISHMENTS on that route. The faoct that you expect me to just take your word for it when you haven't been there is just bad business. Period. And your "policy" of not sharing the location (with an IC that's performed other audits for GFK successfully) is faulty; any business that would have qualified for the census, a restaurant much less, is a service establishment whose address is PUBLIC. So your argument has no validity as far as I'm concerned. You've provided nothing to substantiate your claim!
I'll be happy to email you privately, but you've already stated that there is no point in doing so. Darn.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2016 06:00PM by medievallass.

Until this issue, a $250 issue, GFK was my favorite company to do shops for! They pay quickly and can be reached by phone with relatively little hassle. The scheduler I was dealing with initially was Dorita, not Carey. Carey is the manager whom I NEVER received a reply from, not via phone or email (both of which I had received directly from Dorita (I'm not sure why Carey asserts she was the scheduler or that we ever communicated... we didn't!) And even Dorita stopped correspondence with me; that was not surprising since I refused to accept her word for it without a shed evidence to back it up (I wouldn't have wanted to deal with me either! Lol). The dual email addresses were not an issue as I had been corresponding with her before, during, and after this second census completion.
Thank you for coming in on the topic for me, LisaSTL.

Just another point regarding editing for GFK. Nearly all of the editing is outsourced to another company. Those editors are not there to continually reply to emails once their editing has been completed. They may send out some emails inquiring about the shop/audit you have done and reply again if they have not received the full understanding of your entries, etc., but after that they are under no obligation to stay in communication.

Sadly this kind of behavior is not surprising from GFK starting maybe 2 years ago now. It is no wonder why they only have one client left. Just as an outsider looking in if Medievallass is correct when she stated they told her she had missed one restaurant but could not verify details is it not funny that later on all of a sudden its several "hole in the wall" locations missed. In my Opinion this make GFK look suspicious. Again sadly Medievallass will not see a dime of what in my opinion is money she is owed as I tend to believe her despite being new to the forum because of personal experience and hearing others experience with GFK over the last 2 years.
Medievallass if I were you I would seriously consider no longer working for GFK but that is up to you.

Thank you, BuffaloNY101, so much for all you said. It's seems like a no brainer to me that they should offer something, ANYTHING, to make verification possible! But no.... Weird.
I am definitely not working for them again! Age has given me a little wisdom, at least!

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!"

Namaste to all you wonderful shoppers out there!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2016 07:14AM by medievallass.

What I never understood about the program is why the auditor wouldn't have been provided with a list of previously audited locations. It always left me with the feeling the MSC would be just as happy to have the auditor fail and/or didn't want them to really know how much work might be involved.

I certainly take all of your feedback seriously, and I appreciate it. We do the best we can to run the program as our client specifies. Contrary to popular belief, we WANT to pay our shoppers. Whenever we have to cancel and reschedule, it puts us at risk for not meeting deadlines among a host of other loop holes we need to jump through etc. Although some rules and guidelines may not seem fair, we do our best to be completely transparent from the beginning. We were clear in stating the requirements of the program and even hosted weekly information sessions so auditors understood the scope of work. We won't always agree, but I do my best to do the right thing for our panelists.

Carey Medina

I didn't use the word fair and would not. It makes no sense to send an auditor in blind. Being provided a list of previously audited locations would solve several problems and save everyone time down the line. Say restaurant XYZ was audited in 2012 and is no longer there in 2015. The auditor could make a note of whether the location had moved or closed it's doors. I understand the idea may have been to also find new locations, but knowing what was there before would not stand in the way of achieving that objective.

Personally, I find weekly conference calls to be big time wasters for an IC unless they are being paid to attend. I have had ongoing audits with a company for three years now. On the rare occasions we have conference calls, we are paid well and the call is limited to no more than one hour. The person running them is excellent in that she does not waste any time nor allow any interruptions. Questions are saved until the end so everyone who does not have a question is free to sign off. She also doesn't just spend time reading the materials we have been sent in advance.

I"m thinking that it's entirely possible that a location that had been audited at one point in 2015 might have closed by later in the year. So, although it existed when Auditor Smith did it, it no longer did by the time medievallass went there. Although others have asked or alluded to how GFK verified the locations' existences, I don't see that Carey has directly answered, other than referencing past audit verification. Has nobody from GFK or the client tried to do a field verification? Seems to me that's the way to do it, not rely on past data. Who knows? Maybe the first auditor was the one who falsified information. I imagine it happens sometimes.

Although it's not quite the same thing, I did a shop locally for GFK some time ago, and the street name was listed incorrectly. Since I live nearby, I knew what street it was and it wasn't a problem. But if a route shopper who was just passing through and picked up that shop had punched in the address given, he or she might not have gotten a match on the address. Does that mean the shopper would be at fault if the information provided was itself faulty? Theoretically speaking, since there are other ways to verify the address, but if there weren't, where would that leave the shopper?

I feel like your our Big Sister trying to protect us all Lisa! Thank's for being you and calling out things with a honest, open and objective manner! Your like the younger tough sister I wish I had!

BirdyC,
THANK YOU so much for noticing that Carey has not directly answered my question; it confirms that I'm not the only one feeling confused here! If I am incorrect in my certainty that there were no auditable locations, then so be it! I don't have that big of an ego when it comes to accepting my own mistakes. But GFK should make some sort of effort to prove to me I am mistaken!
So, I am going to ask her again for clarification, and I would appreciate any and all support from this community or feedback if you believe my thinking is crooked on this one...

Carey,
1. You maintain my completed audit was invalid it wasn't complete. The scheduler, Dorita told me directly that "another shopper found a qualified location, a restaurant."
2. GFK made this decision unilaterally without any attempt to contact me. I wasn't told about the decision, much less given the opportunity to remedy the alleged discrepancy.
3. GFK has provided nothing tangible to substantiate its claim. Instead, you keep refusing to address straight forward questions.
4. Your reason for refusing to furnish proof of your claim is that it's your policy that you "cannot disclose to one shopper another shopper's findings." -- (I was told that directly by Dorita the first time I learned of this incident)

So,I ask you again:
1. Is it GFK policy to summarily reject a shopper's work, thus withholding the contracted compensation without providing the I.C. with a chance to rectify any alleged issues?
2. Did anyone employed by GFK visit said location or is your decision based solely on "another shopper('s)" word for it? And if that's the case, by what means does GFK decide one shopper's word is more honest/reliable than another's?
3. Can you provide me with anything at all to substantiate your claim?
4. Can you provide copies of the pages or document in GFK's book of policy and procedures to even validate item number four above?

For full disclosure, I will say that I am angry at being dismissed and ripped off by GFK and disappointed that my image of them and rosy hopes for continued work with them got destroyed as a result. My motive for bringing this topic to discussion was, initially, to create awareness among our community. I did not expect Carey or GFK to enter into the discussion at all, so I apologize if it seems I'm "putting her on the stand." Having said that, I'm glad GFK is feeling at least some backlash or drop in reputation from this incident which, in my opinion, has been terribly mishandled by them from the beginning. It's probably not a surprise that my belief is that their whole justification is a lie, and I'd like them to provide some sort of proof to show that I'm wrong.
THANK YOU, guys.

Med, you made your point and now because we've not received any clear insights its going to hurt this MSC because there's so many mixed feelings from long-time users here. Now when someone who has been hurt "Google's GFK" your post is here forever. I just Googled it and your post came up as one of the Top 5 hits, not something any MSC should be proud of!

I'm happy to continue this conversation off line with you, but at this point, I do not believe it's in either of our best interests to continue on this forum.

Best regards
Carey Medina

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2016 11:15PM by Carey4GfKMysteryShops.

I agree that medievallas has made a very good point. I have no problem with MSCs responding on the forum to posts made by shoppers, but the answer provided here sidesteps the issue and seems nothing more than a defensive post using canned "public relations" material. I'm less and less convinced.

I'm having a problem understanding why GFK is loathe to tell medievallas of the restaurant or bar allegedly found by the other auditor. Medievallas has expressed her willingness to publicly admit she is wrong if in fact she is. Bars and restaurants are open to the public so nobody would be giving away any state secrets.

So many small things could have made a huge difference. It seems odd an auditor could drive the same streets and find something different. Did they both have the same territory? Was it possible one added or missed a street from the original map? Unless the maps provided to actual auditors were drastically different than those posted for review before accepting shops, I can attest to the fact they were difficult to read. Was it even possible enough time had elapsed that the location opened or reopened during the interim? After all the flooding we had in December dozens of restaurants and bars have been closed for renovation. If that area was being audited during this time frame as little as a week could mean the difference between some being reopened or not.

Right now there are just too many questions in my mind. I agree that mostly we have received non-answers.

Well, there it is then. I think the response speaks for itself! I'm under no dillusion that I'd get a BETTER resolution if I "contact her offline to discuss it" as she proposed; I did that song and dance last November! As far as I'm concerned, her motivation for chiming in at all was to preemptively manage any possible PR problems this public forum can create! Nope, . GFK's attempt was, as far as I can see, unsuccessful.
I feel validated and I have closure :-)

I will not be pursuing the issue further and I'm so grateful to this community for allowing GFK to dig its own hole!

Best to you all!! :-D

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2016 09:55PM by medievallass.

Now on this I disagree with you. You have been invited to communicate privately and should do so. You may find nothing changes, but at least then you will not be just making an assumption.

Darnit, you're right, LisaSTL. That sounds like something my mentor/friend would say as well! Sigh... Better to know than not, plus I'll know I did absolutely everything on my side the best I could. Thank you!

@medievallass wrote:

I had a similar experience with a BS non-payment claim from GFK. And it bums me out because I really thought they were awesome!
In October, I performed a beverage census shop for them; these shops require detailed information on soda sales/fountains/vending along with sign info for any eligible location within a specific mapped area, selected at random. The pay was $75 base plus more based on # of auditable locations. Depending on your luck of the draw, there could be 25 places to audit or there could be none. It was fun and easy (because of the SassieRover app) and, as my usual experience, they paid within 2 weeks!
Later, I received another beverage census assignment from them that was a bit far, but had a huge bonus (total pay base of $250, with additional revenue for each location, etc.) End of the month desperation, I figured I scored!
I completed the job on time, as scheduled, meeting their rush job priority; I spent an entire Saturday afternoon doing it, 65 miles each way to a city I had lived in only 2 years earlier (read: I know that area) To my disappointment, there wasn't a single qualified establishment in the assigned map area. I am CERTAIN of this point; I drove every street twice. No establishments, only a post office, 2 schools, a huge park, a tattoo parlor, mortgage broker, and a tire repair shop. The area was bordered on the south by the freeway and on the north by a wash/creek. No biggie, though, since I'd still get the base $250.
I contacted the scheduler (who had always been great) when I hadn't received payment 3 weeks later. I was told the job was voided, payment forfeited, because "another shopper had found a qualified location, a restaurant, within the area". When pressed as to the details of said location, I was told that information was unable to be shared with me. I said that's ludicrous, that there aren't any locations there. She said I had to just accept that there WAS and forget about it. About now, her email replied to me were taking longer to receive. Since the explanation given me was, CLEARLY unacceptable, I asked for the name of someone higher up to speak with.
I called, left messages, and emailed this "supervisor" numerous times over the following two weeks; I NEVER received a response. My last attempt was to bypass both schedulers and email GFK directly, hoping to get some sorry of resolve. Never heard back from anyone.
I'm pretty confident that, because the mapped area had no qualifying locations, GFK probably wasn't going to be able to collect full payment from their client. Unfortunately, I was the loser in the transaction.
Sigh.

Hi Midievallass... I remember you. I was the scheduler for your location.. Can you please correspond with me by email. Thanks dorita.ms.tolbert@gmail.com