I carry several cards with different closing dates through the month. A little card in my wallet reminds me of closing dates when something is going to be tight. For example an expensive reimbursement from a company that historically pays on time.

I literally "deregistered" from them. Their emails were downright obnoxious and I just had a strange experience with them.

I saw the zillions of emails for the cell phone shops and decided to take one. It was paying $55 and then had a $75 reimbursement. After I accepted, the directions were 30 pages - and it involved doing the purchase and return of a phone and may involve a soft credit hit. Then after looking at the actual requirements (a TON of photos), I would want $105 for this shop. I would recommend asking for a bonus to do this shop, because it seems tedious and time consuming - considering the purchase, return and credit hit, it should be paying a LOT more.

The shop fell through because you had to take a quiz within 48 hours of being assigned the shop. You had 3 attempts to pass the quiz. I took it twice and got the same question wrong both times. I emailed the scheduler (per her instructions) and she wound up telling me what the correct answer was. I still had one more attempt to take the quiz, but I had an emergency and wasn't able to do so in the time frame, so their system automatically cancelled the shop.

The scheduler called me, and I explained that I couldn't access GFK from work, that I had an emergency after work yesterday, and didn't have time to take the quiz by the time the system cancelled out the shop. She said "Ok" and hung up. I was surprised that she didn't say she could give me more time to do the quiz, or something to that effect. I've only done one other shop with GFK, but almost every other time I had something come up and have needed to reschedule a shop (with other companies), the schedulers have been very understanding.

Anyways, after I checked my email later, saw that I had another 3 spammish emails about this same damn shop, and just resigned with the company. Their emails were exhausting and I'm just not interested in that anymore.

Hi All,

I'm brand new to mystery shopping, and had the exact same experience as Joanna81 !!!!
Don't you love not being alone?
Well, not in this case -- I'm so turned off by the entire experience.

I literally wasted an entire day with GFK.
First the application, then the tests then the cell phone fiasco.

I agreed to do this last minute high paying shop ( should be there now ), but after reading the 30 pg "notes", I realized that it was riddled with errors, and there was no way to pass the test, let alone get paid.

In addition to the contradictions between the notes and the scheduling info, they expect you to buy a $249 phone and initiate service - which always involves 1st month payment, activation fees, and the like.

With the restocking fees, the gas back and forth 2x, and the hassle of canceling a cell phone, I realized this was a huge mistake.

I emailed the scheduler with my concern, and instead of a personal response, I'm now spammed with the same shop -

Not a good start to my new career.

Sorry for the whine, but I was so excited before this happened.

Does anyone have any insight for me ?

Any fav companies????

Thanks --
Sandi

I really, really would suggest that you do some of the simple, low paying jobs from the companies we all love to hate to get your feet wet! Those shops give you a chance to get the timing and observation skills together so that you don't blow a good paying job or a job where there are substantial reimbursements involved!

Let's say, for example, that you did the shop in question as your very first shop, you laid out the money that was a useless expenditure to you, and thought you did all the things required for the shop. Your credit report has now been hit and you are out some cash you thought you were going to be reimbursed for. Down the form is the question "Did you check the restroom?" with a Y/N answer and you didn't, so you mark it 'N' The next question is "Was the restroom well stocked?" Y/N/NA and you happily mark NA. Everything seems fine and the report and receipts upload. Except on page 23 of your instructions there was a statement "You must check the restroom." Now your shop is rejected and there is nothing you can do about it.

Luckily my early shops were done with a "throw away" company that I really did not particularly want to continue working with. Although I never blew it badly enough to get shops rejected or terminated by them, they were a learning experience that had fee only shops so I didn't even need to jeopardize anything beyond my time and gas. On occasion I will check their site to see if they have gotten any interesting clients, but I haven't done any jobs for them in several years.

DaScubaLady, I would forget about the last-minute high paying jobs until you have done a few shops and have some experience. Fast food and grocery shops are good learning shops. Market force is a good "learning" company because their reports are so easy, their shops don't pay a lot. When you see e-mails for the really high-paying shops you have to ask yourself WHY they are willing to pay that high fee ..... usually it is because they want a lot from you and/or they are having a hard time getting shoppers to take the shop. Again, the question is why.....

GFK is advertising now for shoppers in certain areas. A friend well in age range to shop applied to be a shopper knowing full well a certain city needed shoppers. After all the paperwork within an hour was told we have no need of your services. Not even offered a shop. Gave no references of any shoppers, and totally in age range which used to be a problem.... I saw a post again for same city two days later. So they DO need shoppers. They have an internal bias.

I agree with most of you saying that there's no way for me to do a shop of purchasing and returning a $500 product, or purchasing and cancelling the cell phone service. I would not do it even the pay's doubled. LOL!

[www.gfkamerica.com]

Thought I would post the link to GfK's Mystery Shopping website. I do not know much about mystery shopping but I looked at Gfk's website and it really helped me to get a good look into GfK's approach on mystery shopping. I think its a good one!