If you believe the e mail that says you just won a lottery you did not enter,
go ahead and sign up with them too.

Sorry, but maybe Jacob can't say this.

DON'T REGISTER AND PAY ANYTHING TO MYSTERY SHOP!!!!!

All of the reputable companies are registered with MSPA.com. If you want to view valid MS companies you need to visit, register (for free) and check out the listings at MSPA.com. You may not be able to snag those jobs but log all the company names and register yourself for FREE!!! Be patient. It takes some time to do this. If shadowshopper works for you then so be it. BUT really, although it may take some time to register with these companies, you would be better off.

Jacob has a link to register with a numerous amount in one shot. DO IT AND GOOD LUCK!!! DON'T PAY TO SHOP!!!!

pEACE! hAPPY sHOPPING!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2008 01:02PM by modario.

modario Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All of the reputable companies are registered with
> MSPA.com. If you want to view valid MS companies
> you need to visit, register (for free) and check
> out the listings at MSPA.com.

While all of the companies that are registered with the mspa are reputable, there are also hundreds of reputable companies that are not members. You just have to do your homework before you sign up with any company.

BTW- the addy for the mspa is:
[www.mysteryshop.org]

I think ShadowShopper is a great starting place for a newbie mystery shopper. I joined for 3 months when I was first starting out. Looked at the listings, saw what companies had the kinds of jobs I thought I would be good at, then applied and applied and applied and applied. And applied.

But when folks ask me today how to get started, I find myself telling them never to pay to shop and I send them to Volition and to the MSPA website (because those are the ones I remember easily at my advanced age). I also offer to provide a list of companies that actually have jobs in our rural area if they email me, but I rarely hear from them (which tells me they probably aren't interested in *working* anyhoo). I think I signed up with more than 200 companies to find the 20 or so I work with most often. That's a lot of time invested in companies that don't even work in my state. But when I begin to travel again, I'll be all set!

Bottom line: do whatever works best for you.

Jeanne

I am a first time user of this website and would like to offer some insight into Shadow Shopper.

I am a Remote Independent Scheduler for a large International Mystery Shopping concern. I am also a Triple Gold MSPA certified shopper. I used shadow shopper as a free membership when I first started shopping, and did as many of you state you have. Find out what companies are shopping in your area, and sign up with them directly. Within 6mos. I had all the shops I could handle. However I have to tell you that now as a Scheduler I find Shadow Shopper invaluable. I seldom post on the sight but prefer to go in click in a city for "Find a Shopper" that I need to have covered and post directly to the shopper, I only email shoppers within 15mi. of the location. I have turned around a couple of states I schedule for that the company was having to pay heavily in bonus because of lack of shoppers. This site shows everyone on it bronze and gold alike.

A hint about the site and a Scheduler looking for reliable Shoppers. Do not capitalize your full name(shows you are shouting and angry), or put your name in all lower case(shows you have little self esteem). Use this site as you would apply for a job. First impressions are everything here. Also if you have not noted on the site that you have a fax, digital camera, scanner, or pay pal this can also affect offers. So if possible go back and edit your profiles. Most important check into the site every couple of months. There is a section when looking for shoppers that ask "Do I want to see shoppers who have been in the site in the last 3mos., 6mos or at all. I seldom click on the later two since it would not indicate to me that you are an active shopper.
If you check the job board every couple of months this is in your profile and will tell me that you are active and still looking for work. You would be the first I would email and consider for the assignment. So consider the independent emails from Shadow Shoppers that say to the affect "An Independent Sheduler has emailed you" Open that email, do not delete without first checking, this usually means a direct offer to you in your home town area.

Send me an email reply as you are applying for a job. Do not send me an email with all lower case or upper case grammar. Or just signed by a first name. If you want me to take you seriously as a professional, email like a professional.

Just had to FYI from a Schedulers point of view.

Thank you for the perspective Dibru.

I signed up for Shadow Shopper and was very diappointed to learn that the only why I could get details was to sign up to be a Gold or Platnum member for an outrageuos yearly fee. Oh yeh! I could try it for ONE week free but then I would be charged. Or I could become a life member for $399.00 dollars. Why would anyone do this w/o atleast trying it out first and surely one week isn't enough. There should be some sort of regulations against this type of deal. I have never heard of such a thing in all the years I have done shops. If you ask me it's a big ripoff!!!

And lifetime membership is also a joke considering most shoppers stay with this 2-6 months, a handful stick with it a year or two and it is very rare to find anyone who has been doing it for 3-5 years. I do know one gal who has been doing it for more than a decade but she doesn't burn out because there are so few jobs in her area that an available job is almost a treat (and yes she is signed up with lots of companies).

Do these guys have any shops in NC?

Hi

Shadowshopper didn't use to make you pay to see the shops but sometimes you can find a listing that carries with it stores that are shopped year round such as HEB food store in San Antonio and surrounding areas in Texas.

Frances

I joined ShadowShopper when I first started mystery shopping. Back then I didn't know that you didn't have to pay to sign up with a company. I did get a lot of leads and signed up with every company that was listed. I wouldn't pay today knowing what I do now.

I would at least sign up to become silver certified. I have gotten many assignments because I was silver certified.

There are pros and cons to everything but its the best investment I've ever made. I'm not as active in it as I once was because of health problems that have come up in the last couple of years but I'm fixing to get started back because I enjoy it.


Janice

I am not registered with Shadow Shopper, but I am always interested in learning the experiences of other people. In reading these posts, I would like to offer what I hope will be considered constructive criticism. Some of the people who are posting about signing up and not getting jobs have to look more carefully at their spelling and grammar. If a client pays a company X$ to complete shops for them, and the editor has to spend a lot of extra time correcting spelling and grammar,the editor is going to make less money, she is going to pass her feelings along to the scheduler, and the scheduler is not going to send shops to those MSers. If you help the people in the chain make money, you are going to make more money. Even when we check and recheck most of us make a few careless mistakes, but some of what I have seen here looks like it was never proofread.

Good points Marymac. While there is a casualness with forum posts in that they are generally quick, off-the-cuff remarks, it is essential that reports be grammatically correct and understandable. Proofreading is important. While I certainly do not use Word to compose posts for the forum, I definitely use it to create the narratives for shops. The spell checker and grammar checker of Word help enormously in providing a reasonable product. And indeed if an editor must spend a great deal of time clarifying what the shopper meant or having the shopper answer the actual questions asked, the report scores will be low and future available shops will be awarded to shoppers who require less time and effort to get the reports to the client.

Before I started mystery shopping I did sign up with Shadow Shopper. It was a tial membership for only a month and it was only $3.95. That was according to their records 67 days ago. I know this because I have had a lot of work and haven't really noticed who has been sending what, so I signed in and checked my status. Sure enough it is 37 days over the time limit and I thought it kind of odd that no one sent a reminder.Having said that,however, I also checked my lists and found out I have never gotten a shop from them. So, I guess I won't renew.
They were worth the $3.98 though because I found other companies and now I get enough work considering I do not live in an overly large city.I love the work and for that reason I am glad they started me out.

I am not happy that I signed up for the SHADOW SHOPPER "free week" and now have to pay for 90 days ($39.99). I NEVER recall seeing that I would AUTOMATICALLY be charged for this service. I recieved this email from Johnathon there:

Here's the membership agreement:
7 DAY FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
On the 7th day of your 7 day trial membership, your credit card on file will be charged for continuing membership for the time period you have specified, monthly, 90 days (default setting) or 1 year, based on the preferences you have set on your Account Information page. You may request NOT to have your credit card automatically charged for renewal anytime during the 7 day trial period by either changing your account preferences yourself on the Account Information page located at [www.shadowshopper.com] (select "I'll do it myself. Don't automatically renew." under Account Renewal Preference, or by emailing us a notification of your intent to prevent automatic renewal prior to the time of renewal. If neither of these actions are taken prior to the renewal transaction, you agree to pay the full renewal charge. NO refunds, for any reason, will be issued after the renewal transaction has occurred. You may choose to cancel your membership after the renewal transaction has occurred, however, no refunds will be issued, either in full or for the unused portion of membership. Choosing to not automatically renew your account upon your membership expiration date will result in cancellation of your membership. ALL SALES ARE FINAL.

Has anyone else fallen into this charge without wanting it?? Seems like I would have noticed this...Seems sneaky that they do this and then offer no refunds, not a good way to make friends in business. I would NEVER charge my clients for three months of a service and not at least pro-rate if they were unhappy with my service. Not very good business ethics.

Guys, shadow shopper is owned by gapbuster. this is just another way for gapbuster to make money without making their company look bad. they regularly go onto shadow shopper and recruit shopper information without the consent of shoppers and "recruit" them onto gapbuster. they are a big phony scam of a company. careful guys.

While I am no fan of ShadowShopper or the whole process of paying for leads, I find no support for your claim through my research of their sites. Will you please share the basis for your comments?

I hit this thread and couldn’t help myself. Shadow Shopper isn’t perfect, but then what company is. They do work for the shopper, if you work with them and that’s very little work.
Anyway, I made these entries with attached name. I’m not being sarcastic, just trying to clear up some of the issues.

Betty Cross:
You paid 29.00 for what? You had your profile upgraded? Hope you registered with several companies, that’s the only way that helps.
At the site, you are informed about the Silver and Gold Certifications, Depends on how much shopping you really do and what area of the country you are in for it to be a big benefit. One right off the bat is that shopping companies do give Silver and Gold first shot at most jobs.
And, the site does have in house certifications that you don’t pay for and it’s helps get jobs.
The first month I shopped, I set a goal of 300.00$ and made over 1500.00$ taking shops offer through shadow shopper, so I can’t say anything bad about them.

Colleen Racine-Bryan
Again, jobs will not jump on to your computer, you have to do some leg work.
To your first question, there are companies offering jobs where do not put out money. Some companies offer jobs where you pay for items or gas, but you are re-reimbursed. The job is free money.
Your second question. Shopping is a job, just like the regular 99-5, only you do it in 30 minutes/1 hour or so, most people treat it as an adventure to make money. IT”S A JOB! Note the contract you sign.
The Silver and Gold that you see tells the companies you are treating the assignment as a job and taking it very seriously, you are meeting and exceeding the job requirements, you are someone they can rely on to do the job. It’s one of the perks of going that extra mile. It does not insure you will get the better or more jobs.

Kathleen
I’m being mean by saying this, but I have to. You keep believing it’s a scam, that means more jobs for those of us who deal with them. Sounds like you want a free ride. Well, there aren’t any free rides, you have to pay the dues, in money or time.

Sydni
Hurray for Sydni! Glad you found that other avenue in Shopping, most people never see that and try to stick to what they thin shopping is.

James E. Crawford
Shadow Shoppers is not a company who assigns jobs. It send you emails telling you to go to a site ( a shopper company), click, register and either wait for an accepting email or go directly to the company job board and get your job. Read all the fine print before you agree to pay for anything. Good lucl with getting your money. If you have a case, you will, if not… Oh well.

Bambee
Thank you, Thank you. Now if we can get the word out.

Jamie Lorenc
Oh girl, you way over there!
As a new shopper, Shadow Shopper offer many jobs. The next step is to read the emails they send, click the link, register with the company and see what they offer. Understand the Silver and Gold has nothing to do with you as a new shopper, you can get more jobs than you can handle. The Silver and Gold is a paid for certification you get through Shadow Shopper in the MSPA. All this says is that you have been shopping, tested and proven yourself to be a good shopper. Some companies do give preference to Silver and Gold, but most of the jobs go to the basic shopper. There are other perks, but ….

Barbara
Again! Shadow Shopper does not assign jobs, they give you leads. The leads do not give you information about the job, only that “a company” needs a shopper to do a job. It’s your job to click and register with the company and see if you can open the requirements for that job, if not, send them an email and request information. This information does not jump on your screen. You have to do some work.
If you are still getting these emails, click on the link, get the information and see where it leads.


Jan Manley
Ok, you paid the 99.00$. Did you read anything anywhere in the comments that promised you a job/jobs?
Bet you they sent you emails advertising jobs, did you follow-up on these emails?
Next variable is the area/your location, there may not be any companies with clients there at the moment and may never have. The trick is to answer every email and find the companies that do business in your area. I live in Southwest Louisiana and at first I wasn’t getting anything for my area, then I hit on one company and from there it snowballed.

Colleen Racine-Bryan
"I am a Executive level employee..." blah, blah
Are you now? And what may I pray is an Exec. Level Employee doing shops for?
Please, don't say the enjoyment of it. At your level, you should already know, nothing is really free. You do reap benefits for what you pay.
Gold Packages? I'm sure you meant Gold Members.
That's a perk you get for testing and proving you are a "good" and serious shopper. At your employment level, you should read more.
Nothing is free in life, learn that then go for what you can get at the cheapest price.

I have to laugh at all these people who are grousing about Shadow Shopper and the free membership.
I would bet my A** that those people received emails from Shadow Shopper but were to damned lazy to read and register with the company to try and get a job. Must have wanted that job to just jump on to their computer screen yelling, "I'm here, you gonna do me?"
Get real people, this is an industry, you make money, they make money.
You mess up and don't follow the instructions, you get charged for them to make your reports good. "Docked!"
Yeah, that's the term they use in a 9-5 job, if you screw up.
And as far as those yelling, "They terminated me!" Having all the facts would probably point to "Many" screw ups on your part. Companies don't normally want to lose "Any" shoppers, but when faced with a screw up, yeah, you're gone!

Creole, your arrogance and attitude are very unpleasant. The purpose of a forum such as this is to ENCOURAGE and HELP those who are wanting to try mystery shopping, not to berate them. Yes, we ENCOURAGE those who want to try the free aspect of Shadow Shopper to be aware of what they are getting into for their own protection. Certainly some of those who have found themselves being charged for it are being charged because of their own failure to cancel the 'service' in an appropriate time frame. But there are also cases where Shadow Shopper has processed a charge while they were still in the "free" time period and no refund was forthcoming or where they cancelled in a timely fashion but were still charged.

If you are not willing to provide some positive assistance to others, it is perhaps best that you not participate in this forum.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Creole, your arrogance and attitude are very
> unpleasant. The purpose of a forum such as this
> is to ENCOURAGE and HELP those who are wanting to
> try mystery shopping, not to berate them. Yes, we
> ENCOURAGE those who want to try the free aspect of
> Shadow Shopper to be aware of what they are
> getting into for their own protection. Certainly
> some of those who have found themselves being
> charged for it are being charged because of their
> own failure to cancel the 'service' in an
> appropriate time frame. But there are also cases
> where Shadow Shopper has processed a charge while
> they were still in the "free" time period and no
> refund was forthcoming or where they cancelled in
> a timely fashion but were still charged.
>
> If you are not willing to provide some positive
> assistance to others, it is perhaps best that you
> not participate in this forum.


I second that. Creole, no one comes here to be put down and lectured. Loose the 'tude and maybe you will get something of value here.

Creole, you add nothing to this forum but rude and obnoxious comments aimed at other members. You attempt to berate and lecture to shoppers. It is inexcusable and I would advise others to simply ignore your posts. The forum admin has been notified and I would hope you would be deactivated.

Creole = This user doesn't exist or has been deactivated.

Shadow shopper is a joke!! They also charged my card $100 because I didn't check the box or end my trial soon enough. They signed me up for a whole year with the "gold" membership. Says I am supposed to get a cruise shop. Not holding my breath. I have only gotten 1 job from them, a company actually called me that got my info from them. All the emails I get from them are for merchandising or for companies I already work for and then when I search the jobs that shadow shopper says they have , they are not on the board!!! Oh and when I said I wanted a refund they said they don't do that. Great customer service huh?? Isn't that what this industry is supposed to be about! I did a claim through my bank and I am letting them fight it. Please, please please don't use shadow shopper. We have to stop companies like this. You can see how they are making their money!!!

An unscientific survey of members here has convinced some of us that SS is also selling their email list to the scammers. That's the only sleazy site where I've entered my shopping email address, although I've never used them. I get the scams only at that address.

Oh my goodness! I finally got the nerve to read all this mess. I can't even believe what I just read. Thank God that individual has been prohibited from participating any longer. Had that person unloaded on me.... I'd hate to even think what she'd get back in return. I wouldn't have to do it. My boyfriend would unload on them in a way that would force them to rethink some of the unnecessary, unproductive, and disgusting remarks posted.

I sort of agree with Creole. She had the guts to tell it like it is.
We are not perfect. Shoppers mess up, get dates screwed up , miss shops,
fail to get all pertinent information and want to blame the scheduler.
or the MSP. Sure the schedulers have made some horrendous errors
and cost us all money and time now and then. We have to work as a team
to make it work, but let us not forget we have to do our share too.

Of course we do, John. And the majority of us do our share or more most of the time. The point, however, is that a real purpose of a forum is to Encourage and Assist each other. In life you get much better responses from people by showing them and enabling them than you do by sitting back on your haunches and barking at them. So yes, some folks may be whining when in reality they are the ones who screwed up, but there are ways to get across that message without berating them.

johncharris Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I sort of agree with Creole. She had the guts to
> tell it like it is.
> We are not perfect. Shoppers mess up, get dates
> screwed up , miss shops,
> fail to get all pertinent information and want to
> blame the scheduler.
> or the MSP. Sure the schedulers have made some
> horrendous errors
> and cost us all money and time now and then. We
> have to work as a team
> to make it work, but let us not forget we have to
> do our share too.


In my opinion, Creole was not sharing, but moralizing AND de-moralizing! And not always accurately at that.

Yes, I mess up sometimes. Yes, I have missed shops by forgetting to put it on my calendar, or getting interrupted by my kid and not hitting submit when entering. Yes, we all need to work together to help us all improve our lives
as shoppers. I think all of us here understand that we are human, sometimes fail, and need each other for support and help.

But, I critique for a living as an college-level art instructor. Critiquing is a skill. One that Creole did not possess, IMHO. When people run screaming from a critique, the critique has failed. Critiques should leave people whole, and understanding how to do things better, not feeling even more badly about what they screwed up. And yes, like anyone other human, I sometimes have bad days where I do not do this as well as I might. But Creole had more than a couple of bad days in her short time here.