Does anyone have a list of companies that are no longer in business. I must have 30 companies that regularily check and they have no shops anywhere in the US or Canada, I would love to just delete them if some one knows that they are no longer in business or have merged with other companies and are operating under a new name.

There are a number of companies that never show anything on their job board because they either schedule by email or through independent schedulers, so I tend not to shut anything down until the website gives me a 404 error.

Off the top of my head:
ACRA - gone but not forgotten. They were good guys
BankAtlantic - stopped doing their own shops and what shops are now done are done by other companies
CheckMark - appears to be defunct
Datatron - closed their doors owing shoppers a lot of $$. There is a special place in Hell for the likes of them.
Daymon - became Caliber
Direct Scheduling Services - from what I understand they are no longer doing shops or scheduling for others
Examine Your Practice - merged in with another company but I forget who
Granite Starr - now operating under the name Pinnacle
JC&Associates - bought out by ??? A search of the forum would show you who bought them.
Mystery Diner - I believe they are defunct
Orilio & Associates - defunct owing shoppers. See "special place in Hell"
Pacific Research Group - I thought they were defunct but it appears they still are gasping
Service Quality Solutions - became Buckalew Hospitality
SG Marketing - was swallowed by MFI and died
Shop 'n Check - was swallowed by MFI and is the Blue Portal
Tell Us about Us - is currently being swallowed by MFI and will __________________
Wireless Store Shopper - Established Technology Store Shopper and the "Wireless" site is now nonfunctional

This is not intended as a full list, but what I remember off the top of my head.

deleted



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2011 06:02AM by Irene_L.A..

Of course the request here was for defunct companies where there is no point in signing up and/or checking the website.

I was wondering what happened to Technogy shoppers. I signed up with them. Did not hear anything until a year later with an email to do some shops. Sorry to hear about that one.

To the best of my knowledge, Technology Store Shoppers is still actively in business. Their website shows open shops available with current dates in the US, just not in my area. It is the Wireless Store Shoppers website that has closed down with the domain name now available. The two companies were linked if not a one-in-same name change.

Is Caliber still in operation? I just checked their site and they appear to have nothing anywhere. (I checked in all four countries in the dropdown.)

As far as I know they are still breathing, but they do appear to have lost their client in my area. I haven't heard from them since last October. At that time the were pushing a 'sister company' for you to go into the schools and try to sell teachers a 'free product' that appeared to be some on line continuing education product. I decided to take a pass on that one. They mentioned that both they and the sister company were part of the 'Daymon Interactions' group.

Caliber is still active in my area. They do a clothing store about once a ninth and others from time to time. The payment still shows up as coming from Daymon.

JC & Associates was bought out (I think) by MarketStat

[www.marketstatreporting.com]

Still operating here. I did one of their shops last week.

MarketStat has tons of jobs in CO, OR, none in CA., they are operating...still miss JC&Assoc.

DrSquash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is Caliber still in operation? I just checked
> their site and they appear to have nothing
> anywhere. (I checked in all four countries in the
> dropdown.)


Caliber has a new site, not sure if it was the Sassie site you checked.

Looking for information on Buckalew Hospitality...how extensive is their report on their hotels shops? Do they pay ontime?

Buckalew Hospitality is definitely not a defunct company. I have not done one of their jobs but did not want there to be any confusion since this reference is in the defunct company list.

JC and Associates was great. I really liked them!! heartlandcanuck Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> JC & Associates was bought out (I think) by
> MarketStat
>
> [www.marketstatreporting.com]

Examine Your Practice was bought out by Trendsource, but I never heard anything else about any clients. I miss SG. They had my favorite grocery store, and I don't know who has it now.

DrSquash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is Caliber still in operation? I just checked
> their site and they appear to have nothing
> anywhere. (I checked in all four countries in the
> dropdown.)


Caliber is definitely still in operation and I think it is a mistake to associate them with a list of "dead" MSCs. I shop regularly for them including one tonight. However, they don't appear to have many clients and those I know of are not national chains.

What may have confused people is they switched names and websites. They used to be called Daymon and they now have a different website with a unique format (not Sassie, not Prophet, etc.).

The website is [www.caliberinteractions.com]

I'm in Canada and used to love certain gas and grocery shops offered by Tell Us About Us. Since they have been bought by MarketForce, I am unable to find those shops and MF is not very helpful in answering my questions, just an automated message to keep checking the job board. How do I find out what MS company now does those locatoins?

See the answer posted a your duplicate post. It's not necessary to post duplicate messages in multiple places on the forum.

okay... sorry... I saw the TUAU topic after I posted here

kittybratt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was wondering what happened to Technogy
> shoppers. I signed up with them. Did not hear
> anything until a year later with an email to do
> some shops. Sorry to hear about that one.


Interestingly enough, there are MSC companies outht ere that choose to not communicate proactively and wonder why their shops expire. DOA, DUD, DOA! When you do not ear from them the obvious response is "out of sight (email) out of mind".

A company that has a websight must have a proacive approach to their business. For the life of me I cannot understand why they would not be more proactive and communicate with the shoppers that signed up witht em.

I had an experience just a few days ago when a MSC send me an email asking if i was ok and still interested. I wrote back that I never heard from them after signing up and just forgot about them. Their actions cost them $$$ as a business. I will get the same shops from other sources, but not from them. Really a dumb way to run an MSC business. If you have a site then hopefully you have a webmaster that is more than a 15 year old 9th grader that knows what is up in webdseign, cron jobs, and how to make it happen.

Sorry, but i work in web design and the people that cit past the bone into the marrow thinking they are doing well, ...well, it reminds me of restaurants that have one waiter for a large room. Lets see who returns as a customer, or a shopper due to company cheapness! I feel so strongly on this. If you want to have a strong business, then take care of the people that take care of you.

Companies that are actually defunct, deserved it i am sure. We are a composite of our decisions and not what we "feel".

Don, Las Vegies, NV.

just did a couple of shops for Caliber. They don't have much in my area (Virginia).

DrSquash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is Caliber still in operation? I just checked
> their site and they appear to have nothing
> anywhere. (I checked in all four countries in the
> dropdown.)