One thing each of us can do is to stay informed. Read (with a grain of salt) about other people's experiences with an MSC and then decide whether or not to shop for that MSC.

Does anybody know if uber or lyft or food deliveries have recourses when they're not paid?

MHN: Do you recall when you received the email from Gigspot?

@4everIndigo wrote:

MHN: Do you recall when you received the email from Gigspot?

12:40 PM.

Dear GigSpot User,



We regret to inform you that as of 07/17/2024, GigSpot is terminating its service agreement with Elite CXS. You are being notified as you currently have (or recently had) a job scheduled for Elite CXS on GigSpot.



After their removal from GigSpot, you will no longer see Elite CXS or its jobs on GigSpot. The removal will take place on 07/18/2024.



For your convenience, you may continue working with their jobs by logging in to their web portal at:



[www.elitecxsolutions.net]



You may log in to their web portal using the same email address and password of your GigSpot account, but please note that this is a separate account, exclusive to your work with Elite CXS and independent of your GigSpot account. If you do not remember your password you can use the "Forgot Password" link on that portal site.



You may also contact Elite CXS directly at:



727-674-0300

scheduling@elitecxs.com

Thank you! I did not receive that email from Gigspot but I did receive one from Elite CXS at 6:09 PM (Pacific) with a new job offer, but also stating "We invite you to sign up with Gigspot." It has a turquoise block insert that has the Gigspot symbol and reads --

"Learn How to Update Your Account
One Account
All Companies
No Setup"

Interesting.

I’m out over $300 from several shops I did in March and April 2024 if this company doesn’t honor their commitment. Contacted them several times for an update on what they owe me. Latest update from them on 6/16/24 said they had a major data loss and are trying to recover their records. This may take 30-60 days. I will be contacting them to get an update. Will keep you posted. I may contact the Dept. of Labor in the meantime to see if we have any recourse if they don’t pay.

The dept of labor can't help you. You are a business owner. You can sue them in small claims court, but that's about it.

@Reeree1967 wrote:

I’m out over $300 from several shops I did in March and April 2024 if this company doesn’t honor their commitment. Contacted them several times for an update on what they owe me. Latest update from them on 6/16/24 said they had a major data loss and are trying to recover their records. This may take 30-60 days. I will be contacting them to get an update. Will keep you posted. I may contact the Dept. of Labor in the meantime to see if we have any recourse if they don’t pay.

While there may be differences from state to state, the Department of Labor will deal with payments to employees, but we are not employees, we are independent contractors. With the exception of some gig workers in California, we are not subject to treatment under Wage and Hour laws or regulations.

@Reeree1967 wrote:

I’m out over $300 from several shops I did in March and April 2024 if this company doesn’t honor their commitment. Contacted them several times for an update on what they owe me. Latest update from them on 6/16/24 said they had a major data loss and are trying to recover their records. This may take 30-60 days. I will be contacting them to get an update. Will keep you posted. I may contact the Dept. of Labor in the meantime to see if we have any recourse if they don’t pay.

Thank you. I've sent them many emails called every single person in the company.No one answers. I hope they eventually pay. I'm at three hundred and fifty dollars, reimbursement.

Even though mystery shoppers may not be covered under Dept of Labor regs for employees, it is still worthwhile contacting them to see what they say. You never know if they may be working on something to bring work laws to the 21st century.

Hi everyone. I have a similar story. I'm owed over $350 dating back to October 2023. I kind of lost track and just realized over a month ago they still owed me. Had been sending emails for over a month with no reply. I finally included the CEO, David Hartley. I let them know I'll be filing complaints against them and engaging legal counsel. David respondes within hours. All BS with no apology, but it was a response. This is what he said:

"There is no need for all the threats and hostility. The last update I saw was that you had not completed your profile in our payment system therefore preventing payment from going out. Links to complete have been sent multiple times according to our team. Have you recently completed this and if not please advise when you will so you can be paid."

His follow up after I laid into him again

"Again with the threats. I can see that there are two accounts with the same name in the system. One is payable and one is not. That is as far as I can see today due to the system outage that is effecting us. I will have the accounting staff look into this further on Monday and get back to you with resolution.

If you continue to threaten myself or any member of our staff we will immediately cease all communication with you immediately."

Everyone spam this guy's email. Dhartley@elitecxs.com

Let him know this is unacceptable

Here is my last email to David:

Hi David,

Please let me know what part of my email was wrong. I am not threatening you. I am simply advising you of my plans to take further action should my requests remain unresolved. I am completely within my legal and ethical right to file a complaint with the BBB and any other organization. I didn't threaten with violence or use any derogatory language. My emails have been completely professional.

I think it's very unfair that you threaten to discontinue the conversation regarding your company paying me money that I am owed, simply because you feel uncomfortable with the fact that I may possibly file a complaint against you. At this point I actually feel the 'threat' (as you call it) was necessary because every single person within your company has been ignoring me for over a month. I only now received a response because of the so-called 'threats.'

I am telling you my account was set up to be payable a year ago through Tipalti. I received a payment via that platform in July 2023 and per the email from your accounting department on 6/26/23 (see below) "You are payable!"

If in fact there was some kind of glitch or technical error that caused this to happen I just ask that your team tells me that when I initially made contact. Maybe after the third email it could have been escalated. I have a real job outside of mystery shopping (which is just a side gig for me). I understand how it is when you have a lot of emails coming through and many competing priorities. I'm not mad if you don't respond to my initial email right away. However, it's been 9 months since I completed this job and I've been emailing for over a month. It is absolutely unacceptable to ignore my requests for all this time.

I understand I am not a customer, so you may throw customer service our the window. However, you should have a bit more decency and compassion for the people working for you. Not once in either of your emails did you even apologize for the fact that I have been waiting for 9 months to be paid. Not once did you apologize for the fact that your staff was ignoring me for over a month.

I know I am burning a bridge and won't get any other jobs with your company moving forward. However, I am fine with that as I do not want to work for a company who treats their shoppers with such little respect. Have a bit of dignity and admit where you're wrong. With all due respect, you have a lackluster operation going on here and you have a lot of work to do in order to get this fixed. My suggestion is to figure it out before your company completely fails. If nobody wants to shop for you then your business model will.not succeed.

I look forward to a response on Monday.

I have looked at the website and at my profile and can not see where you sign up for tipalti? They also supposedly paid me for a shop I did at the beginning of July I can not see where I am being actually being paid,

You need to look in your email. You should have been sent an email with a link to sign up for Tipalti. Each vendor that uses Tipalti has their own unique link. Bare pays with Tipalti but their link will only works with Bare, CSX would also have their own unique link that works only for them. You use the same link to check on payments, etc.

@Insight wrote:

I have looked at the website and at my profile and can not see where you sign up for tipalti? They also supposedly paid me for a shop I did at the beginning of July I can not see where I am being actually being paid,

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2024 09:36PM by Lady Marius.

I sent the company and Email and they answered that they are sending git to the accounts dept. I will keep track and see if I receive an answer from them. They said it would take a few days.

I find their statement, "That is as far as I can see today due to the system outage that is effecting us" interesting. As far as I noticed, no other MSCs were affected by the global outage. Of course, I haven't logged in to all of them, only the ones I normally use. I see no abnormalities.

This all reeks of a MSC in trouble. I am glad for this forum as I will not trust them to pay in the future.

Wow

I have been sendiing them emails and calling only to receive no responses. They are stealing without a gun and to think they have the guts to say he is a Vet!.. I think we all just have to suck it up. I have contacted 2 of the companies that I did assignments for thru Elite and they have stopped using them knowing that they have paid them but that Elite has not paid us.....contact any company that you did the assignment for and make sure they stop using Elite for their evaluations....there are enough legitimate companies out there for them to use.

Does nonpayment void the ICAs? Asking for a friend.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2024 11:31PM by sestrahelena.

@sestrahelena wrote:

Does nonpayment void the ICAs? Asking for a friend.

I think most say something about arbitration if there are issues.... no it doesn't seem to void the ICA

Are there any shoppers here that have been getting paid by this company in the recent past? Just curious if MSC failed only a few shoppers or all of them.

Hey everyone - providing an update, I just finally got paid for my shops from last October and November. After over a month of no response I finally added in the CEO, David Hartley and threatened to file a complaint and lawsuit (see my post above). That was last Friday. Marguerite emailed me Sunday and let me know my payment would be processed the next day. Payment hit my account on Tuesday. I haven't been paid for my recent shop last month, but I will be sure to follow up once it has been 90 days. Anyone looking to get paid I'd suggest doing what I did. Once I looped in David and brought up BBB and lawsuits it took me 4 days until the money was in my bank account. Good luck everyone.

Also, for what it's worth - Marguerite, who's always been very nice in my interactions, did apologize for the delay. Provided no explanation, but she said sorry for the delay, which is more than the CEO was willing to do. The guy is a complete jerk with zero compassion or appreciation for the shoppers working for his company.

I do appreciate the other thread, as it informed me of what was going on with not getting paid for shops. But I'll post here, since it's the most recent discussion.

Pjackson1129 - I'm glad you were able to get paid.

In my case, I'm half way there. I did two shops. When I first contacted them, they paid me for my first shop. They had all of my shop and pay statement information and referenced it. They said they would work on the second payment right after.

When I followed-up on the status of the second payment. I received the email at the bottom of this post. I found it somewhat contradictory in my case. As they voluntarily disclosed and referenced existing pay statement info. Anyways, it's nearing the 60 days they stated in their email. Once I stopped receiving a reply and significant update, I just went ahead and filed the BBB claim. I detailed all of my correspondence and attempts with dates, total duration, and remaining balance. I sent one last email to all parties - Marguerite Turner, Accounting, David Hartley - informing them of the BBB claim and a copy of what I submitted. At this point, whether I get paid or not, I'm just going to stop there.

Other MSCs have issues, but I've never seen a payment issue quite like this. In stark contrast, I commend A Closer Look, in their proactive efforts and communications to continue to issue checks through different methods, when they were experiencing issues with Direct Deposit.

Also, might as well tack on, working on another payment issue with BestMark. I don't work with them often, but they're starting to exhibit the same behavior as Elite CXS. Still looking into a payment that stated it was paid, but was not. Took more than 30 days to receive a reply that they're still looking into it.

Accounting at Elite CXS has been working diligently to restore accounting records following a major data loss during a system upgrade that affects both client and shopper accounts. Rest assured this is an internal issue only and there was no data breach. None of your personal data has been compromised. We are rebuilding the accounting database, but it is a slow and detailed process. We recognize that you are looking for payment and we are initiating payments to shoppers weekly as we restore this data. In some cases, we may need to reach out to you for additional details that cannot be recovered. These reach outs are also happening weekly. We expect to have this issue completely resolved over the next 30-60 days. We apologize for the delay and please rest assured you will be paid for shops successfully completed.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2024 03:37AM by Okie.

I did three shops for them and after contacting Marguerite several times, I was paid today for all three shops. She could not have been nicer. True it was only $15 for each one and I will not be doing any more for them in the future, it was nice to get paid.

Insight, good to hear it got resolved.

My first shop was $105 that got paid. My second shop was $175 that they are sitting on. I'm a little skeptical if it's due to the payment amount.

I just took a job with them a couple of weeks ago and just happened to check on how they make payments since I recently closed a bank account. I spoke and emailed with Marguerite who was very responsive. She helped me get my account unlocked wit Tipaldi and when I then realized I was never paid $175 from a job in November, she made accounting aware and they apologized and sent me the payment via Tipaldi within a couple of days, so maybe things are better now!

@michele125 wrote:

I just took a job with them a couple of weeks ago and just happened to check on how they make payments since I recently closed a bank account. I spoke and emailed with Marguerite who was very responsive. She helped me get my account unlocked wit Tipaldi and when I then realized I was never paid $175 from a job in November, she made accounting aware and they apologized and sent me the payment via Tipaldi within a couple of days, so maybe things are better now!

Good to know they resolved the issue for you. If you don't mind me asking, was the job you completed in Nov for a retail purchase (reimbursement only)? The reason I ask is that is the exact amount I am owed for an accepted job.

I just received an update today that they haven't responded to my BBB claim. Maybe I'm coming off too aggressive and hostile.

@22172 wrote:

I have contacted 2 of the companies that I did assignments for thru Elite and they have stopped using them knowing that they have paid them but that Elite has not paid us.....contact any company that you did the assignment for and make sure they stop using Elite for their evaluations....there are enough legitimate companies out there for them to use.

When you contacted the companies, who did you specifically speak with? I am thinking about doing the same, but unsure who to get in contact with since it's a larger company. Also, the client my report got accepted for recently opened a new location at a shopping mall. I've seen shops posted for this location, as well. I have nothing to further lose and don't want to continue to complete shops for them.

I may be misinformed, but I have a gut feeling this a very small MSC. Marguerite Turner just plays good cop, and David Hartley is Accounting.