OT : Secret Shopper ?

I keep on getting these emails from ReportCard.com about being a Secret shopper. Does anyone in here do this and does it work ? I could use some extra cash but I am kinda leary. Does it work and is it as easy as they say ? Also, they say you COULD get $1000 gift card, what does this require ? I guess I am still old fashion and believe you can't get something for nothing.

What the scoop ? Thanks, Iowa883

Reply to
Iowa883
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thats all you need to know...

randy

Reply to
xrongor

Last time I looked into it, the marketing company wanted me to pay them on how to get hooked up. Yeah like that was going to happen

Reply to
SQLit

they make you sigh a secret agreement so nobody can answer you straight up.

the card is probably what you spend and report on real goods/items, you'll be required to turn back in before you get paid with a food gift card ;)

Reply to
bumtracks

-> I keep on getting these emails from ReportCard.com about being a Secret

-> shopper. Does anyone in here do this and does it work ? I could use some

-> extra cash but I am kinda leary.

-> Does it work and is it as easy as they say ? Also, they say you COULD get

-> $1000 gift card, what does this require ? I guess I am still old fashion and

-> believe you can't get something for nothing.

->

-> What the scoop ?

-> Thanks,

-> Iowa883

There are real "secret shoppers" out there. One of the news shows recently did a segment on one of them. (I think it was Dateline.) Also, when I worked at Wal-Mart we would frequently get these performance reports. One day I asked where they came from and the answer was "secret shoppers."

I've been curious about it, too, but I suppose I'm too skeptical to trust anyone who solicits me via e-mail or the web.

Go ahead and look into it, but beware of anyone who asks for money up front. If they're legitimate, they shouldn't be doing that. (IMHO)

Reply to
Suzie-Q

There are legitimate outfits that place secret shoppers. You get less than minimum wage for most assignments, maybe a free lunch at a restaurant for doing the required assignment. In addition to the gas you burn, wear and tear on your vehicle, and the fact that you spent a half day dicking around for a $10 lunch, it comes out you make squat.

Reply to
DaveG

... I guess I am still old fashion and | believe you can't get something for nothing. ...

If you believe that, then ... why the post? You already know the answer.

Pop

Reply to
Pop

ANY spam offering ANYTHING of any VALUE is a CROCK!

If you didn't ask for the mail, don't know who sent it, and know of no reason for anyone to have sent it to you, then it is spam!!!!!!!!!!!! Spammers lie. Spammers lie. Spammers hide. Spammers fraud. Spammers cannot be found if'/when it comes time to find them. Anything else you didn't understand? The same goes for anyone who sends you anything! It sounds as though you are the type who would open an attachment to an email just to see what it was. Then be confused when all of a sudden your operating system and files are gone, and someone is using your credit cards and getting new credit cards in your name. Right?

Never ever so much as respond to a spammer's "remove" address. Unless you like getting lots of spam that is.

Pop

| wrote: | | -> I keep on getting these emails from ReportCard.com about being a Secret | -> shopper. Does anyone in here do this and does it work ? I could use some | -> extra cash but I am kinda leary. | -> Does it work and is it as easy as they say ? Also, they say you COULD get | -> $1000 gift card, what does this require ? I guess I am still old fashion and | -> believe you can't get something for nothing. | ->

| -> What the scoop ? | -> Thanks, | -> Iowa883 | | There are real "secret shoppers" out there. One of the news shows | recently did a segment on one of them. (I think it was Dateline.) | Also, when I worked at Wal-Mart we would frequently get these | performance reports. One day I asked where they came from and the | answer was "secret shoppers." | | I've been curious about it, too, but I suppose I'm too skeptical to | trust anyone who solicits me via e-mail or the web. | | Go ahead and look into it, but beware of anyone who asks for money | up front. If they're legitimate, they shouldn't be doing that. (IMHO) | -- | 8^)~~~ Sue (remove the x to e-mail) | ~~~~~~ | "I reserve the absolute right to be smarter | today than I was yesterday." -Adlai Stevenson | |

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| ***Revelation 22:12*** ICQ: 349878998 |
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Reply to
Pop

In alt.home.repair on Sat, 18 Dec 2004 09:20:52 -0600 "Iowa883" posted:

Mystery shoppers don't get something for nothing. They work for it.

As far as a gift card goes, you know very well that people win things that are worth more than the effort they put into it. What does being old-fashioned have to do with it? There is Publisher's Clearing House; there are raffles at your kids' schools or the Elks Club; at various times there are prizes under the caps of Coke bottles, etc. There are loads of ways people win things with little effort on their own part.

However there is no reason to think you will win anything from this place. Contests that follow the current law say how many prizes are being given, how many entrants are expected, and what the odds are of winning. They haven't bothered to tell you any of that. Maybe by including this in a job offer puts them outside of this law, but you have to remember the origin of this, SPAM. Spam is dirty. You shouldn't even touch it. It has germs.

My friend is a mystery shopper, for the last 15 years I think, maybe

  1. She has a full-time job too. No matter what they say sometimes, no one could live on what being a mystery shopper pays. (Some woman in Arizona wrote a book recently claiming people (usually women) could earn 50G iirc a year doing this. She's crazy or lying. 50G is 25 dollars an hour, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. Most jobs don't pay 25 dollars, so if they pay 10 or 15, or 12.50 you'd have to do 2 an hour all day. There may be some jobs that can be finished in a half hour, but you could never schedule them one after another all day long, physically arranged so that there was little travel time in between.

Also, pay has gone down in recent years. Perhaps because unemployment is higher, and there are plenty of people looking for these jobs.

And strangely, it is somehow harder than before to deal with these companies since the popularity of email. Well it's not so strange when you discuss it. It used to be they wrote people with shopping offers, and the people called back I think (800 numbers). When they called, they talked to a real person; they could ask questions; they could give details, like where they would work and where they wouldn't. Also, they are in a much bigger rush than they used to me. It was typical to get a week or two to do an assignment 5 or 10 years ago. Now they often want it done in 2 days. Email made such speed conceivable, and now clients want that.***

But my friend has done some interesting things that spun off from her mystery shopping. Once or more she was sent to liquor stores to check the freshness date on many of the canned and bottled beers for sale. It was cold inside the cooler. When something was recalled, she accepted a job to either watch while the shopkeeper destroyed it, or take it away and ship it herself back to the maker. She's done focus groups. She's applied for jobs, to check out the personnel departments. (She got every job she applied for.) I think she's checked doctors' offices to see what magazines they subscribe too (orsomething like that.) And other interesting things. But most of it is shopping (and sometimes returning what she bought).

Some companies want the mystery shopper to note the name of the person who waits on them. Others don't care. (I don't understand the second group. They don't have to fire or even punish someone for not getting everything right, but I would think it would benefit them to know who it was. ) A lot of them want to time how long it takes a clerk to offer to help a customer when she walks in the store. And they want them or the casheir to say "Is there anything else I can help you with? Thank you for shopping at Armondo's House of Junk. Would you like to open a 'special shopper account'? Have a nice day (Or the recent atrocity, "Have a nice rest of weekend.") I hate all that stuff. I don't like clerks' trying to help me unless I ask for it, and I hate all those questions by the cashiers. They should just say

4.95, and Thank you. If we have time left over, we can discuss the Mets, or the weather, or politics.

Back to shopping, about half the stores (usually chains) that she is hired to check out go out of business within a few months after they hire her. Either she has very bad karma, or they don't hire mystery shoppers until their business is near bankruptcy.

But other stores have done well. One sent her a thermometer to measure the temperature of the coffee they sell. She doesn't drink coffee or eat much sweets, so when I went with her, I got to have both. (I don't drink coffee either, but someone had to drink it. :) )

***(Related: When I buy from ebay, I almost never care about shipping speed. I would rather pay less and have them ship surface mail**. But everyone ships express-mail -- two days or so. So when I bought from a mail-order company that took 2 weeks, it seemed like forever. **I think, just guessing, that vendors like express mail, so they can wrap things up quickly. If a two week shipment didn't show up, by then, the vendor wouldn't remember what it was.)

BTW, "Reportcard.com is currently upgrading its systems. We hope to be up and running shortly. Thank you."

Meirman

If emailing, please let me know whether or not you are posting the same letter. Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.

Reply to
meirman

Iowa883:

I > I keep on getting these emails from ReportCard.com about being a Secret I > shopper. Does anyone in here do this and does it work ? I could use some I > extra cash but I am kinda leary. I > Does it work and is it as easy as they say ? Also, they say you COULD get I > $1000 gift card, what does this require ? I guess I am still old fashion an

I > believe you can't get something for nothing. I > I > What the scoop ?

Talked some someone a couple of months back who considered such an occupation. They wanted him to travel from his current home in Muscatine to secret shop in Dubuque (if you're in eastern Iowa you'll know the distance, for the others it's around 100 miles one-way). Considering the current price of gas plus the travel time he didn't find the offer all that good.

- ¯ barry.martinþATþthesafebbs.zeppole.com ®

  • 486 - The average IQ needed to understand a PC.
Reply to
barry martin

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