[lettucesoap]

A friend suggested to me that i should take up a mystery shopper job because I need the money but can't work rigid retail hours because of special circumstances at home. I've looked at a few websites but before I go signing up I'd like to know a few things..
Anyone been employed by a mystery shopping company? If so what was the pay like and what did you have to do? Is it worth going for?

[aarora]

Be careful, usually to become a mystery shopper you need to join a website and pay to join, so there are a lot of fake ones which con people. I've heard you get paid quite well, its not really a secure job, your only called when your needed soo its not very reliable if your looking for something long term its more of a temp thing.

[lettucesoap]

Thanks for your help, due to my situation it's actually a good thing that it's a temp job. Would you be able to recommend some websites which are safe?

[katyness]

I'm surprised I found this thread. Yesterday at around the same time you created this thread my cousin advised me to join.

Did you eventually find any safe websites?

(Original post by lettucesoap)
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(I thought I would quote you just in case

[lettucesoap]

what a coincidence! Well I just googled it to see what would come up, and marketforce.com seemed to be the most reliable, so I decided to sign up with them

[welshfrankie]

I signed up with marketforce.com last week. Unfortunately most of the jobs near me are really far away so by the time I paid the petrol I'd be earning a pittance for each assignment.

[JKGB]

My mum used to do these when she couldn't work full-time, there are some good points (she used to be paid £70 to order from Waitrose Online plus the cost of the food!) but a lot of the jobs involved a lot of writing very long reports, you also have to memorise things really well - a lot of the time you're expected to remember the name of every person who served you, the appearance of the store outside, the layout, how well the toilets were kept, exactly how long it took for you to be served/for someone to acknowledge you etc. She used to work for a company called NOP but I don't think they do mystery shopping any more.

[lettucesoap]

Thanks for your useful input guys! I guess i don't really mind the writing and memorizing aspects of it as much, and as I'm still a student I can get free public transport to shops. Welshfrankie - when you signed up, did you fill in the location information? You can adjust the proximity of your assignments.

What I'm more concerned about is how your pay is affected if you write a report which doesn't meet the company's standards, and whether they pay you on time and efficiently, as well as how they use your bank account details (upon registering as a mystery shopper I've been asked to give my bank account number and sort code, and I'm quite hesitant to give them out since I don't know if they're in genuinely safe hands; the website itself doesn't say much about privacy and conditions, so I'm tempted to call them up).. does anyone with mystery shopping experience (preferably with Market Force uk) have any reassuring information regarding these?
I really want to avoid being scammed.

[Fward]

(Original post by lettucesoap)
Thanks for your useful input guys! I guess i don't really mind the writing and memorizing aspects of it as much, and as I'm still a student I can get free public transport to shops. Welshfrankie - when you signed up, did you fill in the location information? You can adjust the proximity of your assignments.

What I'm more concerned about is how your pay is affected if you write a report which doesn't meet the company's standards, and whether they pay you on time and efficiently, as well as how they use your bank account details (upon registering as a mystery shopper I've been asked to give my bank account number and sort code, and I'm quite hesitant to give them out since I don't know if they're in genuinely safe hands; the website itself doesn't say much about privacy and conditions, so I'm tempted to call them up).. does anyone with mystery shopping experience (preferably with Market Force uk) have any reassuring information regarding these?
I really want to avoid being scammed.

Hi, did you ever do any work for marketforce?? Were they reliable? did you get to pick and choose which jobs to do?

[inksplodge]

I am a mystery shopper for a well-known bath & body company. However, I'm not 'employed' per se. The customer service department of that company has a list of people and we're given credits for our mystery shopping reoprts. We may only get one assignment every few months but it's better than nothing.