I used to do mystery shops and audits up until a few years ago and wondered if anyone else ever had?
Mystery shoppers pose as normal customers and perform specific assigned tasks—such as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or behaving in a certain way – and then provide detailed reports on their experience back to the agency that hired them.
If you do a mystery shop for a restaurant visit, you're typically reimbursed for the cost of your meal plus anywhere from $5 to $15 or more depending on the agency.
Mystery shops may cover a wide range of asignments. I used to do mystery shops for fast food restaurants and would sometimes purchase an item from a store, and then do a return but there are all kinds of mystery shops. They may even pay you to visit and play at a casino or take a cruise tho those assignments are usually offered to long term shoppers.
Never pay for a list of mystery shop agencies! A legitimate agency will never charge a fee to hire you.
Most agencies will require you to complete and submit a test online to make sure you can fill out a report, etc. before hiring you.
You must usually qualify in some way to do a shop. For example, if you work in fast food, you would be ineligible to do a fast food shop generally.
Reports usually take less than 10 mins to complete and are done online.
Here a reliable link to legitimate mystery shop agencies:
I worked for EYES over 20 years ago. "Evaluate Your Employees Services"
Specialty of bars and restaurants. Make sure money going in the till and not the pocket. Make sure a scoop is used to get ice for a drink. (If ice is scooped directly using the glass, you have a chance of chipping the glass into the drink.) Make sure friends of the bartender or wait staff aren't getting freebies, etc.
Made the cost of drinks and meals plus enough to pay the baby sitter.
The wife and I did this together. Her only job, report back on the condition of the ladies room. I did the rest of the work. Dictated into a micro-cassette so I didn't have to think about about it and could proceed to enjoy the evening after enough observations were made.
I HATE shopping, so this is not something for me, but I passed the link along to my daughter-in-law...she has elevated shopping to a fine (frugal) art.
Yes I did it mystery shopping for about a year when my sons were little - it was during a time of famine for me and to take them out for dinner, we went to a restaurant for 2 paid meals.
But we had to order two different times! Exactly what was to be ordered, and with what condiments. And give separate accounts of each one. Sometimes it took an evening.
It was so much fun, and the kids got to give their opinions too - we looked forward to it every week for a night out.
That was about 18 years ago! Oooh, am I old.
Good memories.
Judy
Last edited by Judy; 02-14-2009 at 09:33 AM..
Reason: Added information
If you do a mystery shop for a restaurant visit, you're typically reimbursed for the cost of your meal plus anywhere from $5 to $15 or more depending on the agency.
$5 to $15 and a free meal? That hardly seems worth leaving home.
A friend & i use to do security checks for walmart, same as mystery shopping... we would travel to other walmarts within our district & evaluate employees, facilities, cleanliness of each dept etc, no one knew we worked for walmart or were doing evals on them... at the same time watch for shoplifters. We would also comp shop at other stores, such as shopko, kmart, target & the list goes on...
We were paid our hourly wage from the time we left our local store till we reported back, plus gas mileage & food reimbursement (same day cash) when we turned in our receipts at the end of the day.
They gave us a dollar amount limit to spend at each store & we had that in hand before we went on these security checks, showing receipts for the items we bought upon returning. Generally they were walmart items & we would just do a return sale & put it all on our stores shelves.
I was also a night manager at the district home store, so doing these trips was way cool. Would do it during the day & get the night off work It was fun since my friend also worked for walmart & we were able to spend the days together shopping, traveling, eating & getting paid.
I remember checking into a mystery shopper ad once and they wanted me to pay something like $35 for information or to do it. I can't remember now. As soon as I heard that I knew it was a scam. Kind of like those work at home opportunities.
I'd like to check into something like that again if they don't require you to pay them first. The restaurant one interests me since you know I like food.
I remember checking into a mystery shopper ad once and they wanted me to pay something like $35 for information or to do it. I can't remember now. As soon as I heard that I knew it was a scam. Kind of like those work at home opportunities.
I'd like to check into something like that again if they don't require you to pay them first. The restaurant one interests me since you know I like food.
I've seen & heard of some bad scams in that business... I'd do it again if the pay was decent.
You can usually schedule when you go within a specific timeframe.. I never scheduled myself or accepted an assignment unless I was already headed that way.
$15 once isn't alot but $15 several times a week adds up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Latina
$5 to $15 and a free meal? That hardly seems worth leaving home.
The ones that ask you to pay usually don't even do the hiring.. they want to send you the same list I linked to for free in my original post.
No reputable business (with a few exceptions, like bartending) will charge you to work for them directly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Baboon
I remember checking into a mystery shopper ad once and they wanted me to pay something like $35 for information or to do it. I can't remember now. As soon as I heard that I knew it was a scam. Kind of like those work at home opportunities.
I'd like to check into something like that again if they don't require you to pay them first. The restaurant one interests me since you know I like food.
The pay varies.. there are some shops you may do that pay $100 or $500 (like casinos or cruises) but as I say, those are usally assigned to those that have been doing it for awhile or have some specialised knowledge that's required.
I never did it as my only job, just a way to get a free meal or two on my way to the casino usually.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Latina
I've seen & heard of some bad scams in that business... I'd do it again if the pay was decent.
Thanks for bumping this up, I guess I missed this the first time around...very interesting. I have often thought I would do great at a job like this. I love to shop, go to restaurants, and have no problem deciding if something is good or not, clean or dirty, if someone is going to steal something or etc. etc...lol
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Mystery Shopping
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