Beware Of Mystery Shopping Scams!

I've done a lot of mystery shopping, and besides scams where they ask for a fee, there are also companies that are less than honest when they are supposed to pay up.

I used to work for one and they always tried to wriggle out of paying, and found fault with your report even though it was a multiple choice questionnaire most of the time. These companies want to please their clients so if there are too many bad ones, they get questioned and flagged and for the small fee it's not worth the hassle at times.

 

I was not aware about the fact that the stores have mystery shopper just to get positive effect from the customers by paying them cash or other incentives. Since I was not aware about the term mystery shopper, if anyone had approached me I would have easily complied and perhaps scammed.

 

I recently advised my brother to cancel his application as mystery shopper for this company. He had already attended a one-day seminar. After that, he was asked to submit photocopies of 3 valid government IDs. I warned him not to submit as these can be used to obtain loans or benefits under his name. This has happened to a lot of people in my country. In the first place, why would they require 3 government IDs? If they need the ID number, they need not have the photocopy.

 

This is the situation I am always avoiding on dealing with business online. That is to register for a fee and then you are entitled to juicy gains out of the amazing promos. The point here is to pay for a registration. In that point, it is already a form of scam. You may ask yourself in case you are couldn't avail of the services they are offering, could you have a refund of your registration fee?

 

Somehow the idea of mystery shopping has been a difficult one for me to digest. I mean o do know how it works but sometimes I wonder how reliable are they?

For this fear I have been avoiding such sites.

 

I did mystery shopping a few years back, and most of the reputable mystery shopping companies don't want ID. Instead the shoppers are considered contractors who managed their own taxes and financial affairs. Given how little it pays this can seem like a really large overhead.

Also, I've never heard of a reputable firm trying to charge people to sign up. If they do, then it is definitely a scam.

 

Mystery hopping has interested me in the longest while. I thought it would be a great way to save up on money and be able to get free products. It's hard to really find a legit one these days. I tried to mystery shop last summer but was not too successful. Are there any legit mystery shop companies that really do pay handsomely?

 

I never heard of any mystery shopper's site that was legit or paid good. I'd hesitate and check with the Better Business Bureau about each company before giving any information or signing up. I'd ask for reviews about each site. I never liked mystery shopper's sites and though I get invites to join them, I never joined, for I just did not like it. CVS, McDonalds and other companies have their own survey to do written on their receipts, so I doubt secret shopper sites. Best be safe and don't join and do the survey from your safeway receipt for surer results or get a buy one get one free sandwich from McDonalds for doing their survey.

 

Most of those are designed often to let people buy things from shopper. And that is one way for the mystery shopping games to work. And this is something you'd be enjoying in some cases. But in rest of the other cases you're going to get scammed too. So you should be really careful with what you can or can't do as well. So it all depends on how you handle things. That's what I have learned as well.