Here is a way to get free food and get paid for it. If you register to be a mystery shopper, you will begin to get a bunch of offers to dine-out at nice restaurants. You pay for your meal but then once you complete the assignment and submit your report, the mystery shopping company will reimburse you the cost of the meal and then they will also pay you extra for completing the assignment. I have done several mystery shopping assignments. They can be fun. Some involve electronics, some involve restaurant dining out, etc. It is a way to make some extra money and get free stuff at the same time. I thought that it might having been bogus when I first heard about it but then I tried it and sure enough, they pay you to eat out and other things too. You can Google for the term -- mystery shopping companies and you will get a long list of them. Be careful though not to get scammed. There are scammers in the business. If interested, check out ShadowShopper dot com or Volition dot com. Follow the prompts to find the mystery shopping links. It really does work, so check it out.
I have been a mystery shopper since college. I've worked for three different companies, switching only when I moved to find companies that had shops in my area. I'm currently working withLog In. I don't find that the pay is comparable to a side job, but it is nice when I can mystery shop places that I go to anyway. It is also a fun way to get a night out paid for, if you are lucky enough to find restaurant jobs or the ones for movie theaters.
I have thought about doing a mystery shop but I just have a problem with the low pay for the shop and when I am asked to spend money which they will reimburse me but it can take a month to six weeks to get paid and my money back that I had to spend to do the shop. The payout time should not be so long in my mind.
I've tried to do something similar to this with an Android App I had installed (I can't recall the name of it right now). It basically would detect your location and list mystery shopping offers available near you, then if you took the offer you had like two hours to complete it. The offers I was attempting though were to find certain products within Wal-Mart and take snapshots with my phone of the item and the price tags. Problem was no matter what item I tried to do this with, there was always some Wal-Mart employee standing nearby so I couldn't do it. Plus I had heard stories of people being escorted out of Wal-Mart by security for taking pictures in the store like that. I've not tried this with restaurants though, but I am curious to try it out sometime. My sister used to do it with fast food places in our neck of the woods from time to time, but she stopped. As you mentioned though I would be concerned about not getting reimbursed, but at the same time, what would someone have to gain (other than the restaurant itself) for tricking you into going out to eat somewhere?
I have never been mystery shopping. I would like to try it out though. I wouldn't now where to start in my area. It would be great to be reimbursed for meals. I used to have a friend who wrote for a food column and so she got to try out all of the new restaurants. I was jealous
I did it for several years and it can be fun, though not always. Some places require to order a specific meal or to go on a specific date and others want you to pay in cash only and to get reimbursed after completion. These are things to ask and to consider when you accept jobs. I built up a good reputation and was offered nice jobs, though sometimes you have to take someone and if they aren't used to mystery shopping they cancel or are late and that creates more stress for you. Also many don't want you to complain as they want to see how they deal with things and sometimes your guest won't understand why you don't ask for sauces because they are assessed on offering it. Basically you are acting!
I think mystery shopping is a brilliant idea. It is quite a lot like acting, but it lacks the security and formality involved in acting as an occupation. I've just browsed around for mystery shopping gigs and they look intriguing, but there is no job security. Or not. I'm not sure. I probably would be interested in learning more about how they differ from user testing and beta tester jobs. I think mystery shoppers risk a great deal of things to perform their tasks, and the nature of the job is quite related to reviewers of products.
The stories of mystery shopping here are interesting. But I'm wondering how much exactly does a mystery shopper earn?
I've never done mystery shopping before but I have thought about it, it sounds great in theory but a lot of people seem to have more trouble than it's worth in practice. For one thing, there are so many scams...I don't doubt that there are some legitimate opportunities for it, but there are plenty of scams as well and people are understandably a little hesitant. Not to mention, even the ones that do reimburse you/pay you, it can take a long time to get the payments. So I guess I really enjoy the *idea* of it but I'm not sure about it in practical application.
Mystery shopping can be great if you are working with a legit company. The fact though is online, there are thousands of fake mystery shopping sites that will get you to waste your time [and probably money] for no reward. So for those who might be interested in mystery shopping, don't just search for mystery shopping sites on the net. Ask those who've done mystery shopping in the past to suggest a company or site you can work with or else you'll regret having ever tried to save money with mystery shopping.
There was just a post about this on a scam busting site. One of the top companies is called "Mystery Shopping, Inc" (Or something similar) and is legit. But there is a new scammer company called "Mystery Shopping, LLC" (or some variation. The two names are extremely similar). The people were told to buy the items, then mail them and they would be reimbursed. They never give payment. So basically you are buying a product then giving it away for free. I tried years ago, but all of the requests were so specific in dates and times, and none were in my area. I was impossible for me to be in those places at the times requested. I gave up.
