shopperpro

Saddle up kids it’s going to be a long one today. So I had planned to expound upon my week of phone hell jobs, but that will keep for a day or so as I believe that this is more important. I received the following email last night:

Hello,
We are a company that conduct surveys and evaluate other companies. We get hired to go to other peoples companies and act like customers in order to know how the staffs are handling their services in relation to their customers. Once we have a contract to do you would be directed to the company or outlet and you would be given the funds you need to do the job(either purchase things or require services) after which you would write a comment on the staffs activities and give a detailed record of your experience. Examples of details you would forward to us are
1) How long it took you to get services.
2) Smartness of the attendant
3) Customer service professionalism
4) Sometimes you might be required to upset the attendant to see how they react to clients when they get tensed (under pressure).

We turn the information (you gave us) over to the company executives and they would carry out their own duties in improving their services.Most companies employ our assistance when people give complaints about their services or when they feel there are needs for them to improve their customer service. Your Identity would be kept confidential as the job states (secret shopper) you would be paid $100 for every survey you carry out bonus on your transportation allowance and funds would be given to you if you have to dine as part of the duty.Your job will be to evaluate and comment on customer service in a wide variety of shops, stores, restaurant and services in your area. No commitment is made on this job and you would have flexible hours as it suits you. If you are interested do send in

(I)Your Full Name:
(II)Your Residence address:City:State:Zip Code:
(III)Present work address:
(IV)Home and mobile Phone numbers:
(V)Email address:
(VI)Your Age and Current Occupation:
(VII)Your Gender:

So we can look at your distance from the locations which you have to put your service into, and your address would also be needed for your payments.

Thomas hiring manager.

Now what’s the first thing you notice about this email? Well if you’re me you notice that they’re offering $100 per assignment, but you need to look deeper. I am 99% positive that this email is a scam to solicit my personal information and possibly send me a bogus money order at some point. What makes me so sure?

1. The email has the general feel of someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language. This is not a disqualifier in itself, but mystery shopping companies who have jobs in the US tend to have representatives who are native English speakers.

2. NOWHERE in the email is an actual mystery shopping company listed.

3. The email address this email was sent from is a hotmail address. Legitimate mystery shopping companies DO NOT have free email accounts - yahoo, hotmail or gmail.

4. It is highly unlikely that you will receive money before you complete an assignment. While I have received an advance to complete a dining and a parking shop, the prepayment came in the form of vouchers/certificates and was NOT in cash.

5. In a decade of mystery shopping I have NEVER been required to upset a staff member to see how they react. I have been asked to create a small problem to see how the staff solved it for me, but not specifically to upset the staff member. For example on a hotel shop I was required to take the batteries out of the remote control and call down to the front desk to see how the solved the problem for me.

6. There is NO contact information provided for this supposed company - only the freebie email address. Legitimate mystery shopping companies will have websites and contact information such as PHONE NUMBERS. NOT just freebie email addresses.

7. While I have seen mystery shopping assignments that offer fees of $100, they are few and far between. They are also not usually publicly posted. The higher the shop fee, the more work involved so these jobs are not offered willy nilly to any Tom, Dick, or Harry.

8. While the personal information the email requests is not out of line with what a legitimate mystery shopping company will ask, it is seldom I have been required to provide a work address. Usually mystery shopping company applications just want to know what company you work for so that they can avoid offering you shops that will prove a conflict of interest. For example, if you work in a restaurant, mystery shopping a different restaurant might make it hard to keep your objectivity.

How did this person get my email address? I am listed on a few mystery shopping recruitment sites and have been contacted before by companies that I have never heard of. The information that can be accessed about me on these sites is that I am an experienced shopper, email, age, and probably gender, as some shops are gender specific. If a scheduler is looking for new shoppers in a specific area they’ll visit one of these recruitment sites and send emails to the shoppers in that area inviting them to apply with their companies.

PLEASE I urge you, if you receive one of these recruitment emails DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Make sure a company is legitimate before you offer up ANY personal information. Take the company name to the MSPA website, www.mysteryshop.org, and see if they are listed there. It is possible that a scam company could be a member of MSPA for a short while until the complaints start rolling in, but HIGHLY unlikely.

You can also visit the mystery shopping forums on www.volition.com. Post an email in the proper forum asking for the shopping company’s feedback. Odds are you will quickly receive a reply from a shopper who has worked for them before. Actually before I post to the forum, I search the forum archives to see if the question has been asked already. Chances are it has and I don’t even have to wait for a response, I just have to access what is already there.

So what action did I take? I replied to the email. I said it sounded like a good offer. I also asked for the NAME of the company, and if they had a website I could look at. I’ll make a bet that I don’t get a response, but I’ll keep you posted if I do.

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