Mystery Shopping

[sweetums]

Have you tried mystery shopping, I just started this about 9 months ago and I have gotten to the point where I am averaging about $1,000 a month now dedicating about 25 to 30 hours a week. Just thought if anyone is interested it is fun and easy to do.

 

[Indigo Cherry]

Have you tried mystery shopping, I just started this about 9 months ago and I have gotten to the point where I am averaging about $1,000 a month now dedicating about 25 to 30 hours a week. Just thought if anyone is interested it is fun and easy to do.

And mystery shopping would be?

 

[WebsiteDesigner]

How do you become one?

 

[steve23]

I did mystery shopping for a while - just as a pocket money thing really, and it worked out ok.

Not vast money, but sometimes beggars cant be choosers.

One set of 'jobs' I did was to go into a certain bank chain and enquire about moving my account to them - you then report back on how they handled it all etc.

The enquiry took about 30 mins, and I was paid £10 per bank. As I live in the south I was able to do quite a few in my local area, and was managing three a day as one stage - so i was happy.

I also visitied McDonalds ! My town has 4 of these, and i seemed to be the only person doing it - so i could end up having breakfast, lunch and dinner there !

I was paid about £5.00 per visit (took minutes anyway) and the cost of the meal, so again, not great money, but a free meal as well so I was happy.

If anyone likes the idea of this, just google mystery shopping - you'll see the companies etc - off the top of my head I think 'gapbuster' or somethng like that was a good one.

All the best

Steve

 

[steve23]

Oh, on a related issue....

What amazed me about mystery shopping is how much of it gets done - what i mean is, I would often visit the same branch of a big store (or McDonalds) at least once a week, maybe twice.

I should imagine that when staff get told during training that they may meet a mystery shopper they would think this is just a story and wont happen, but it would seem some big stores do take this seriously.

Vodafone and B&Q use (or did) mystery shoppers a lot.

All the best

Steve

 

[Rasta Pickles]

There was one recently on a job-board that promised anything and everything but upon visiting the website it became apparent that (a) work wasn't guaranteed, i.e you might not get any assignments for weeks on end and (b) they wanted an upfront "registration fee" to "cover costs".

I passed.

 

[sweetums]

There are several mystery shop companies - you can find them on the net. But if they ever ask for upfront fees then you need to move on - you should never pay to be a mystery shopper and the more you work with companies then the more assignments you will end up getting. Plus it is fun!!

 

[furniture]

it was really a nice as well educational post.

 

[seanstevens]

The wife has done it in the past and enjoyed it. Pocket money earned and a few freebies.

 

[sweetums]

Yes I believe it is easy money and fun. You can do it on your own time with no one looking over your shoulder telling you how to do your job. There are tons of companies that you can signup with for free and you can even do phone shops. But again if anyone requires money then you move on to the next one. For example this place is free:

http://www.findextrawork.co.uk/mysteryshopping.php

It is best to signup with a few companies that way you have plenty of jobs to choose from. Most of them require you to watch a short video then take a quick easy test then you are on your way to making money. Way better then doing online surveys and other silly stuff like that.

 

[Minuteman Press]

As a company we do quite a lot of Mystery Shopping work - it is fun, interesting, varied and well paid but takes a big chunk of time - has to be very well balanced with other projects.

We only take on contracts from the largest research organisations and mostly work for government departments.

 

[StudentManager]

Good tip about not paying to sign up anywhere, there are a lot of scams around! Always best joining up with plenty of free companies that you have done research on for the best chance of work, as it's well paid but not exactly frequent.

I've done quite a bit of mystery shopping before and ended up finding a good mystery shopping company through a student fair at my university freshers week a few years ago. They basically recommend genuine and free places to sign up for mystery shopper jobs (and only list where there is demand). Not sure of the link or if anyone else can remember where I mean but will try to find it and update this.