Mystery Shopper

I got to do my first mystery shopper assignment yesterday. I found the whole experience nerve wracking. If you surf the web, you'll see advertisements showing how you can make big bucks being a mystery shopper. The truth of the matter is if you find a legitimate company to work for, you won't get rich doing it and you probably won't be able to make a career out of it either. Money wise, I earned $20 plus $5 for the item I had to purchase. The $20 was double what I would normally receive for an assignment. For that $20, I had an extensive checklist I had to mark off on (over 35 questions). I also had to make up bogus questions for six different departments so I could see how well they treated customers. I found that part hard as I had to be something I wasn't. I was trying to play the regular customer when I was actually checking up on these folks. To add to my discomfort, I don't know if the company I was doing all this for is legitimate. There are a lot of mystery shopper scams out there. My co-worker Jaime at Medieval Times had one group try to scam her for something like $2,000. While I was never in that kind of potential danger, at worst I would've been out $7 plus gas, I still had visions of someone breaking into my apartment while I at the business I was checking on. After all, if the company was bogus and was a bunch of crooks, they would know when I'd be gone and how long I'd likely be gone. I had to spend a minimum of 35 minutes at the store I had to check on and it was a 30 minute drive each way. An hour and a half would be plenty of time to rob me of any valuables I'd left out in the apartment. Before I left, I secured the passwords to my various accounts and hid my laptop and digital camera.

The assignment itself went all right considering it was my first one. I managed to come up with some kind of question for each of the departments. I think I managed to not look too nervous. I was afraid if I looked the nervous type, the security folks might think I was a crook. If I had to explain to security person at the store what was up, I wouldn't be able to swear what I was doing was legit. I didn't want to even think of that mess. I made sure I spent the mandatory 35 minutes at the store and then took my items to the sales person who rang me up.

When I left the store, I filled out a copy of the survey I had to do so I'd be able to remember all the things I needed to answer while they were fresh in my mind. Then, I drove home and to my relief, no one had tried to break into my apartment. My work wasn't done though as once you've done an assignment, you have 12-hours to report back to your boss and do the on-line survey which presumably will be forwarded to the company paying for the mystery shopper service. That took another 20 minutes. Also, I had to do an invoice for my services which I'll have to mail out today with the receipt from the store I shopped at. If all goes well, I'll get paid $25 in about 30 days. If it turns out to be a scam which I think is unlikely (if it is a scam, it is the most elaborate one I've ever seen), I'll be out $7 of which I'll have bought some items I wanted anyway.

Before I knew exactly what I was getting into, I signed up for four more assignments. As I try to keep my word, I plan to do them though they promise to be challenging for me. I'll get to play a spy of sorts. I've always felt I would never be good a good spy. I just don't have the nerves for it. I also don't like being something I'm not. I like the thought that with me, what you see is what is actually there. There isn't anything hidden and there isn't anything devious. I consider myself something of a naive person. Time and again, I've been surprised by some of the underhanded things I've learned some people do. In regards to being naive, I don't consider that to be the best thing. It's better to be wise though if it comes to being either naive or duplicitous, I'll take naive any day. As it is, you my blog readers may get to hear of further misadventures of Agent Ditto as he continues his secret missions to uncover poor customer service, unclean stores and disastrous parking lots. Stay tuned.