Mystery Shoppers: Fill & Download for Free

It's so often a scam that it's not worth investing any effort in it.Before retailers began to close their stores, customer service was a key component of their business. They used a number of so-called “mystery shoppers” to determine if their far flung chains of stores were providing customers with best possible services.However, now the retail market in North America is in tatters. Many of the largest store chains have closed, and nearly all of the others are in serious trouble. They don't have the money to spend on mystery shoppers, as they have very few REAL shoppers coming through their doors. They are mostly spending money on keeping inventory on their shelves, and purchasing just enough advertising to keep their names in the public's mind.My point?Rather than spending money on mystery shoppers, stores are simply analyzing database reports and examining social media platforms for information. They don't need to hire outsiders when they can receive information that is just as accurate, for a fraction of the price and receive it with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks.Unless you are familiar with the company and have worked with them successfully in the past, I wouldn't bother trying to seek employment with them. Most mystery shopper opportunities are simply scams meant to lure the unwary and the gullible, who know little about the retail industry.It's usually a scam and should be treated as such.

I worked at 5 branches of a giant fast food chain famous for selling fried chickens and uses its founder’s face as symbol and the founder was given a title similar to a military rank by his native state in the US.All 5 restaurants belonged to the same franchisee and the franchisee claims to be the biggest franchisee of the parent company of the restaurant and also runs their other brands which sell pizza and mexican food.Following is what I saw in ALL 5 restaurants and is common throughout the restaurants, atleast which are run by the same franchisee:The don’t care for expiry dates of raw chicken and still fried them and sold them days past their used by dates.Store managers regularly bought cheap chicken drumsticks from local supermarket and sold them along with company provided chicken, coated in the same breading and fried together. All the extra sale went into the pocket of the manager as a lot of the sale is not recorded on registers. Most people don’t ask for receipts.Say they have a stock of 100 pieces of raw chicken. They would sell 120 pieces (20 extra from the supermarket) but only record 90 on the register and show 10 as wastage. The money from the extra 30 goes to the manager. They would occasionally their “profits” with workers who will take orders without recording them on the registers.The profits which the manager made this way are to be shared with the area manager. This is a organised racket and happens with all stores. So if there are 10 stores under 1 area manager, they would weekly collect their share from the managers of all 10 stores.The managers make a killing this way. They all spend it on luxury cars, down payment on houses and other expensive stuff. Two of the managers collected so much cash that they opened their own fast food restaurants.The parent company has a thing called “mystery shopper” where they send someone to pretends to be a regular shopper and reports on everything from service to food quality etc. This is a way of quality control by the company. If a store get 100% score, the company (franchisee, not the parent company) gives a cash reward to the store manager. There is another racket here. Store manager know which company conducts the mystery shopping. They have made their friends and friends of other workers in the store to register with that company and try to bag the assignment of their particular stores. Then they give them a score of 100%. The manager then shares that cash reward with the “mystery-shopper”. Company thinks that the store is functioning rally well.The oil used for frying is not cleaned regularly and changed infrequently, against the regulations of the parent company. The day oil is changed, the taste is totally different. As the oil gets dirtier, there is a marked difference in the taste, color and quality of the food. Most people don’t notice that as the condiments, side dishes, soda, fries etc mask the taste.So basically, the food is not always what is advertised, can be spoiled, bought from the local supermarket, dirty. And store managers and area managers make a killing amount of illegal cash. And the parent company has no clue what’s going on. (Maybe they do and are also accomplice, and money also goes further up the chain, but I didn’t notice that)

Question: How does the Secret Shopper scam work?Easy: The overwhelming majority of “Secret Shopper/Mystery Shopper” jobs are simply scams.That’s it.In the days before advanced databases and the Internet, companies used to send in shoppers to “test” how well their stores and restaurant properties were doing. However, there’s been a major retrenchment in the retail industry and most of the major chains of the past have either closed or consolidated. Coupled with their relatively high rates of employee turnover and the ability to assess the sales performance of their various properties with just a few mouse clicks, the majority of businesses no longer use Mystery/Secret shoppers.Unfortunately no one seems to have told this to most people, and those who don’t want a full time job or who are somewhat naive are easy prey for con artists who offer them a “job” doing something that seems to be “fun” and that doesn’t require a great deal of skill or training. They place ads online or in the few newspapers which are still widely read and they manage to locate thousands of new “marks” (victims) each year. Those people apply for those jobs and at some point send in money to the scammers which is never returned.Again….there are so few “Secret” or “Mystery” shopper roles, that it’s safe to state that the jobs don’t exist. If you see an ad for one, you should assume that it is a scam, and you should simply ignore it completely. If you don’t, then you are probably going to lose money. How much you lose will depend upon how foolish that you are, and how unwilling that you are to listen to others who warn you.