With raising costs for everything I am grateful I have an opportunity to earn extra money as a mystery shopper. Even though a lot of the shops are the same, the experiences are always different.
Such as the other day I was planning on going to a well known wholesale club to buy discount gas. I checked my emails first and found a mystery shop of this same club. I signed up for and received this shop so I was able to write off my gas driving to this club to purchase this gas. An d I was paid to do it also,. It was 15 minutes in the club, a 5 minute report and I made $8.
One of my favorite type of shops is a reveal with a reward. A few years ago I did some of these shops at a well known fast food place. The cashier was supposed to follow company policy in the up-sell from a sandwich to a combo. If they failed to up-sell they would receive a failure note. If they did everything correct I would return to the counter after my meal and ask to talk to the manager. I would then tell the manager I was a mystery shopper and I had just shopped the cashier. I would them congratulate the cashier and present them with a company certificate for #25. The looks on the face the cashiers when they received those certificate was what made me enjoy those shops.
One of the funny ones I did was a national home improvement store. I was supposed to look for and out of stock item in the department I was shopping and ask a crew member for that item. The proper thing for them to do would be check the back room and then come out and tell me they were out of stock. They were supposed to then look the part up on their system and tell me the nearest store in their chain with that part. The person I encountered did all that and then added “You can probably find it cheaper at ‘competitor’s name’ just down the block.” A facepalm moment for me right there. And I had to report that in my paperwork for the shop.
Those are just a few of my experiences. If you would like to know more about mystery shopping a good resource is the Mystery Shopping Forum,