Mystery shopping - real or scam?

[HmmmIwonder]

If you Google mystery shopper loads of sites come up wanting your details to register & send you ads for local jobs. Anyone done this? Did it lead to any real employment?

I'd love to do that!

Yes - not sure if they're all legit, but all big retailers will use mystery shoppers and I think they get them all through agencies.

No. Never leads to "real employment". You'll get a job every week or so and get a fiver and maybe a meal for doing it. Don't expect it to turn into a viable career.

I work for a legit firm and earn anything from £10-£100 a go, depending on what they want me to do. Recently got £30 for going into a shop with a camera fitted into a handbag which was ace! Only downside is the contracts aren't regular. If you have DCs though it can be a nice bit of extra cash!

Do they pay travel expenses?

I did loads for Grassroots when I only had one DC, they are def legit and pay around £10 per assignment but you'd never earn a living from it, was just nice extra spending money.

My company pay travel and postage, the travel is usually worked out by how far away you live from the job and added to the fee for the job.

I did loads with retail eyes - it was more of a nice bit of extra cash, free night out at a pub for me but i think they kind of grade you so the more you do, the more options pop up when you log in.

Sometimes they ask you to buy an item, which they should refund you for the cost, and perhaps allow you to keep the item.

Bump.

I noticed on reading the 'Assignment Notes' for one of their jobs they send you on, is that you have to go into a betting shop for instance and, it states clearly, you 'must play at least one game of minimum £2 spend'.

So basically, this betting shop is getting customers (aka mystery shoppers) sent to their shop, via the Mystery Shopper website.

Good sell!

Whatever the 'useful' feedback Mystery Shoppers (MS) give to these organisations (ahem, if at all), sending a MS into Tesco to specifically rate the fruit and veg section when their assignment is to compulsorily 'purchase at least three items of fresh produce' so as not to break their secret squirrel undercover operation (haha! It all sounds so daft now!), means Tesco may or may not get customer feedback from you, but they'll certainly get a few pounds out of you.

Smells like not so much a scam but an intricate marketing ploy to me. Apologies if you already figured this out, I only just did!

Floris the company then reimburses you and pays a fee to you and the agency so its actually cost them money, awful business sense if they are only doing it to make a profit I worked many years in retail management and mystery shoppers are a valuable tool in ensuring standards are met.