Howdy folks!

My name is David, I'm a Realtor by profession in SW Missouri area, but this summer I finally discovered mystery shopping and have dove right in head first. Been doing this since June this year, and seriously doing it since July, so about 3 months. So far I've done over 300 individual assignments for about 20 companies, and without giving the details, it's been pretty good so far. It's been quite a ride reading and learning.

Just figured I'd give a shout out, the folks here have been pretty friendly and understanding so far. I'm glad I found this MSC, I've already gotten 6 good assignments in about a week & 1/2. Hopefully the point system will open up more opportunities in my area.

Well, just sayin hey. Thanks :)

I took the Intro course from MSPA, a.k.a. "Silver", and found it pretty basic mystery shopping stuff. I've only been doing this a few months, but didn't learn anything new. If you've been doing this awhile, I'm pretty sure you won't gain anything educationally from the basic course. I've heard that the Gold cert. is got good information, but I'm skeptical.

My biggest concern is that most other MSC's software/websites won't recognize the MSPA certification codes, and it's been going on for quite awhile now and they know it. You either have to manually ask a scheduler to attach the info to your profile, which several have told me it's not worth adding the silver code, or just forget about it. The silver "intro" course seemed like a waste of time and money for me in my opinion, but Gold probably does differentiate yourself a bit more. Still, pretty much anyone I've heard/read from on the issue on other forums will tell you that reputation is more important than any course you take. Maybe take the time and energy and just do more shops :)

I've only had a few shops with them so far, but it's been a good experience so far also.

I have the same issue with Android phone app. The steps suggested don't help, and permissions are fine on my phone. It's no big deal, just a minor annoyance, but figured I'd let somebody know it's happening to others also.

I haven't been getting badges for the shops recently, and I'm not super keen on bugging the individual MSC's about it. Kinda hope they start adding these on their own. Also, if I got most points in my area for the week, is there a badge for that? {cause i did!}

The self-assign limits are definitely not just 2 at lvl 2. For example, I'm almost lv2 {almost lvl 3} and I signed up for over several dozen individual location assignments for one retail shop client. But after that when I sign up for individual assignments for others, it says I've reached my limit and have to simply apply/request. I think it all depends on the particular assignment and the Mystery shop companies themselves, but I wouldn't worry about it. Personally, I've found most of the schedulers are fairly quick to add requests to your assigned.

HOWEVER, it would be nice to know hard limits on self-assign if there are any.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I assumed for the most part. I figured there were some things that had to stay "behind the scenes", I get that. Thanks for responding with a little bit of clarity.

I understand the point of reputation badges, but what's the real purpose of the other badges? Bragging rights or something more? Perhaps having a higher badge score in say like the "retail" badge gives you a higher prestige to get picked by schedulers for that type of shop, or am I assuming too much? I'm just curious about the purpose.

Great response, good information, thanks again Ivan.

It might be silly, but I wish they did go past lvl 5. I've done so many quick and simple retail gas station shops I know I'm well past lvl. 5, probably lvl. 10, lol.

Tara_NJ @ Feb 12, 2018 4:19:07 AM

I want to know that too. I never knew rescheduling hurt my score.

I'm very confident in saying that rescheduling doesn't hurt any scores unless it's on the backend and not shown. I've rescheduled dozens of shops to take care of things sooner, or move things around, etc. without any seen consequences.

Now if you cancel shops, that does directly show hurting your overall reputation score. But as far as I've seen, the individual badge scores never go down, only your Overall reputation score.