@Lisa:

I'm not knocking the MSC - they are a fine company. However, I'm a fan of higher payments. :P

A quick question for anybody familiar with 360 Intel's dining shops:

I've contacted the company, but it is Saturday evening on the East Coast, where they are located and my shop is scheduled for this evening, so I don't know if my question will be seen in the next two or three hours...

I just picked up fine dining assignment for this evening and the guidelines are clear that I need to make a reservation between 5PM and 8PM. Immediately after being assigned, I called to make a reservation and the only available time was right at 8:00 PM. My reading of the guidelines is that this is okay. However, I am not positive.

Does anybody here know if this will be acceptable?

I ended up arriving early and getting a table at 7:45, so there was no issue. The MSC got back to me the next morning and said it would be fine..... I don't like to "guess" on these things as there are times when the MSC's contract with the client is clear that shops must be done between certain hours. As shoppers are not privy to the details of these contracts, it is necessary to get answers directly from the MSC.

It is very common for MSC's to post that they have made payments as soon as they have sent them to PayPal for processing. PayPal takes two or three business days to process those payments before they reach your account.

Yes. You must claim ALL mystery shopping income, no matter how little a particular MSC might pay you.

With reimbursements, there are two ways that they can work: Either you simply don't claim them as income - most easily done if the MSC does not include them on your 1099. Or, you claim the reimbursed amount as income, but take it right back off again as a business expense. It's a wash, either way. For the sake of simplicity, I include all of them as income and then business expenses as some MSC's include reimbursements as part of your income on your 1099. This way, I'm doing it the same way for all my accounting.

Hi Sean,

ISS only advertises for a small fraction of the companies that offer mystery shopping work. If there is not enough work here to keep you busy, seek out other opportunities. Folks who really get into this are signed up with well over 100 different MSC's.

Getting Started: Start slow and get your feet wet. Find a shop on the job board. Read the description and decide if you are definitely willing to do it. If so, request it. If you get it assigned, read the guidelines carefully and do exactly what they say. Fill out your report online in the required time.

How long to get paid; Payment for shops totally depends on the company offering the shop. I have seen payments within a few hours and I've had shops where I had to wait more than four months. 45-60 days is very typical. (Note: The shops that typically pay very quickly tend to be lower-paying). Most companies pay through PayPal.

From your title: "Really Monetizing" this will take some time. There are folks who do this full time and can make an okay living. However, that will not happen overnight. You'd need to establish yourself as a shopper with a lot of companies - roughly 200. You'll need to travel - spending a week or two on the road performing dozens (or even hundreds) of shops so as to cover expenses and make a happy profit. You might want to explore video shopping - it tends to be more lucrative, but is not for everybody.... Basically, you'd need to be organized and self-motivated enough to run your own business.

I don't even know how to see my points - it's not that important to track them. What is important is to only take jobs you will definitely complete and to do them well. Your "points," "ranking," "reputation," whatever will go up in time. It's all about being a reliably great shopper. Schedulers who see that you have completed assignments for them consistently will give you more. If you develop a good professional relationship with a scheduler, you'll tend to get most assignments - not matter where your "points" are. Likewise, even you have a billion points, if you burn a scheduler a couple of times, you won't get assigned work.

The ISS platform uses these rankings to determine your self-assigning privileges and to give schedulers unfamiliar with you a quick tip about your reliability, so, yes, you want a good score. However, watching it won't make it higher. Just complete your shops and it will take care of itself.

Hi Nadia -

I'll add:

* Your time management will improve greatly if you take the same shops (or very similar shops) repeatedly.

* If you first shops are interactions with which you are familiar, you'll get into the "mystery shopping" thing more smoothly. (i.e. Don't do a casino shop at first if you've never been to a casino!)

* If you don't understand the guidelines, ask. It's better to ask questions up front and do a shop correctly than to "guess" and do it wrong.

* If you are looking for more shops that fit your interests, recognize the ISS only advertises a small fraction of what is available.

There is another possibility:

Some MSC's never put certain jobs on a job board at all. Instead, they will directly contact shoppers they they would like to do those shops. This can be via email, phone, or text - depending on the scheduler's preference. This is especially common when a company is "auditioning" for a new client, has a couple of more complex shops where they want to be very particular about which shopper picks them up, or when a deadline is looming and the shop needs to be done right away.