Is Being a Mystery Shopper Really a Scam?

When I was in college my friend Stan scoured the local want ads one day and found an ad for mystery shoppers. He asked me if I wanted to go with him to the interview and since it sounded like easy money I agreed. When we got to the home office of the mystery shopper company we were seated with 8 other people and our supervisor explained how it worked.

Basically each of us would be given a list of different retail establishments we would be required to visit each week. Generally we could go anytime that was convenient to us except some of the stores would list specific hours they wanted a mystery shopper to appear in. We were to go into the stores and act like shoppers looking for items. Most of the time it didn’t matter what items we said we were looking for though sometimes it was specified. After we had visited any given store we were required to fill in the paperwork for that store and it generally consisted of simple questions.

How long were you in the store before someone asked if they could help you?

Was the salesperson helpful?

Did you find what you asked for?

How would you rate the customer care you received from the salesperson?

What was the name(s) of the salesperson(s) that helped you?

Our supervisor stressed that the name of the salesperson was very important because many of the retail establishments gave out special bonuses to salespeople who we rated high. In fact, Stan and I were given a huge department store in the city to cover with each of us going to different assigned departments. Once we had done the different departments we each had to pick one salesperson who was the most helpful and then go back and find that salesperson and tell them we were mystery shoppers and that they had won a special prize. The people who worked in that department store already knew that at times mystery shoppers would be around and it was how that store kept its employees motivated to help customers. (When I told one saleswoman she had won she must have said “You’re kidding” about 20 times and she could not stop jumping up and down.)

After we turned in our paperwork to the mystery shopping company on the stores each week we were immediately paid for our services. We were never, ever asked to pay any type of fees. The only drawback to this work was that it was somewhat sporadic.

A few months ago an online friend of mine said she was thinking of becoming a mystery shopper after she saw an online ad about it. She asked me what I thought and told me she would have to pay a fee to get the list of stores she could mystery shop in. I told her my experience and said that paying a fee to be a mystery shopper sounded like a scam to me. Mystery shopping is a legitimate way for retail stores to keep employees motivated to help customers and to rank their own stores for customer service. Why would someone ever have to pay a fee to do that job? I advised my friend to stay away from that company unless she personally knew someone who had made money from that company doing what she was thinking of.

In my experience being a mystery shopper was a legitimate job and way for me to earn money while in college. I was never asked to pay any fee for anything to do that job and was always paid well for my services and I was always paid on time. When someone asks you for a fee with the lure that once you’ve paid the fee you can begin making money from them it usually is a scam.