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Anyone have any experience with being a mystery shopper ?
Sent to General Experts August 20 11:56 PM

Anyone have any experience with being a mystery shopper ? It almost sounds too good to be true. Thanks Ami

Customer (name blocked for privacy)
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August 20 11:59 PM (2 minutes and 59 seconds later)
         
REPLIEDCheck Mark
Be very, very careful.

There are a number of people making good money - selling seminars about working at home.

One of these businesses is for people hoping to sell goods on-line, and have perhaps a drop-shipping company send the goods to your customer. You would remit the wholesale price to the drop-shipper and retain the profit.

This is a legitimate business plan. However, all the drop-shippers that participate in these plans on-line already have dozens or hundreds of retailers doing what you are considering doing.

The plan doesn't work for this reason. (Not because of the drop-shippers, but because of all your competition who have already paid for the business plan and the list of drop-shippers.)

You are going to need a unique product, OR a unique selling proposition, to be successful with an on-line business plan. This means you are going to have to offer something different than anyone else, or be able to market it entirely differently than anyone else.

That's my opinion, based on seeing many people try this - including my own son!

Other forms of work-at-home are alleged paying jobs for envelope stuffing, report writing, mystery shopping, data entry, and that sort of thing. Almost all of these are characterized by requiring a non-refundable application fee or an application fee you can “work off”. DO NOT sign up for anything with an application fee, these are “Little Cons” in that you will never qualify for the refund of your fee. The ENTIRE object is to get and keep your application fee.

Still other forms of work-at-home are money forwarding, loan brokering, and that sort of thing. THESE are BIG CONS, one day you will receive a check that looks good but isn’t, and you will send out a slightly smaller check that you will be liable for no matter what, their check won’t clear but you will still owe the money. If you want links that discuss these cons more fully let me know. DON’T get involved with these cons either.

So what SHOULD you do?

If you have marketable skills, such as computer training or typing or essay writing, place your business cards wherever people go: doctor's offices, markets, dentists, etc. Hand them out in public places. Make your own opportunities in this manner.

The "businesses for sale" and the big and small cons will take your money. Don't waste your time and money making someone else's business plan work.

Hope these thoughts help.


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August 21 12:09 AM (9 minutes and 57 seconds later)
         
Reply to The Geezer's Post: I was actually interested in the mystery shopping. I did some research and actually learned from the federal trade comission to not sign up for any of them that required a one time fee. Supposedly there are some legitimate companies out there. I also did some reading on the MSPA (mystery shopping providers association). It all looks so legitimate....I was just wondering if there was anybody out there that has actually had some luck with this ???
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August 21 12:11 AM (1 minute and 34 seconds later)
         
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August 21 12:15 AM (3 minutes and 44 seconds later)
         
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August 21 10:31 AM (10 hours and 16 minutes and 48 seconds later)
         
ACCEPTEDCheck Mark
I hope my information about mystery shopping was helpful to you.

Here are a few sites I've worked for and also a list provided by Scott, a colleague here at Just Answer:

epms
mysteryguestinc

http://www.volition.com/mysteryUSA1.html
http://www.volition.com/mysteryUSA2.html
http://www.volition.com/mysteryUSA3.html

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