With mystery shoppers working largely out of sight of the providers who hire them, there is quite a bit of flexibility for mystery shoppers to fudge their work. While the vast majority of mystery shoppers do their best work and complete their assignments to the best of their abilities with their full effort, there are a handful of mystery shoppers who fudge reports and don’t carry out the assignment fully as per the requirements. Whether this is just pure laziness on the part of the mystery shopper, the mystery shopper is jaded by low pay of assignments, or any number of other reasons, the bottom line is that a mystery shopper who submits a report to a provider that is knowingly incorrect or false is committing mystery shopping fraud!
What Is Happening Here? There is much written and talked about with regards to scam artists trying to cheat mystery shoppers out of their time and money with fraudulent assignments, but the world of fraud is a two-way street. If you take on a mystery shopping assignment for cash and submit false information that leads the provider to believe you have completed the assignment requirements fully, you are committing fraud. Some of the many acts that constitute fraud in the mystery shopping world including forging receipts to look like a required purchase was made, copying and pasting information from one report into another without ensuring it is accurate for the assignment requested, and typing unique yet still false information into the report.
Providers Are Checking Up On You. Most mystery shoppers are aware that providers claim to use security cameras in stores and restaurants to verify that you completed the assignment requirements as requested. Are these empty threats? The fact is that most providers do not check up on each and every assignment by using security camera footage. This is simply too time consuming for a provider to do on every assignment. However, if there is something fishy about your report, there is a good chance that your report may be flagged to be verified against security camera footage. So the bottom line is that providers largely are not checking up on you with security camera footage but they absolutely have the ability to do so if a question arises.
If You Are Caught. In recent months, some mystery shopping providers have really been cracking down on fraudulent activities committed by mystery shoppers. If you are caught committing fraudulent work on your mystery shopping assignments, you can expect to receive zero compensation for your efforts (or forged efforts as the case may be). Likely, you will also be barred indefinitely from working again with that provider. As with any fraudulent activity, there is a possibility that the matter could become a legal issue. The mystery shopping provider has every legal right to take any matter of fraud to the authorities.
If you have been forging your work or if you have even been thinking about the possibility of forging your work, think again. The penalties for this type of behavior are simply not worth it. It is far better to take the time to complete the work as requested and submit an accurate and truthful report. As with other aspects of life, honesty will carry you farther in the world of mystery shopping.
While I’m sure this probably happens. There is also something to be said for MS companies that intentionally don’t fully disclose or outright don’t tell the truth about shop scenarios and reporting, etc., easy car shop only takes about 15 mins. Someone I know ( a new shopper) got an email like that and responded. It was for 5 shops to be done. She reniged on it after seeing the scenario on the company site. It said you must take a test drive. (test drive takes at least 5 mins itself not to mention the salesman trying to talk you into leaving with it) Of course, her account was unfairly disabled. That should not of happened because she didn’t get true disclosre and the company knew it when they sent the email out.
Integrity and your advice go both ways. I carry a digital recorder that allows me to get the facts, so I can listen to the shop at home and not have to write things down. I get great, factual reports.
Employees and managers say and do the dandiest things when they think I am “just a shopper” rather than a “mystery” shopper. They get defensive when I report things as I record them.
Shoppers should be cautioned to use a good digital recorder like an Olympus, so they have a defense against manager’s who claim to have video to the contrary. Managers and employees who get defensive and challenge my integrity should also be cautioned. You will not know who is recording you! Some people will challenge you to avoid paying you for your shop. Big mistake!
If “they” refuse to pay me or take me to court and sue me for fraud, challenge my integrity, expect damages and think they will intimidate me, they” must understand integrity is the best policy.
It gets very expensive when you sue for fraud and get caught with your pants down. I have no reason to fudge reports. On the other hand, managers and employees have every reason to say “it is not so!”
I am the type of person who would respond to the issue and counter-sue. In this electronic age when devices are getting harder and harder to detect, Integrity rules.
Personally I think it takes more time and effort to forge a report than to go ahead and do the shop to begin with. I can understand where someone may be tempted to put down an occasional answer that is made up if they forgot to look for that one point but forging an entire shop would just be too iffy.
Integrity is what this whole business is about. David, do you digitally save all recordings or just the ones that might have situations that might be objected? Does the Olympus recorder download to the computer? Is it rechargeable? A good rechargeable, digital camera is useful too.
Sometimes it seems that the scheduler would be happier with a shop tagged ‘done’ rather than being informed of a glitch or missed detail. Personally I will not compromise my integrity on a shop. It is not worth being squeezed into a mold for a couple of bucks.
Those mystery shoppers who fudge their reports and then get caught and let go by mystery shopping companies are those ones who complain the most and the loudest on forums. These same people complain that some companies “let me go with no reason given”. Yeah, right! And the moon is made of blue cheese!
These types of shoppers will unfortunately always be around and they slam good companies because of their lies and laziness.