Company Overview: Reality Based Group (RBG), formerly Gamefilm Consultants, is based in Austin, TX and has been in business since 1992. The company originally focused on video-based apartment shops. According to the company website, RBG now serves the industries of retail, dining, banking, hospitality, homebuilding, property management, auto, health and fitness, insurance and government agencies.
Personal Experience: I have completed phone shops and restaurant visits for RBG. The phone shops were part of a regular project and were assigned to me automatically every month. While these were the lowest-paying phone shops I have ever seen, they were quick and easy to complete, with very few comments required. The schedulers were courteous and responded to questions quickly. They were flexible about letting me complete my calls a week ahead if I needed to take the following week off. The restaurant visits I have done were reimbursement-only shops. These were enjoyable shops that reimbursed most of the cost of dinner and drinks for two people, and the report only took about 20 minutes to fill out. I have also seen valet and quick food service shops posted in my area, but I have never taken any of these because the pay was rather low and I had no need for the product or service. For all the shops I have completed with RBG, the guidelines were very clear and straightforward. I have always received payment through Paypal near the end of the month following the shop month.
What Others Have to Say: Shoppers on Mystery Shop Forum have reported incorrect contact information given on target home shops, with a delay in hearing back from schedulers for clarification. Also, shoppers report that the company has tended to penalize video route shoppers by assigning a large workload and then taking issue with the video quality. For some shoppers, however, RBG is on their list of favorite companies.
Overall: Reality Based Group has a variety of shops in many parts of the US and Canada. With a range of opinions on the company, it sounds as if personal experience depends on the type of shop and the scheduler involved. The quick food service or other restaurant shops may especially be appealing as fill-ins while shoppers are on a route or simply out completing other shops in the area.