This edition of “Loose Ends” is taking care of some emails and MSC updates.
One shopper wrote to complain about Wrapmatch. As we have said on several occasions, based on the lack of action with the company, we no longer are recommending this company as an income source for shoppers. If you have signed up for a monthly membership and have asked Wrapmatch to cancel the billing, yet you find the billing is continuing, contact your bank or credit card company and seek a chargeback for unauthorized charges. Please also let us know at the magazine if this is happening as I’m keeping a file on this matter.
On April 24, I completed four shops for Instant Replays. I received payment for them on June 2 via PayPal. I did not have to call or chase this payment down in any way. Hopefully this MSC has turned the corner and is returning to paying shoppers as advertised.
Finally, a note on Gapbuster. A non-scientific survey of shoppers on Mystery Shop Forum reveals that there is no rhyme or reason as to whether shoppers are getting paid [either full or partial] or not. The fact that there is apparent randomness to the shoppers getting paid leads me to believe this is a bookkeeping problem perhaps related to their move from Australia to Malaysia. There are, however, several shoppers who are owed money for a substantial period of time, so that seems to indicate a longer-term accounting problem that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, the questions submitted by me have yet to be answered. If I were a new shopper, this I one of the companies that I would do one shop and see how the payment went before signing up for multiple shops and perhaps getting on the hook for more than 700 Euros (over $900), as has happened to one shopper in Ireland.