Company Overview: Remington Evaluations is based in Liberty Township, OH. Their website is: http://remysteryshops.com/. Remington Evaluations is primarily focused on apartment shops. On their website they say, “All of our mystery shopping reports and surveys are customized for each client. No apartment community or property management company is the same. Each mystery shopping report is customized based on issues you are facing. With our custom built reports and surveys, you will uncover the issues your apartment community is facing.”
Personal Experience: I did one series of shops that were subcontracted through a MSC that specializes in video shopping because the client wanted video, in addition to, the somewhat lengthy report.
What Others Have to Say: There are mixed reviews with this company. While shoppers have compliments, such as: “The owner was helpful and responsive when I had questions. I enjoyed working with her and, given the chance, I would work with her again. I thought the pay was fair. Remington requires invoice billing at the end of the shop. Overall, it was a good company for me,” other shoppers have reported, “I agree that their instructions are very heavy-handed. I was put off years ago when reading them. Subsequently, I pay no attention to their threats, as they don’t apply to me. Remember to invoice Remington following completion.” There was also this comment, “I have complained about MSCs micromanaging before, but I have never seen it to this extent. The instructions even “dictated” the exact wording of the email.I then get verbal messages from the scheduler not to worry about all that.”
I also found it to be of concern that bonuses are offered if you complete the report within 12 hours, but it seems that almost every report is returned for “details” so that the bonus can be “denied”.
Overall: It tends to bother me when I see such a diversity of comments as it makes it hard to try and discover which is right. There are usually three sides to each conflict: yours, mine, and the truth which tends to be somewhere in between. I’m having a hard time discerning where the truth is here because I’m having difficulty in determining which, if any, of the comments are outliers, that is, are being made by someone with an axe to grind.
In the end, I’m going with my gut feeling and giving the company a “B-” rating, due at least in part to the threats in their instructions, their often contradictory instructions, and also in part because they are one of a handful of MSC’s that require shoppers to submit an invoice in order to be paid.
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