Agent99 has been spying on hapless clerks and bankers for five years. She does this spying to earn money for travel to Europe, to which she has traveled three times in recent years, visiting Italy, Switzerland, and France. “I haven’t done any overseas spying, because it’s harder now to get false passports since 9-11,” she says. “But between mystery shopping and credit card rewards points, we’ve had some wonderful trips to the other side of the pond.”
She prefers revealed audits, apartment shops, and business verifications, mostly avoids retail and fast food shops, does a lot of gas stations and banks, and is a determined route shopper. “It’s more efficient to do ten shops in a day, then take a couple days off than to try to do three or four a day and never be able to do anything else.”
When asked where she generally shops, she said, “I like to drive my Aston-Martin, so I drive to remote towns in the mountains and let the locals fight over low-pay shops in the bigger cities. I usually only shop when the bonuses kick in. I listen to spy novels in the car while on the road. I consider it continuing education.”
She also does airport shops in connection with her many travels, routinely flying to Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Phoenix from Denver. She lives in Lakewood, Colorado, where she lives with her long-distance truck driver husband, Max, and a pair of cockatiels named John Steed and Emma Peel.