Updated! FTC Issues Warning About Mystery Shopping Scams
August 5, 2010We have been notified that current fake letters to consumers list these phone numbers: 888-228-3460, 888-239-1660 or 877-594-6794. Please read the following blog post for information on how to report a scam if you receive a fake letter or fake check. Do not deposit these checks!
FTC Issues Warning About Mystery Shopping Scams
July 14, 2010The Federal Trade Commission has issued a new warning about mystery shopping scams. This particular warning is intended to caution recent college graduates about potential scammers targeting young people looking for work. Check out the FTC new release .
The Dangers of Copy and Paste
June 3, 2010Confero is excited to introduce guest blogger, Cathy Stucker. Cathy is the author of The Mystery Shopper’s Manual, the best selling guide to being a successful professional mystery shopper and blogs about the mystery shopping industry on her blog, The Mystery Shopper's Manual. Confero President, Elaine Buxton first met Cathy several years ago during a Gold Shopper Certification seminar held by the MSPA when Cathy was working as a trainer for the Gold Certification program.
by Cathy Stucker, MysteryShoppersManual.com
You just got back from shopping three locations of the same client. Each assignment used the same scenario, and they all went pretty much the same way. The temptation is to write the comments and narrative for the first shop, then copy and paste your words into the other two reports. A few changes of names and other details and you’re done, right?
Wrong! Although recycling is a good thing, recycling comments and narratives in your mystery shop reports is not. Not only do some shoppers do this when they shop multiple locations of a company in the same day, they may copy and paste comments from shops done for the same client in previous months, or even shops done for competing businesses in the same industry. I even heard about one shopper who copied and pasted comments from the sample report provided by the mystery shopping company.