I’m sure you’ve seen ads for these on the Web, or have heard radio ads describing such. The emphasis is on “work from home,” filling out these forms. This is very deceiving, because the “work from home” part is probably about 5 percent of the gig!
Essentially, what these surveys refer to is your shopping or patronage experience to some business in the community. Get paid to shop” is another common advertising lure. “Get paid to do what you’re already doing!” is another one. What they don’t tell you is that when you become a “mystery shopper,” you don’t just go into the store like you normally do and carry out your usual routine.
Instead, the survey company will want you to pose as a difficult customer; or a shopper who’s confused about products and keeps asking the clerk one question after another; or, in some way, create a challenge to the store personnel-all to see how the employees respond. Then, you type this information on the survey form. You might get paid $15 to spend five minutes filling out the form, but how much time did you actually invest to get the information? Do the math; per hour, you made peanuts.
The more elaborate the community excursion, the higher you get paid. For example, to be a mystery diner at a four-star restaurant, you might get paid $25 or more to fill out the survey. But again, consider the total time spent at this gig, and see what it computes to, in terms of hourly pay. You’ll be spending maybe $25 on the meal itself! And how long will you be sitting there waiting for it? And the drive to and from the place! You’re literally earning nickels and dimes.
The pay for surveys gets higher if you attend a symphony or something like that. If this is what you normally do, then the time commitment won’t matter. But if you do something that you normally don’t do, just to make $50 filling out a survey, then again, you must consider how much time, including transportation and any money paid for tickets, parking, etc., that you invested for that $50.
I don’t know about you, but when I go into a drug store, I just want to be in and out of there as quickly as possible, without any hassles. “Get paid doing what you’re already doing” is a lie. When I go into the grocery store, I do not “already” create situations where I must excessively interact with store personnel, or observe personnel and take mental notes.
Some people love being mystery shoppers, putting on acts to study employees’ behaviors, or investing time to try to return a dead houseplant, or some item without a receipt, to report the store manager’s response on the form.
But the point I want to drive across, here, is that ads for these gigs are deceiving, having you think that the money will roll in if all you do is sit at your computer filling out forms. No sir. You must spend about 95 percent of the time in the field! This hardly describes a work-at-home opportunity!
