What’s Mystery Shopping?
To learn more about their customers’ experiences, some retailers and restaurants might hire people to go into their businesses to try their products or services and report on their experiences. These mystery shoppers, or secret shoppers, typically pay for the product or service themselves and then get reimbursed by the retailer. Sometimes the retailer will also pay them a little bit extra for their work. Keep in mind, many professionals in the field think of mystery shopping assignments as part-time or occasional work — not something to replace a full-time job.
Avoid Mystery Shopper Job Scams
If you have to pay an upfront fee to become a mystery shopper, that’s always a scam. When you’re looking for mystery shopper jobs, here are ways you can avoid scams:
- Don’t pay to work. Honest companies pay you, not charge you, to work for them. Even if they say the money is really for a certification, training, or a guaranteed job, don’t do it. No real job, including mystery shopping, involves paying to get the job. You’ll find out the certification is worthless, and there’s probably no job.
- Don’t pay for a list of mystery shopping jobs. You can get that information free.
- Never wire money as part of a mystery shopping assignment. A scammer might send you a check, say, for buying products, tell you to deposit it and wire money back for “taxes,” “fees,” or some other reason. This is a classic scammer move. Wiring money is like sending cash — once you send with a company like MoneyGram or Western Union, you probably can’t get it back.
- Never deposit checks into your bank account and send money back. It doesn’t matter who it’s from or what they say it’s for — don’t do it. This is a fake check scam. Any money withdrawn from your account is your own money since the check is worthless.
- Don’t apply for mystery shopping jobs that guarantee you can make a lot of money. Only scammers make these guarantees. And only scammers say that you’ll be able to quit your job and do this full-time. Mystery shopping jobs are typically part-time work and don’t usually pay enough to replace a full-time job.
- Don’t respond to a job notice saying it’s with MSPA. The Mystery Shoppers Professionals Association (MSPA) is a trade association for the customer experience industry. MSPA doesn’t hire or advertise for mystery shoppers. But they do have a list of service provider companies that you can register with to find possible mystery shopping jobs.
Also, search online for the company name with the words “review,” “complaint,” or “scam.” It’s a good idea to see what others are saying about the company before you pursue a job with them. And talk with someone you trust to get their opinion before you take the job.
Finding Legitimate Mystery Shopping Jobs
You can register for mystery shopper assignments on the MSPA’s list of service provider companies.
Report It to the FTC
If you spot or lose money to a mystery shopper scam, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to your state attorney’s general office.
Read Our Privacy Act Statement
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
Comment Policy
This is a moderated blog; we review all comments before they are posted. We expect participants to treat each other and the bloggers with respect. We will not post comments that do not comply with our commenting policy. We may edit comments to remove links to commercial websites or personal information before posting them.
We won’t post:
Comments submitted to this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include personal information. Also, do not use this blog to report fraud; instead, file a complaint.