Company Overview: It’s always interesting to see what mystery shopping companies have to say about their businesses on their websites. It’s even more interesting to see if what they have to say is at all in sync with what their shoppers have to say.
Mystique Shopper is based in Clemont, Florida. It claims to have assignments all across the U.S. and Canada in restaurant, hotel, car dealerships, jewelry stores, cellular providers, and clothing. At the time of this writing, the only available assignments were for locations eastern half of the country. Those were for valet parking, jewelry, and a credit union.
Mystique also states that it treats its shoppers well, and has incentive programs to keep them motivated. They say their philosophy is: “Treat the shopper better and create a better shopper.” Another fact to take note of is that the owner of this company is on the MSPA Ethics Committee.
They have a “10 Club”, which enters shoppers into a monthly drawing for a $25 gift card if they have received a score of 10 on an evaluation. Mystique states that shoppers are rarely awarded a 10.
Signing up with Mystique Shopper is straightforward. Visit their website at www.Mystiqueshopper.com. Click on the tab “Apply” at the top of the page. Then click on the “Apply” button at the bottom of the page. This will take you to a Sassie software platform with a typical application process.
Mystery shopping projects are obtained by self-assignment. Mystique says that statewide email announcements are sent out when there are openings.
Payment is made by PayPal or by check. Mystique states that “We compensate our shoppers among the fastest of all mystery shopping companies.” They go on to say that all payments should be received within 45 days, but most are completed within 2 to 3 weeks.
The overwhelming feedback posted on www.mysteryshopforum.com about Mystique Shopper is negative. Shoppers are not motivated to work with this MSC, nor do they feel that they are being treated well, as the company claims.
The majority of the discussions about Mystique concerns inexcusably late payments, and only receiving those after multiple contacts by the shopper. More than a handful of shoppers reported a wait of over five months, and that after “chasing” their payments down aggressively.
Many shoppers have reported that they deactivated themselves from this company after only completing one assignment, due to the difficulty in resolving payment issues.
Shoppers also have said that contacting anyone at Mystique is close to impossible. Phone calls go to voice mail. Emails go unanswered. Some have said that just about the only time there is a response from the owner of the company is when there are open assignments that need to be filled.
For those will pending unresolved issues, you can try contacting the owner, John Saccheri at John@mystiqueshopper.com.
Personal Experience: Although I signed up with Mystique when I first started mystery shopping, I never received any email announcements for open assignments and I never saw anything in my area on their job board. After researching this company, I count myself lucky. It would be very disappointing to get involved with a company that so publicly touts its great treatment of shoppers, only to find out how empty those words were later when it was time to get paid for one’s efforts.