With Mystery Shopping Expert Melanie Jordan
Author of
The Perfect Work-At-Home Job: Mystery Shopping
How To Finally Make Money As A Mystery Shopper
The Quick And Easy Guide To Making Money
As A Merchandiser
Award-Winning Publisher of
Perfect Work-At-Home Job Update E-zine
The Dark Side Of Video Mystery Shopping
Many of you wrote in to tell me about your video mystery shopping experiences and to ask more questions about this new specialty. One subscriber, Stan from Chicago, (thanks, Stan), was kind enough to give me permission to share his experience with video mystery shopping--one that revealed a dark side--with all of you.
Before I do share his story, let me say that most mystery shopping companies are extremely ethical, but just like with anything else, either the pressure to gain new business in a very competitive field can cause someone to look the other way, or a client can be less than honest, unknown to that company. I'm not sure what happened here, but I know many of you are concerned about violating the rights of employees being video or audio-taped. This one experience, while likely an exception, showed that while I believe video mystery shopping can be a great new specialty for mystery shoppers, your gut feelings about privacy issues could be
correct, and should not be ignored.
Here's Stan's story:
Stan is an experienced mystery shopper, and one of the companies he works with offered him some video mystery shops with the pay ranging from $30-$50 per shop. He was interested, but concerned about the issue of the employees' rights being violated. The company then assured Stan that all employees that would be shopped had signed a release saying they consent to being videotaped for the purposes of evaluation. Sounds familiar? This is what our shopper Margie
from the March issue of "Perfect Work-At-Home Job Update", was told. (If you missed that article "A Peek Into The World Of Video Mystery Shopping", CLICK HERE. Feeling better about the project after this assurance, Stan went ahead and accepted the assignment.
Next, Stan received some equipment which he wore strapped to his body with a big shirt covering up the surveillance equipment (the shirt was supplied). Stan enjoyed the first couple of shops, which went well, and loved the fact that the videotape was his report.
However, a nagging feeling about the employees' privacy kept eating at him. So Stan asked the mystery shopping company to please send him copies of the releases that the employees signed, so he could put to rest his concerns once and for all. That's when he discovered that releases were never signed. Feeling that he had been lied to, and uncomfortable with the idea of taping people without their consent, he turned down the rest of the assignment and returned the video equipment.
The moral of the story? You need to do your own verification that all the proper releases are in place and that what you are doing is legal, before you take on an assignment. Ethical issues aside, if you are not careful you could be breaking licensing laws (video mystery shopping borders on private investigator work in many states) or civil laws. Sure we all love a good-paying assignment, but before you let the dollar signs dance too much in your head, know what you are getting into!
As Stan says, "if you ask for proof that the employees you are taping have consented, you may be surprised like I was."
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