I just got my first fine dining assignment, and I can’t believe how much food we have to order! The instructions say that the mystery shop is for two adults, and we have to order an appetizer, two entrees, two side dishes and dessert. We usually share one meal, so I know we can’t eat all of that! Can we order one of the meals to-go? Would it be okay if we brought home a doggie bag?

First of all, congratulations on getting the fine dining shop assignment. They can be a lot of work, but you usually get to enjoy a really good meal in a nice atmosphere. It beats the heck out of a lot of jobs I have had in my life!

As you know, it is important that you follow all of the guidelines. That means that you need to order all of the required items, even if it is more food than you would normally order.

So can you get some of the food to-go, or take home the leftovers? Of course, the answers depend on the specific guidelines for your shop assignment, but here is how most restaurant mystery shops handle this.

In almost every dine-in restaurant shop you are to order all of the items to eat at the restaurant. That means no ordering to-go. If you are to place a to-go order, that will be clearly spelled out in the guidelines. To-go orders are not typical on dine-in restaurant shops, but you may see an assignment that requires it. Unless the guidelines specifically say to place an order to-go do not order any items to-go.

As for asking for a doggie bag, there may be shops that prohibit it, but every shop I can recall has allowed it. Even at fine dining restaurants. In fact, some have questions on the report form about how they handled the leftovers if you asked to take them home. (e.g., Did they wrap them up for you? Was there a note from the chef? Were they in a bag printed with the name of the restaurant?) That doesn’t mean that you must take food home on those shops, but it clearly indicates that they expect you might.

When you know that you are likely to have leftovers, a little advance planning can help you make the most of it. My husband and I often have enough left over for our meal the next night. (Two nights where I don’t have to cook? Yay!) Here are some tips on ordering and dining wisely:

Familiarize yourself with the menu. Most restaurants have online menus at their websites. Plan what you will order for the entire meal, keeping the shop budget and the tips below in mind. Some online menus do not include prices, but you can often find prices if you look for the location you will be visiting and pull up a menu specific to that location.

Think about what will transport and reheat well, and what may not be as good the next day. You probably don’t want to take part of a salad home, for example. And the souffle? Not likely to work as a leftover. That may influence what you order, or it may determine which dishes you have just a bit of (and have wrapped to take home) and which you eat most or all of. The dessert with ice cream will be difficult to take with you, but cheesecake is pretty portable, for example.

Pace yourself. You need to eat some of everything. If you fill up on the appetizer, you will struggle to eat the rest of your meal. Eat a portion, then ask for the rest to be wrapped to take home. Most fine dining shops are not rushed, so give yourself some time to savor your meal.

Pace your alcohol consumption, too. Many mystery shops include a visit to the bar before or after your meal, and fine dining shops may require that you order wine or cocktails with your meal as well. Don’t have a potent drink at the bar on an empty stomach if that is likely to make you feel sick (or drunk!).

If you order a bottle of wine with your meal, you may be able to take home what you do not drink. Check the laws in your state. Sip slowly and do not allow them to refill your glass unless you want more to drink. (Note: Some mystery shops do not allow you to order a bottle of wine, but I have done others that required it. As always, follow the guidelines for your assignment.)

Watch your language. Don’t say that you didn’t finish your entree because you are “saving room for dessert.” That prompts them to offer dessert, and whether or not they do that (and how they do that) is probably among the questions to be answered on the report. The same goes for saying how full you are. If you say something such as, “I couldn’t eat another bite,” they may only offer coffee and not dessert. Or they may just bring the check.

My husband and I often use these tips to get a second meal, whether or not we are mystery shopping. With restaurant portions (and prices) as large as they are, it is a good way to get value from your dining dollar or your labor as a mystery shopper.

Do you have any favorite tips for managing the ordering requirements on restaurant mystery shops?

When will companies send me 1099s?

Companies are required to send a 1099 when they pay a contractor at least $600 during the tax year. The information is also provided to the Internal Revenue Service. Forms are supposed to be mailed by January 31st each year.

Does that mean I don’t have to pay taxes on amounts under $600?

In general, you are required to report all of your income and pay taxes whether or not you received a 1099 form. Of course, as an Independent Contractor, you will also deduct all of your reasonable and necessary costs of doing business as expenses. That means that you do not pay taxes on the gross amount you received, but on your profit after expenses have been deducted.

Let’s say you received $17,597 from various mystery shopping companies over the course of the year. Some of them may have paid you a couple hundred dollars each and a few may have paid a few thousand dollars each. Of the total amount, $8,602 represents reimbursement of required purchases. You had expenses (e.g., mileage or car expenses, Internet access, educational materials, equipment, supplies, home office, etc.) of $4,409. That means your taxable income from mystery shopping would be:

$17,597 – ($8602 + $4409) = $4,586 profit

That may not sound like much profit, but remember that you got to keep those required purchases and your expense deductions may help to subsidize expenses you would have even if you were not mystery shopping. For example, you would probably pay for Internet access even if you were not mystery shopping. Because you use the Internet for your business, you may deduct at least a portion of your monthly fee for Internet access.

Do 1099 amounts include reimbursements and expenses, or just fees?

That depends. Most companies only issue 1099s for fees; however, some companies will include reimbursements for purchases and other expenses in the 1099. It doesn’t really matter what they report in the 1099. Your taxes are the same. You report your gross income, deduct expenses and pay tax on your net profit.

What does matter is that you show at least as much income on your Schedule C as was reported on the 1099s. The IRS checks the totals of 1099s for your tax ID number against the gross amount of income you report.

What if the amount of the 1099 doesn’t match my records of what the company paid me?

It is not unusual for the amounts to be off. The mystery shopping company may have issued a payment in late December, but you didn’t receive it until January. They included it in your 1099 for last year, but you are not counting that income until this year. (That is common when you are reporting on a cash basis. Don’t worry about it, as long as you are consistent from year to year.) Or there may be some other reason why your records don’t match exactly. Unless the difference is substantial, just report what you actually received. If there is a big difference, contact the company for an explanation and a corrected 1099.

What should I do if I do not receive a 1099?

You can contact the company to ask if a 1099 was issued, and verify that they have your correct contact information. Because you do not have to send the 1099 in with your tax return, you can file your tax return even if you do not receive an expected 1099. Remember, many companies will not send you a 1099 because they did not pay you at least $600.

How can you deal with all of the email, while still having time to mystery shop and have a life?

One good first step is to have an email account that you use exclusively for registering with secret shopping companies. This way you can deal with you shopper emails separately from others. You might consider setting up an account with Gmail or another free service for this.

Be sure to associate this email account with your PayPal account, so that payments from mystery shopping companies reach you. Also, if you have an MSPA shopper certification, you will need to get a new certification code. Your certification code is tied to your email address, so when your email address changes a new code is required.

Although changing to a new email address can be time-consuming if you are registered with many companies, it can save you time in the long run by making it easier to manage your email. When you are busy with other things, you can simply ignore the shopper email account, then pick it up again when you are ready to take on more assignments.

If you do not want to change email addresses, consider using filters to put all of your mystery shopping emails in one mailbox. Once they are all in one place, you can handle them (or ignore them) all at once. Many email programs, such as Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird and others, allow you to filter your emails based on the sender’s email address, words in the subject line, or other criteria. The specifics on how to do this vary by email program, so check the help function in your email program to learn how to set it up.

Deal with emails once. Do not leave shop notifications cluttering up your mailbox because you might want to maybe consider the possibility of perhaps applying for a chance at a shop. Be decisive. Although there may be times when you want to see what other shops are available before applying, often you know immediately that you don’t want to do a shop. If that is the case, delete the email and move on.

Many companies allow you to opt out of email notifications. If you regularly check job boards you may not care about getting email notifications, but for most of us the email notices help to find more jobs. You might consider opting out temporarily, though, if you are going to be traveling or otherwise unavailable to mystery shop for an extended period.

In extreme cases, you can deactivate your shopper account. This means that you will no longer be able to accept shop assignments from that company. But it does stop the emails. You might do this if you find that a company has very few assignments in your area, but you get a lot of emails promoting shops many miles from you. Or if you just do not want to work for that company for some reason.

Getting email under control can make you more productive as a mystery shopper. A little time invested now can save you lots of time in the future.

Image credit: Kozzi

I am getting ready to retire and my spouse and I want to hit the road and travel across the country. Is it possible to mystery shop while we are on the road? Anything we need to watch out for?

Sure, you can mystery shop on the road, whether you are on a one-week vacation, you regularly travel for your job, or you have become a permanent road warrior.

There are a few things you may have to do differently to make mystery shopping while traveling work for you. Here are some things to consider.

Finding jobs – Most mystery shopping companies send email notices about available assignments based on where you live (i.e., they use your zip code or area code to identify shops close to you). That means that when you are on the road, you will need to check job boards frequently to find assignments because you will probably be getting emails about jobs near your home base rather than where you are traveling. Companies that allow you to self-assign shops may be your best bet, because you can search for assignments anywhere and claim them immediately.

Working with schedulers – Schedulers are sometimes reluctant to assign shops outside of your home area. That is because they know that if your travel plans change the shop will not get done. Let schedulers know that you travel regularly and that you will be looking for shops in many areas, depending on where you are at the time. One way to do this is to add it as a note to your profile, but the scheduler may not read your profile each time they are assigning a shop. If you can, add a note to your request for the shop.

Shoppers who have been working with certain schedulers for a while may want to inform them ahead of time that they will be traveling and ask for assignments wherever they will be. The schedulers who know and trust you will try to assign shops to you when they can, and may even put the word out to other schedulers in their company.

Getting reports done – When you are on a short trip, such as a vacation or business trip, making the time to get reports done by the deadline can be a problem. When you are traveling for an extended period, such as crossing the country in an RV, finding the time to get reports done will usually be no more of a problem than it is for any secret shopper. You will be “home,” it is just that your home may change from month to month or even week to week.

One problem that anyone traveling may face is limited or poor quality internet access. If you have to upload a lot of files (e.g., photos of the location or receipt files) it can take a lot of extra time. When the internet coverage is spotty, you may lose your connection and your work. It would be smart to write comments and narratives offline, then paste them into your report form. And save the report often.

Internet security – Looking for WiFi while traveling can be challenging, and using public unsecure WiFi poses risks. Although it may be fine to use a public WiFi connection to enter a report, be careful about entering any personal data (such as banking, credit card or PayPal account information) when using an unsecure connection. It is easier than you may think for bad guys to intercept data.

One solution is to use a private hotspot (available from many mobile phone providers) for internet access. Another is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when you are using a public connection. A VPN encrypts your data before transmitting it. Neither of these solutions is perfect, but they will make it much harder to get to your data so they are about as safe as you can get.

Getting paid – Many mystery shopping companies pay via PayPal or direct deposit, so getting paid will not be a problem. However, there are still some that pay via check. If you plan to be on the road full time, you need a solution for receiving mail, including your mystery shopping checks.

Mystery shopping while traveling can pose challenges, but it can be a good way to earn money while on the road, and perhaps even make some of your travel expenses tax deductible.

Consider that there are about half a billion people on Facebook. It is extremely unlikely that an employee that you are about to mystery shop will happen to run across your profile and will remember and recognize you when you shop them. Of course, it is not impossible.

Some employees actively try to identify the mystery shopper. There are some ways they might be more likely to discover the people who could be mystery shopping them than by trolling Facebook, but I am not going to explain them here because I don’t want to encourage anyone to try to identify mystery shoppers.

Obviously, mystery shopping companies do not have a problem with you identifying yourself as a mystery shopper on social media. If they did, they would not encourage you to like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, etc. Many companies announce shop opportunities on Facebook and Twitter, so shoppers who engage with them have an advantage in getting more assignments. So if you want to participate in social media as a mystery shopper, go for it.

There is a downside, though. When you join a mystery shopping group, “like” a mystery shopping company or otherwise make it known on social media that you are a mystery shopper, you are going public with the fact that you are a shopper. Although it is unlikely that someone you are going to mystery shop will recognize you from that, you will be letting your Facebook friends know that you are a mystery shopper.

The more people who know you are a mystery shopper, the less “mystery” there is. For example, if your friends all know that you mystery shop they may want to know how to become mystery shoppers and give you more competition. Or worse, they may inadvertently “out” you if they run into you while you are doing a mystery shop. Imagine you encounter one of your friends while doing a shop. She turns to the employee and says, “You’d better be nice to her–she is a mystery shopper!” Your friend was making a joke, but she just invalidated your shop.

In general, the fewer people who know you are a mystery shopper, the better. However, I have been a very public mystery shopper for many years. I have trained more than 10,000 mystery shoppers. I wrote a book about mystery shopping. I have been featured in magazines and interviewed on television. And even with all that, I have never had an employee recognize me as a mystery shopper. (If they had, they would have gotten better scores!)

If you want to participate in social media as a mystery shopper, go ahead. If you prefer not to, that is fine, too.

If you are careful not to go over making $500 per company you’ll never have to pay a penny for taxes. By taking enough jobs to make $500 from 30 or 40 companies you can make an extra $20,000 a year, tax free. Who couldn’t use an extra 20 grand, especially tax free?

Wow. There is so much wrong here I hardly know where to begin.

First let’s look at where he may have gotten the $500 number. The law says that anyone who pays a contractor $600 (not $500) or more per year has to file a 1099 for that contractor. The 1099 is sent both to the contractor and to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). You might think of it as the contractor equivalent of the W2 form your employer files each year, showing how much you were paid and the taxes withheld. Only in the case of a 1099, taxes typically have not been withheld so it shows the gross amount paid to the contractor.

One purpose of the 1099 is that the IRS can run automated programs to match what was reported on 1099s to what taxpayers report as income. (When you file taxes you do not list all of your income by payer, so they can’t necessarily match exact amounts. What they look for is whether someone with 1099 income has filed a Schedule C for income from self-employment or a small business at least equal to what was reported on 1099s.) If a company sent you a 1099 and you did not show self-employment income, you will probably get a letter from the IRS.

Here is the important part: Even if you do not receive a 1099 you are responsible for reporting your income and paying any taxes due. This is true even if a particular company paid you less than $600 during that year, and even if every company you worked for paid you less than $600.

There isn’t some awesome tax loophole that says that as long as you only make a little bit of money from a bunch of companies you do not have to pay taxes on any of it. Whether you made $20,000 from an employer at your regular job or $500 each from 40 different mystery shopping companies, you have to report that income and pay any taxes due.

Whether this shopper is ignorant of tax law or actively cheating on his taxes doesn’t matter to the IRS. The fact is that he is breaking the law. If (when?) he gets caught he is going to be in a world of hurt. But wait—if the mystery shopping companies aren’t reporting it to the IRS, how will they find out? Here are a couple of possibilities.

The shopper could be the subject of a random audit and the auditor might discover this unreported income. It is not likely that he will be audited, but it is certainly possible.

The fraud could also be uncovered as a result of an audit of a mystery shopping company. One shopper told me she was audited because one of the mystery shopping companies she worked for got audited. In the course of that audit they compared the company’s records of payments made to the tax returns of the people who received the payments. Her return did not include a Schedule C (where Independent Contractor income is reported) so they assumed she was hiding income and she got audited.

The good news for her was that she had reported the income, she just hadn’t done it correctly. She had listed the money as wages instead of filling out the Schedule C. As a result, she hadn’t taken any deductions against her contractor income and had actually overpaid her income taxes. It turned out that she was due a refund. Had she been trying to cheat the government by not reporting income the outcome could have been quite unpleasant, as she would have owed not only the taxes due on the income but interest and penalties, too. There are lots of things you can do to run afoul of the IRS, but hiding income is the one that makes them maddest.

As an Independent Contractor, you are responsible for paying your taxes. It is not all that complicated to understand, and there is help available if you need it. The IRS has lots of publications and training information at their website, IRS.gov. At tax filing time, many libraries and community organizations have volunteers to help with tax return preparation. There are software programs, such as TurboTax, you can use to complete and file your tax return. Or you can hire a tax preparer or CPA to handle it. You may have to explain mystery shopping to your tax preparer, because most of them are not familiar with it, but they can help you navigate any issues you may face related to taxes.

In short, it is your legal and ethical responsibility to properly file your taxes. That means declaring all of your income and paying all of the tax you owe. Of course, as an Independent Contractor you are also entitled to deduct all of your reasonable and necessary expenses of doing business in determining how much of your mystery shopping income is taxable. But that is a topic for another day…

[Note: This post deals with tax laws in the U.S. However, you may find similar provisions in other countries. Check with the taxing authority in your country for details.]

Are there ever times when you would find such a shop worthwhile? Perhaps, but you should be aware of the choice you are making when you select such an assignment.

Let me give you an example. I was looking at a fine dining shop that requires purchasing the following:

2 Beverages in the bar
1 Appetizer
2 Entrees
1 Dessert
2 Beverages

Looking at the restaurant’s online menu, typical costs of these items might be:

$13 – $15 2 Beverages in the bar
$12 – $15 1 Appetizer
$40 – $70 2 Entrees
$8 – $10 1 Dessert
$5 – $15 2 Beverages

Order on the low end for each item and your total (before tax and tip) would be about $80. Figure another $20 for tax and tip and a few dollars for the valet, and that brings your total to more than $100. The reimbursement? $90.

In effect, you are getting a $100 meal for a little over $10, plus your labor. Is that a good deal? Maybe, if you can actually get out of there for $100 or so. That means ordering pretty carefully and choosing the lower priced items in each category.

The numbers in the second column above are not the highest-priced items on the menu, but ordering at that level takes your tab (with tax and tip) to more than $150. Suddenly, your “free” meal is costing you more than $60 over your reimbursement.

In either case, you are getting $90 toward the cost of your meal, so let’s look at this from another angle: What is your hourly compensation for this shop? If you assume about an hour and a half in the restaurant and a similar amount of time doing the report, that is three hours for $90, or about $30 an hour. Not bad, if you enjoy eating in nice restaurants and you view the reimbursement as payment toward something you want and value. Add travel time there and back, and the hourly rate drops a bit.

I will confess that I usually don’t think of my travel time or the time I spend in the restaurant as work time. I am eating, and I have to do that anyway. We like to go out to dinner, usually at least once or twice a week, so I would be eating somewhere. It might as well be a mystery shop. (I know, I can not be as relaxed on a shop as I can be when I am not working, but I have been doing this for a long time and it has gotten easier.)

If you mystery shop for cash to pay your bills, this is not a good shop for you. You are having to spend money out of pocket to do the shop, and you are getting reimbursed for something you might not buy normally. Because my husband and I enjoy eating out, and do so regularly, I might take a shop such as this. It would depend on how much I liked the restaurant.

I will say that over the last couple of years I have become less likely to take some of these shops. I love restaurant shops, but I resent it when the client treats my report as having the value of a coupon. Inadequate reimbursement is especially galling when I am forced to order more than I would have ordered in a normal situation.

The decision to take a shop that offers partial reimbursement is up to you, as you are the only one who can decide if it is worth your effort. However, you should know up front that the reimbursement is not likely to cover the entire cost of your required purchase. (I used the example of a fine dining shop, but this can happen with other types of shops, including casual dining and retail.)

If you are not willing to do a shop for partial reimbursement, check out the client before you accept the shop. Determine what your required purchase may cost. Don’t forget to add tax and tip to menu prices.

I only did one or two restaurant shops a week, but his comment got me thinking: What if I really tried to get “free” food every day for a month? How would I do it? Let’s play with this hypothetical for a bit, because I think you may get some ideas about how to get more of the shops you want, whether they are shops of restaurants, stores, banks, apartments or whatever you like to do.

First, to get the best selection of shops you would want to be registered with as many legitimate mystery shopping companies as possible. The more shops you have access to, the greater your chances of filling in all of the gaps and getting the number of shops you want.

You will need to plan ahead to get the best shops. Those usually go fast. Many companies start releasing shops for the next month no later than the 20th, so be ready to start claiming the shops you want and filling in your calendar.

Consider starting with the self-assign job boards. You will know right away what shops you have confirmed, then you can start filling in more days.

Talk to a few schedulers you work with regularly. Let them know you are looking for extra shops this month and see what shops they might be able to send your way.

Check job boards, such as Jobslinger.com to find more companies and jobs. Even if you have applied to many companies, you probably have not applied to every company. You may find new opportunities on job boards. Jobslinger aggregates available assignments from several legitimate boards, including the MSPA.

When you see a shop you want, apply right away and make sure your application is a good one. Many times they ask a question such as what day you will do the shop, or if you will do the shop by the deadline. Be sure to answer this question if you want to get the assignment.

Be open to a variety of shops. It might be nice to do one or two fine dining shops, but you wouldn’t want to do those every night, even if you could. Mix it up with different types of food and restaurants, everything from fast food to pizza to casual dining to more deluxe choices.

Some restaurants have carry out shops where you phone in an order and go pick it up. I like those because they often have the same reimbursement as a dine in shop, but the reports are shorter. (Hey, we take our shortcuts wherever we get them!) Save a little time by looking for a few of those.

You may also save some time by doing more than one shop of the same chain. You probably can not visit the same location more than once in a month, but you may be able to do multiple locations. When the requirements are the same, it takes a little less effort to prepare and do the shops. (Never take shortcuts such as copying-and-pasting from one report to another.)

So were you able to schedule a restaurant shop for every day of the month? I would be open to a little “fudging” on this to hit the goal. For example, we often bring home leftovers when we dine out. That is especially true when we are doing a mystery shop and may have to order an appetizer and two entrees, then save room for dessert. So if all I am doing is reheating leftovers for dinner, I think I can count that as another “free food” night. I have also done fast food shops where I ended up with extra meals after ordering in-store and at the drive-through, so one or two of those they could also take care of a second day’s main meal. And with a few grocery store shops you may be able to get enough “free food” for at least a few more meals.

OK, you get the idea. Now, do you see how you could apply this to other types of shops? What if you broadened this a bit and set a goal to get something you need “free” every day? Or to make a certain amount in fees and reimbursements? Be aggressive about going after shops and taking on assignments you normally wouldn’t consider. Look for opportunities to set up routes and do a group of shops one after another, or pick up a shop or two on your way home from your “real” job. Your goal doesn’t have to be per day, it can be per week or for the month overall.

Although there are some shoppers who go about looking for mystery shopper jobs with what Dave Ramsey would call “gazelle intensity,” most of us pick up a few assignments here and there as we have time. Being gazelle intense for a month or so could be a good way to jumpstart a stalled mystery shopper career or (if you focused on fee-only shops) a way to get cash to pay off an unexpected bill or save up for a special vacation or family treat.

So what do you think? Would you take on a challenge to do a shop a day, or a certain number of shops in a month, or to make a goal amount of money in a month? How will you go about it?

These tips can help you stay cool as you do your summer mystery shopping.

When you can, schedule your shops in the cooler times of the day. Can you go first thing in the morning, or after the hottest part of the afternoon? If the sun isn’t beating down on you, you will feel more comfortable.

Wear sunscreen. Even short exposures to sun have an effect. Put SPF 15 or greater on any exposed skin, especially your face.

Dress appropriately. Wear cool, comfortable clothing in light colors. Natural fabrics, such as cotton, or the wicking clothes that are made to “wick” moisture from your body can keep you cooler. If you are going to spend a lot of time indoors, such as having a meal at a restaurant, you may want to bring a light sweater or jacket with you. The air conditioning can give you a chill.

Wear a cooling bandana. You can buy them or make your own. These bandanas are filled with ice packs or crystals that absorb water. By wearing them around your neck you can cool your entire body.

Drink lots of water. Don’t wait until you feel thirsty. At that point you are already dehydrated. Drink water regularly all day. Sports drinks (such as Gatorade and Powerade) are good, as they can replace electrolytes that you lose through sweat.

Keep a cooler in the car filled with ice and cool drinks. I like to put a couple of bottles of water in the freezer, then use them to keep other beverages cool in the cooler. The bottles of water stay frozen for several hours and don’t make a mess in the cooler like ice cubes do. By the end of the day, the water bottles are usually thawed but still cold–drink them last.

Avoid drinks containing caffeine and alcohol. They have a diuretic effect and do not hydrate you. (And you shouldn’t be drinking alcohol when you are working and driving, anyway.) Although cold drinks are great, watch out for frozen drinks, such as slushies. The extreme cold can cause stomach cramps and “brain freeze.”

Eat light meals. Heavy meals take more energy to digest. A piece of fruit or a cup of low-fat yogurt is a great snack. Freeze some grapes and put them in your cooler for a refreshing treat.

Don’t take kids and pets along and leave them in the car. Even if you only expect to be gone for a few minutes, even if you leave the windows cracked open, even if anything. Leave them at home. It only takes a few minutes for a parked car to reach dangerous temperatures. We hear horror stories every summer-don’t make your family one of them.

Watch for signs of overheating. Symptoms can include nausea, flushing, muscle cramps, dizziness and more. If you get overheated or dehydrated, get out of the sun and into a cool place. Sip cool water or a sports drink. If symptoms do not abate soon, get medical attention.

Following the tips here can keep you safe, comfortable and cool as you mystery shop.

A Florida man responded to an online ad from United Services and Consultants to be a “Merchandise Manager” for them. The supposed job involved buying electronics and shipping them overseas. The promised pay was $2700 every two weeks, plus commission.

The scam victim went to local Apple and AT&T stores and bought a total of 17 MacBook Airs and 7 iPads. He paid for all of this with his personal credit cards. The “company” (aka scamming sleazeballs) sent prepaid shipping labels and he shipped all of the equipment to Russia. (Yes, Russia. Any red flags here for you yet?) The company provided banking information to pay him for the electronics but guess what? There was no money. Now he owes nearly $30,000 to his credit card companies as a result of this scam.

How can you avoid this type of scam?

I won’t say that there are absolutely no legitimate jobs that call for secret shoppers to buy and ship items. In fact, I have done a few. However, they are rare enough that I would say if you see a job that involves shipping expensive items that you paid for, you should assume it is a scam. Especially if you are being asked to ship things out of the country.

Ask yourself why they would pay $2700 for a job that takes, at most, a day or two to complete. Just like Mom always said, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Offers of big bucks for little work cause people to stop listening to that little voice that warns them something may be wrong. Their greed kicks in and they forge ahead, afraid that if they delay or ask too many questions they will miss out on this “opportunity.” Don’t let greed cloud your judgement.

Don’t go by the company name. There are some legitimate companies with names similar to United Services and Consultants, and many scammers use the names of familiar, legitimate companies. Just because there are legitimate companies with the name the scammer gave you doesn’t mean you have received a valid offer. Scammers lie. It’s true. You can look it up.

Be cautious whenever you are asked to put out your own money. Most mystery shopping assignments require you to pay your expenses up front, then get reimbursed. There is a little risk in this, but the risk is tempered by the fact that: (1) most required purchases are rather small amounts and (2) in most cases, you get to keep what you bought. If I do a restaurant shop that requires me to spend $50 for dinner and for some reason I don’t get paid, then I am out the $50 but at least I got dinner. (By the way, I have NEVER had a problem getting paid for any mystery shopping assignment. It can happen, but it is not all that common…at least, if you follow directions.) Never have more money at risk than you could afford to lose if the worst happened.

You can be even safer when you know that you are dealing with legitimate mystery shopping companies, such as members of the MSPA. Of course, you need to KNOW that you are dealing with the legitimate company and not someone claiming to be them. Do a search for the company name and find their actual contact information, not what the scammer may have told you.

Be extra cautious when you are asked to ship something out of the country. In fact, just say no. I can’t think of any circumstance where I would be willing to do this.

Check with your state’s attorney general or consumer affairs office. Describe the offer you received and see what they say. They see scams every day, so they are more familiar with the signs that something is a scam. They may not be able to tell you with certainty that something is legitimate or a scam, but they can tell you if something smells fishy to them.

Use your best judgement when considering any offer presented to you. If you have any doubt or something just doesn’t feel right, run away. It would be better to miss out on something that might have been legitimate than to fall prey to scammers and be out thousands of dollars.