Secret Shopper Assignment has cost me BIG TIME!

[tangeemct]

Oh I could scream.

I have been applying for a secret shop at a hot restaurant in town that we have been dying to try but can't justify the expense. FINALLY I get the assignment - yaaay! But a family emergency comes up that prevents it. Boooo! But, they reassign it for yesterday YAAAAY!

So we go - experience blah, food excellent. It probably would have been better overall had one of the food runners not dropped a super hot, super heavy cast iron tray of fajitas on my hand smashing my finger and then shrugging and walking away. But that my friends is NOT my rant. (I beat her up in the parking lot later - KIDDING)

We separated our order so dh and I were on one ticket and dd was on the other so I could get the expense of our meal back. The waiter comes back and says "We put the two together and your total is ____" Uhm.... I need 2 separate totals and 2 separate charges" Yes he says but we can't run the same card twice it's a financial no no........ huh? You ran it already at the bar for my tasty margarita.

So dh produces his atm/debit card for dd's meal.

I'm going thru the checkbook balancing stuff and get this. In our 'holds' area is the following

Restaurant 41.07
Restaurant 53.06
Restaurant 41.07
Restaurant 11.99
Bar 8.99

OK this is being HELD. I realize it drops off in 3-4 days. But what they dont' realize is I have every penny except 54 bucks coming out tomorrow morning from Bill Pay for bills.

So I call the bank - bank says "It will drop off" I say "Yes but that won't stop you from either holding a bill that needs paid or charing me an OD fee" and he says "But ma'am we don't run anything on weekends and I say "Oh yes you do, you are holding these funds and it's the weekend" and it goes back and forth for awhile. Finally I hang up and call the Restaurant and talk to a nice manager.

Now he needs my receipt #'s and my last 4 and expiration. No problem. Under usual circumstances but I'm a secret shopper so now my freaking cover is blown. Surely they won't assign me again because I've broken the cardinal rule of making contact with the establishment.

Manager is nice, states he will fix things on Wednesday if any charges are incurred.

I am SO upset by this. As it stands I won't get reemburst for 45 days. But to have an additional 94 bucks on hold is very upsetting. Like many of us, we literally live penny to penny. I have no credit cards, we deal in cash/debit only as we try to get our finances back on track. Our bank Walk Over Ya is relentless and seems to look for reasons to charge me 35 bucks.

I probably will never do a cash up front assignment again. And to add injury to insult (yes I reversed that) I have a bruise under my thumbnail from the fajita fun.

GRRRR

[taxchyk]

It can be very frustrating! I once put $275+ in charges from an overnight stay in a VERY nice hotel once, and it was 4 months before the charges were reversed, instead of before the end of the billing cycle. Made me evaluate my own shopping a bit differently.

[luvmy3boys]

Why would you separate the charges??? Not sure I am following you. All the secret shops I do would allow me to bring my husband and then only reimburse the amounts that were allowed for the shop. Guess I am not following. Was this an on the border bar and dinner shop? I have done this before and ordered a lot more than I was allowed and then just reimbursed the allowable amount. Not sure if this would help in the future.

[tangeemct]

Why would you separate the charges??? Not sure I am following you. All the secret shops I do would allow me to bring my husband and then only reimburse the amounts that were allowed for the shop. Guess I am not following. Was this an on the border bar and dinner shop? I have done this before and ordered a lot more than I was allowed and then just reimbursed the allowable amount. Not sure if this would help in the future.

Because my guidlines specifically said for TWO people and I had 3 there. I didn't want to complicate matters I wanted it to be separated. What difference would it make why? Restaurants split tickets all the time, it's very common practice. I'm in hotel management and our F&B (Food & Beverage) is constantly splitting tabs.

[billig]

Pay cash.
And sock it to em for the fajita thing....that's, that's ....I don't have words that can be on the website for that...

[derketchup]

Because my guidlines specifically said for TWO people and I had 3 there. I didn't want to complicate matters I wanted it to be separated. What difference would it make why? Restaurants split tickets all the time, it's very common practice. I'm in hotel management and our F&B (Food & Beverage) is constantly splitting tabs.

You may have invalidated the shop by having 3 people there, you know... it depends on the company/assignment specifics.

And now they know who you are, too...

Sorry to rain on your parade... :sad:

[sjmarsha]

Yeesh, that really stinks. I've had overdraft fees because of stupid holds before, really makes me mad. I hope everything works out okay with the secret shopper thing.

[MaryMary]

Not to upset you even more, if this restaurant would report to your shopping co. they recognized the secret shopper, you may not get reimbursement and fees even for this job, never mind any future assignments. for this client.

May learn a lesson about mystery shopping assignments for the future:
Never accept any jobs which you cannot afford to pay for on your own. As you can see it may go not as planned, to say the least. You'd be lucky if they'd (shopping co.) pay you anything at all for this fiasco.

[tangeemct]

So, basically what ya'll are saying is that I should carry an extra 150 bucks in my account so if my future secret shopping assignments decide to hit my card FIVE times I can be safe?

The secret shop did not say that we could not go with another couple or even another person. It simply said it pays for 2. I wanted to not complicate things by having a receipt for only 2. I realize that I could have had 5 dinners on there and they would only pay back for two I just wanted to make things easier.

I thought I was going to get some cybler hugs here - not lectures. Sheesh people.

[rmtrivas21]

From someone, who is always in a tight budget, I completly understand wanting to have a treat. Sorry things didn't work out how you had planned!