Well, it is real and I made $145 in my first three days of being a mystery shopper.  Listen in on this 10 minute, 17 second interview
of mystery shopping expert Angela Smith.  It really is a fun way to make some extra money!

It's only 10 minutes, 17 seconds long and Angela answers the toughest and most common question I get about mystery shopping.




You can listen right on this web page OR download the MP3 to your computer and listen another time. 


You can learn more about his program by clicking HERE!
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Leo:   Okay, Angela, why don't you define mystery shopping for us if you would?

 

Angela:   Sure, Leo, I'd love to.  Mystery shopping's just basically a form of undercover evaluation.  A company can't be absolutely certain how a manager or the staff or the products are displayed or anything like that in their store.  So they hire people in the local area, mystery shoppers, to um, to go out and evaluate that kind of information and then give it back to them.  So in a simpler form it's just basically spying on companies.

 

Leo:   Why do companies want to have themselves spied on?

 

Angela:   Well, just simply for the fact that they can't tell what their managers are doing in the store, how their stores are being represented to the public and they want to have an unbiased customer's eye, you know, out there for the company so the company can know that the managers are actually displaying signs like they're supposed to, and keeping the store clean, and keeping the bathrooms clean and those kind of things.

 

Leo:   Cause if they know company bigwigs are going to be around they'll be on their best behavior is what you're saying.

 

Angela:   Exactly, yes.  If you know the boss is coming you're going to be on your best behavior and make everything look spic and span.  And when you don't know the boss is coming and they got a spy coming in to check on you, you know, you have to stay on your toes all the time.

 

Leo:   Great.  What else is mystery shopping known by?  Any other synonyms?

 

Angela:   Yeah, actually, secret shopping is a real famous synonym for it and also undercover shopping.  That's two of the main things that mystery shopping is known by.

 

Leo:   Okay.  Who can do mystery shopping?

 

Angela:   Leo, anybody can do mystery shopping as long as they're mobile and as long as they can get around.  They can be — they have to have a couple of traits.  They have to be organized.  They have to be punctual, because you can't be late if you're supposed to do a dining shop between 6:00 and 8:00, you can't go in there at 9:00 and that kind of thing.  You have to have a little bit of computer literacy to your background.  You should be observant and unbiased, and detail oriented, and you also have to be just a little bit of an actor or actress, because you have to play a role sometimes.

 

Leo:   Okay.  Who are — I guess the most important question; how much can you make as a mystery shopper.

 

Angela:   Wow!  Mystery shoppers can make whatever they want to make.  It really does depend on the mystery shopper themselves, how many jobs they want to take on, because it's not a job you have to do 9:00 to 5:00.  You can pick and chose the mystery shopping assignments that you want to do.  They're called shops by the way.  And so you can pick the shop that you want to do.  If someone says hey, I want you to do this mystery shop over here at K-Mart, for instance, and you don't want to do K-Mary or you just don't want to go to K-Mart today or whenever the shop is required, you don't have to.  You can say yes or no.  So, I would say on an average though that mystery shopper can make anywhere between $10.00 and $40.00 an hour, and that's, you know, ones that are dedicated and want to really do it.  And then there's other jobs where you can just make a little bit of extra money.  If you just want to have a little money at the end of the month to, you know, pay an extra bill or if you want to have some money to go out with the family and, you know, dine out and have a weekend out or a night out or something like that, then you can just do a little bit of mystery shopping.  You don't have to do it full time.

 

Leo:   My favorite feedback that I've gotten from one of my subscribers who invests in your material is that their one goal was to mystery shop until they got enough money to earn a computer — to get a new computer and then they did that and they were happy as a clam.

 

Angela:   Oh, that is awesome.  Yeah.  Well I personally earned $1,000.00 from one assignment myself and I know lots of people that have.  I know people that’ve actually made $10,000.00 in cash and reimbursements on other assignments.  It just really, you know, is dependent upon the job itself, the different shops and you; how much time you want to put into it.

 

Leo:   Okay, now, will I get to keep the fur coat?  I mean some of the advertising I've seen for mystery shopping is, you know, they seem to indicate that you'll be asked to do something like shop for a large-screen TV or a fur coat and you'll get to keep those things.  What — mostly what kind of shops are available.

 

Angela:   You know, you can keep the fur coat maybe.  It just really depends on the requirements of the assignment of the shop.  To answer the whole question about what's available, it would take probably a day for me to give it to you all.  But let me just give you a breakdown real quick of some of the most common ones.  There's fast food like McDonalds and Burger King, Captain B's.  Apartment shops are very popular in almost every city in the United States and Canada where you pretend to be an apartment seeker.  New home construction, those are fantastic shops.  We have one member that actually made $3,000.00 in less than 30 days doing home construction, new home construction shops where they went and pretended to be — her and her husband pretended to be new home buyers.

 

Leo:   Okay.

 

Angela:   And restaurants like TGI Friday's, Loose Crisp, Emeril's Restaurants does mystery shopper.  There's a couple more.  Retail stores, furniture stores, and department stores, and clothing stores and shoe stores.  Sporting events including the super bowl.  I know someone personally that did the super bowl last year, not this year.  I don't know anybody that did it this year, but last year I know somebody who did it.  And they made about, I don't know, $400.00 or $500.00 on that particular shop.

 

Leo:   Wow!

 

Angela:   Car dealerships are real popular, where you go and pretend to do buying, be buying a car and you have to go through the credit check process.  So, you know, that's important.  And then, ah, a couple of others are movie theater audits where you go and count how many people are in the seats and watch the trailers of the new movies and report on how many there were.  And one of my favorites is government agencies including the post office and military bases, ****, airports, places like that.

 

Leo:   Wow!

 

Angela:   There's all kinds of shops out there.

 

Leo:   I've gotten email from companies that needed a movie shop done that evening.

 

Angela:   Oh wow, yes absolutely.  I've seen those to.  And I love going to a movie, doing a movie theater audit or, you know, going and watching the trailers.  Those are just great because you know what?  I take my family.  We end up going and seeing a movie together.  I go watch the trailers in another theater.  I come back, finish watching the movie with my family and then we go home and when I get paid for the mystery shop that I did, it pays for the night out.

 

Leo:   That's great.  Now for the person who lives say 20 miles from the nearest mall or well-known store, in this day and age of high gas prices, should they invest in your information?

 

Angela:   They can.  It just really depends on where they're located.  There are mystery shops in just about every town and city in the United States now, because customer service is so important to companies.  They have to, you know, they have to be competitive.  And you can't be competitive if your customer service stinks.  You know, nobody's going to come back to you and you know the old adage about, you know, if you get bad customer service that person's going to tell 20 other people about that.

 

Leo:   Right.  Right.

 

Angela:   So customer service is so important to companies now that just about every place; I mean unless you're really, really out in like the middle of Wyoming or somewhere where there absolutely is nothing for 100 miles, I would say it's definitely worth it to invest in trying to find some mystery shopping jobs.  If you're just hoping to make some extra money or to do it full time even, you know, you can always make a trip to the city if you're 20 miles away on one weekend and do just a whole bunch of shops.  Or, you know, one day during the week and just, you know, combine the shops.  There are about 750 companies in the United States that hire mystery shoppers, so it's likely that somebody's going to be available.

 

Leo:   Right.  Now the most common question I get from people who have a question about mystery shopping, they'll email me and they say I've been told that I shouldn't pay for mystery shopping jobs and I'll have to write back and explain by investing in your material, they're not paying for mystery shopping jobs.  Why don't you explain what your site is all about.

 

Angela:   Sure, absolutely.  You are right, you should never pay any company that says I will give you a mystery shopping job if you pay me $25.00 first.  No, absolutely not.  But that's not what my website's all about.  What we do is we teach you how to approach the 750 companies.  In fact, we give you a list of all those companies.  We give you links to all their websites, all their forms to fill out to become a shopper for them.  We tell you certain things about the companies that we personally shop for; myself, also other mystery shoppers, there are professional mystery shoppers that are part of our organization.  We tell you about certain companies and what they do, how much they pay, what we think of them, if they're a good company and they pay you on time like they should.  It's basically like going to a book store and buying a book on how to be a virtual assistance or how to be a secretary.  That's what you're paying for.  You're paying for the information so that you can, you know, have a heads up, get your foot in the door I guess and also be one step ahead of everybody else, because all the people that don't have the information that we provide, they're starting in a bad, you know, a lower spot than you are.  You know what you have to say on the application, and how to say certain things, and how to approach certain people in the mystery shopping companies and the schedulers that actually schedule the mystery shops; how to talk to them and get more than if you didn't have something like —

 

Leo:   It's sort of like eBay where you can get feedback on the companies you're potentially dealing with before you deal with them.

 

Angela:   Yes, exactly.  We do that kind of thing too.

 

Leo:   Now, how long between someone getting your info and actually making some money?

 

Angela:   We've had — the best I think that we've ever had is a new member signed up and they, within three hours, they had a mystery shopping assignment.

 

Leo:   Great.

 

Angela:   It can range — it depends on you, how fast you really want to start mystery shopping and how fast you want to fill out the applications, how fast you want to approach the companies.  It is all dependent on you, but the fastest we've ever had is three hours.

 

Leo:   My first, ah, my record is in the first three days of being a mystery shopper I made $145.00, so I was set ****.

 

Angela:   That's awesome.

 

Leo:   Well, if folks want to get more information on Angela's site, they should go to http://www.MysteryShoppingIsReal.com.  Again that's http://www.MysteryShoppingIsReal.com , and Angela, I want to thank you for your time today.  I really appreciate it and I think it'll help the people.

 

Angela:   Thanks so much, Leo.  I appreciate it.  I had a great time.  You have a nice day and everybody out there too.

 

Leo:   Thank you.  Bye bye.

 

Angela:   Bye bye.

If you've never read my story of earning $145 in my first
three days as a mystery shopper click HERE