Does anyone have mystery shopping experience?

[Huit]

Hello. I'm pretty bored, pretty broke and too young to work at any of the stores around me. I remember seeing something on tv about mystery shoppers, and figured that it might be worth looking into. All the websites I look at seem very, very sketchy, and even the websites talking about sketchy websites seem sketchy.
Does anyone actually do this? If so, how does one find work?
Thanks so much.

 

[Tinijocaro]

My dad does mystery shops. They are legitimate, you choose the type and how far you are willing to travel. Not sure which companies my dad works for but he does mostly post office shops.

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

Some of the sites are very sketchy. My grocery store just instituted mystery shoppers. I don't know how they recruit them. There are legitimate sites out there, but I don't know how to tell the real ones from the fakes.

ETA: I'm pretty sure if you are too young to work at the store (how old are you? Most stores hire as young as 15 or 16) you will be too young to mystery shop.

 

[Huit]

Some of the sites are very sketchy. My grocery store just instituted mystery shoppers. I don't know how they recruit them. There are legitimate sites out there, but I don't know how to tell the real ones from the fakes.

ETA: I'm pretty sure if you are too young to work at the store (how old are you? Most stores hire as young as 15 or 16) you will be too young to mystery shop.

I'm 15. Most of the places around here are at least 17.
Thank you both for your responses.

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

I'm 15. Most of the places around here are at least 17.
Thank you both for your responses.

You can look into it, but I am 99% sure that at 15 there is no way they would consider you for something like this. As stated above, typically mystery shoppers have to be able to travel, and there are a lot of liability issues with hiring a 15 year old, not to mention some pretty strict labor laws.

My suggestion? If you are looking for something to do, maybe try looking into clubs at your school. Many don't cost money. If you want to earn money, there's always babysitting. If you're good at a certain subject you could even try tutoring. If all else falls, you can volunteer somewhere like a Boy's and Girl's Club. You won't get paid in money, but it will give you something to do so you aren't bored and you will be rendering a great service to your community.

 

[TaraPA]

I've done mystery shops for awhile now & I'm pretty sure you have to be 18 or older, you have to have your own transportation. You have to have a PayPal account for some as well (for them to pay you) and for that you need your own CC as back up on the account possibly. Some of mine are for test driving cars & motorcycles, opening bank accounts alone, things that you'd have to be older than 15 for.

While they sound great I really only get offers in my immediate area once every 1-2 months, some pay $5, some pay nothing but the reimbursement for the food or product (up to like $15). So there's no way to make any real money in my area doing this. Maybe a larger area would have better opportunities. I do it because it's fun & I usually go to those places anyway, so why not get something for free?

I just checked & I've only done 3 since August. I was offered a few others but they were over 30 min. away or for things I wasn't interested in, like preteneding I wanted to rent an apartment, test driving a motorcycle, etc.

 

[jmrdavis99]

Actually I have seen a few mystery shops for teenagers. Usually age compliance ones for buying certain rated games or the usual "vices". I think they usually term it as "do you have or know a child age xx-xx?" in the emails I get. I think I see a wave of these every few months or so. Like one of the previous posters said, they don't pay particularly well & are sometimes few & far between. I usually only ms for the "perks". The best legitimate website I know is the mystery shopping providers association (mspa.org). (Hope it's okay to post that on here!)