How to become a mystery shopper

By Donna Freedman

Get paid to shop! Score free meals and clothes! Visit casinos, water parks and luxury hotels on someone else's dime!

Sound too good to be true? With mystery shopping, it is -- sort of.

You'll get "free" stuff. You'll work for it, though. You'll have to make one or more site visits. The evaluation forms can run to multiple pages. Generally, you pay upfront and wait weeks to be reimbursed. If you don't follow directions, you won't get paid or reimbursed.

That said, an organized and motivated shopper can consistently earn $100 a month or more. Or you can look at it this way: Mystery shopping gets you the small luxuries you can't otherwise afford, such as fancy coffee or dinners out. It can also help shore up your budget by paying for things like vision exams, oil changes or veterinary care.

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You might score pet food, vitamins, doughnuts or bone-density testing. You can get paid to go bowling, test-drive a luxury car, drink a microbrew, eat at a fancy steakhouse, ride a roller coaster, rent a car or visit a nursing home. You can mystery-shop a supermarket and get reimbursed for up to $10 worth of groceries.

So how do you get a piece of that? By asking for it. Here's how.

Find the gigs for free

First, a piece of advice: Never, ever pay to become a shopper. Those Internet ads that promise the inside scoop are selling information that's available for free. Two legitimate sources of mystery shopping companies are:

• Volition.com, a freebie site whose forums offer a place for shoppers to network.

• The Mystery Shopping Providers Association, or MSPA, an industry group that has more than 150 member companies on four continents.

Sign up with more than one company to increase your chances of getting assignments. There's plenty of competition: Approximately 1.5 million mystery shoppers have worked at least once in the past year, by the MSPA's estimate.

Registration may be as simple as filling out a form. Some companies will ask you to read an introduction and take a short quiz, or to write a make-believe account of a shopping trip (I thought of it as an audition). Once registered, you can check company sites for available assignments or read the MSPA's job board. Companies also send e-mail notifications of jobs, sometimes several per day.

'You prove yourself'

Don't expect to be sent to a high-end restaurant or a posh hotel right out of the chute. Schedulers don't hand those assignments to just anyone. You'll have to take more than a few low-key gigs (coffee shops, fast-food restaurants, retail stores) to establish yourself as competent and reliable.

"You prove yourself, and the more you prove yourself, the more exposure you get to good jobs," says Christopher Warzynski, the vice president of mystery shopping company Beyond Hello.

How do you prove yourself? By writing articulate, sharply observed reports. "Not giving us enough detail" is a common problem, says Tom Mills, the CEO and president of Service Sleuth.

For example, it's not enough to write that "the waiter was friendly." Clients want to know if the waiter made eye contact, if he introduced himself, if he mentioned the daily specials, if he checked back at frequent intervals, if he offered drink refills promptly, if he suggested dessert, if he thanked you for choosing the restaurant.

Another common mistake: not following the shop guidelines. If you're told to buy the doughnut between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m., don't roll in at 10:15 (your receipt will give you away). Make sure you're ordering the right meal combo. (Warzynski tells of a woman who didn't order the required burger at Wendy's -- she was a vegetarian, she later explained.)

Playing smart, playing dumb

Often you follow a script, which is fun; there's a certain frisson that comes from pretending to be somebody you're not. My daughter Abby, a seasoned mystery shopper, once had to pass as a Department of Transportation employee attending a conference. Impersonating a bureaucrat is not exactly James Bond territory, but she got an overnight in a very nice suite with room service and a one-month pass to a popular downtown gym. A pretty nice gig, given that her evening would otherwise have consisted of "Law & Order" reruns.

Be prepared to do a little research and/or think on your feet. Shop for pet food and an employee might ask how much your dog weighs. If you're impersonating a pet owner, you'd better know how big a 3-year-old golden retriever should be.

Fortunately, many scripts specifically ask you not to know much, in order to see how well the employees do their jobs. That means waiting to be offered information. Or beverages. Abby had to train her husband not to order drink refills, because the evaluation forms ask how long a glass remains empty.

Continued: Tips from pro mystery shoppers

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