Okay, I have to chime in here. I own a Mystery Shopping company. Yes, we are legit and no, mystery shopping is not a scam! If you want to check me out I'll send my URL.
The reason this post caught my attention was because of what happened to Gomboman. Often times my firm has been retained to send in shoppers to various companies to determine the various attitudes and/or conditions of the people and location. They are looking for what Gomboman had stumbled upon, "poor representation of their product". The more industries that use this tactic are finding out that it really pays to go to the customer level when determining what their perceptions are.
