I wanted to give you my quick opinion on whether you should spend the time and money to become a silver or gold certified mystery shopper. I’ve been a secret shopper since 2005 and I am silver certified. At the time I became certified it cost me only $15.00 with a quick 15 minute test on top of that. I’ll be honest, the test was pretty redundant and I don’t think I should’ve paid anything to become silver qualified.
I wanted to become a gold secret shopper back when I was doing a whole lot of mystery shopping, but in order to do that you either had to attend a live event (usually a long distance away from your current location) or purchase a secret shopper gold certification DVD.
You really don’t have to become a silver or gold to do well in secret shopping.
In my honest opinion, I think becoming at least silver certified really isn’t a bad thing for you, but I believe it is just the Mystery Shopping Providers Association’s way of making some money off their mystery shoppers network.
The truth is that they probably will call silver qualified mystery shoppers before free mystery shoppers and gold secret shoppers before silver secret shoppers. But when it really comes down to it, most schedulers will take whomever they can to get the job done. There really are a lot of secret shopping jobs out there and a good amount of them are in some real remote areas offering bonuses to get them done.
If you are reading this article and are a free mystery shopper, don’t worry about becoming silver certified. The best thing to do is to register with as many secret shopping companies as you can to get your name and profile out there. Here is a good free list of secret shopping companies to get you started.
Don’t get me wrong, the MSPA is a good thing and if you are serious about becoming a hard core secret shopper, than go ahead and shoot for the gold if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, if you are just looking to make some extra money part time, don’t worry about becoming silver or gold and just sign up with free mystery shopping companies and accept jobs that pay well and are within a reasonable distance from you.
