#gig walk

[jcoolcash11]

Be a Gig Walking Mystery Shopper

My App review of Gig Walk. Check it out and see how it worked for me. 

[makemoneywithyourphone]

My review of Field Agent

  Field Agent is an iPhone app that pays users cold hard cash for performing one-off local jobs, including mystery shopping, price checks, and inspecting product displays in retail stores. Think of Field Agent as a marketplace where businesses can find individuals from a specific location to complete odd tasks that they either don't want their own employees to know about, or don't have anyone else available for. The jobs are posted within the app and are visible to Field Agent users based on proximity to their current location.

The typical assignment often requires you to take photos with your phone's camera, tap in a brief written response, and/or answer several multiple choice questions. Some jobs require you to interact with a store clerk. The jobs that are available to you will also depend on your area, based on the quantity and types of business located close by, as well as the number of other "field agents" competing for these jobs.

  Field Agent Jobs seem to pay somewhere around $5 — I've seen jobs that paid as low as $2.50 and maybe as high as $15. I haven't used the app for very long, however, and It's possible that some of the better, higher paying jobs are reserved for users who have been with the service for a longer period of time, and have proven themselves to be reliable by successfully completing a number jobs (as is the case with Gigwalk). 

Cashout options are very straightforward and painless. You can cash out via PayPal or newcomer Dwolla at any time, as long as your balance is above $2. Payments for completed jobs are also instantly credited to your account, making the financial aspect of the FieldAgent experience as user-friendly as possible.

This kind of expediency also applies to reserving jobs — unlike Gigwalk, which requires you to apply for jobs and wait to find out whether you've been accepted, Field Agent reserves the job for you immediately, giving you 2 hours to complete it. Keep in mind, however, that the same sort of good citizenship is expected from you in return. Should you slack on your responsibilities — by either backing out of gigs, or failing to adequately complete them in the alloted time-frame — your feedback score (called Agent Rating) will suffer, potentially causing you to become ineligible for future jobs!

The Agent Rating is perhaps the most important element of your Field Agent account. Visible in the Statistic tab, this score is based on the number of jobs you've successfully completed, with points subtracted for incomplete or rejected work. Everyone starts out with 85, and (hopefully) grows from there.

How To Get Off On The Right Foot With Field Agent

Based on my personal experience with Field Agent, the most difficult thing when starting out was finding gigs I could actually complete. Most of the jobs available to me were "Scavenger Hunts" — a notoriously confusing and difficult type of job. There were occasional other jobs, but they were few and usually out of the way. It wasn't until about a month into using that app that things turned for the better, and I started completing a number of jobs.

Part of this problem is that jobs fluctuate based on the timing of clients' needs. There might be days or weeks when a lot of jobs are posted, and other periods where there is a relative drought. For this reason it's a good idea to check the app on a regular basis, since jobs tend to be posted at highly unpredictable times.

Another issue is that certain jobs are only shown to agents with a high enough Agent Score, meaning that as a beginner agent you're at a particular disadvantage. The old catch 22 of needing experience to get a job, and needing a job to get experience seems to apply here. Fortunately Field Agent helps you build up your score by providing occasional "Screener" jobs that you can complete by answering a few simple question about your consumer habits. These "jobs" do not reward any money, but they appear to raise your Agent Score the same way an actual job would. They also help to familiarize you with the app interface and the process of completing a job, so be sure to complete any that become available.

My advise for would-be agents is don't get discouraged, keep checking the app regularly for new jobs, complete any of the non-paying screener jobs, and travel farther than you normally would for your first jobs. This important because quicker you boost your Agent Score, the sooner you'll start seeing jobs closer to home that are otherwise not being shown to you.

As of today, the Field Agent is available to iPhone users 18 and up in United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.