GBW (Formerly known as GAPbuster Worldwide) 

Please becareful im waiting 6 months later havent been paid by gbw they keep saying they have a problem in their finance department. I have written more than 100 queries dont even try to do any assignment.

Today after writting a complaint yesterday i have been directly paid! After a long fight im smilling my way to the bank. I wonder what was the hold up

Terrible. I haven't been paid since April 2019 and we ate now in February 2020. They keep asking me to update my bank account details and lately they just close my enquiries as "solved " when its very clear I still haven't been paid. Yet they still contacting me for more work. What a joke of company!

Completed a task for GBW in October and still haven't received my reimbursement or payment. I have emailed GBW and sent a message via their website but received no reply. I will not work with GBW again.
Edited to say that I emailed the Director of GBW to highlight the issues and to say that, if I didn't receive payment by midday the next day, I'd get in touch with the CEO of the company that I did the visit for. I did then receive the payment. Email address of Director grant.salmon @ GBW.solutions (no spaces). Needless to say I immediately closed my account when I saw that the payment was in my bank.

As a recipient of EGW investigations, we have no assurance that their staff meet any standards. They are not provided with uniform, business cards or any identification. But newsagents are forced to permit them almost free reign in their shops snapping away pics and interpreting agents replies. Some dress like vagrants, unkempt appearance, obese men and women in jogging atire, Totally unprofessional. There is no way we can trust this system

These guys were fine for a number of years but this year they have stopped paying staff. They continually ask for the bank account number and the money never comes in. I'm out of pocket for reimbursements. The jobs were completed with no errors and accepted but 5 months later and I'm still getting messed around. I did a quick google search on review gapbuster and I now see that there are hundreds of people that are having the same experience.
At the end of the day the pay wasn't great once you factor in the time it takes to drive around all the stores for less than minimum wage, answer a heap of questions with no travel allowance.

Update: Over the past month I've been told twice that the payment will be released "tonight". I still haven't been paid.

Update2: I directly emailed a number of Gap staff and I sent direct messages to Grant Salmon and Daniel Edwards through Linkedin. I advised them that I had laid formal complaints. I received a response from Daniel and was paid a week later. I have changed my grade from a 1 to a 3 seem I've finally been paid, after 6 months of chasing. (Their standard pay turnaround is 3 months)

Update3: I actually continued to work for them. I get along well with the division leader and I wanted to give them another chance. While mystery shopping pay still isn't awesome once you factor in petrol costs and time travelling etc., they do pay through paypal now and since I've setup a paypal account the money has once again started coming through on time (3 months after completion)

Update 4: I tried to continue working for them but after writing this post I was told that the needed to keep the mystery shopping team fresh and they refused to give me any more work.

I am located in the UK and did an assignment in Savers which involved inspecting a store, interacting with a colleague and purchasing alcohol to see if the store followed certain regulations. Then upload a picture of the receipt. This task was completed on the 10th of August, it is now the 14th of October and I have STILL not been paid.

Perhaps the company owner is poor and doesn't want to pay people? What a lovely way to treat mystery shoppers! Burn in hell!

These guys are currently taking more than 90 days to pay, and pay stuff all. I hope their clients are reading this, and dump them for some other companies that only take 6 weeks, and $20 instead of $9.

I have been waiting for my payment for April and June assignments.
Send them email. As agreed to be paid within this month but didnt.
For the past payment, i had been chasing them. Yes, i have received the past payment but have to wait for 3 months then get pay.

It's been almost 4 MONTHS since I've been paid for my shop(s). They keep saying they're having issues and that it ought to be resolved in 2-3 weeks.

5/20/20: They did eventually reimburse me for my shop, but it was quite some time, after this post, another post on a shopper forum, and couple FB posts. I've since deactivated my shopper acct with them.

I have done work for GapBuster for years. This is not a scam, they just are really, really terrible!
Payment takes months and months, but does come - eventually. They phone me late at night (after 9,30pm) asking me to do urgent work the following day. I used to agree and move appointments round, then they did not send the work. I stopped agreeing and told them many times to stop phoning at 10 o'clock.
They send me multiple emails saying 'please let us know if you can do this job in your area for a bonus fee'. The job is 6 or 7 hours drive away, 550 km and they offer to pay me a total of Euro 16. I have asked them to stop wasting my time and to spend 30 - 60 seconds checking of it is really my area or not before sending my 8 emails all requiring a reply.
My list of complaints is so long it would fill up this site, so I will stop here. Avoid working for them. There are many good mystery shopping companies (I work for about 7 and all are great), so do work for a reliable one.

GBW have always had the longest payment terms of any Mystery Shopping company, but have always been paid. However, I am still waiting payment for work carried out in April. Raised an enquiry ticket in July and just received a generic reply, and still no payment. Looking at other reviews, it appears other shoppers are affected. Suggesting this company is in trouble. Potential shoppers should avoid this company, otherwise like me you will end up out of pocket.

The reviews are too brutal. I have been doing work for GBW for at least a year and yes, their payment can take months, but they don't scam like what others have said. I got all my payments in full. When you do any assignment don't expect to get paid the next month. There are processes that they follow, like QA, submitting your reviews to the client and only after they get paid, they will then transfer the money to us. If people are expecting to get paid like a full-time job, I suggest you find a full-time job then.

They are by far the best mystery shopping company that I have found.

Scam as others have said. Do not pay and do not respond to emails/queries. Do not do assignments for this company.

I have same issue with the payment. I chase up my payment back to April and they just let me wait and did not solve the problem. I would like to join the guy who is going to log a small claims court action. Let me know the process. Thanks

Updated review from August 2019

My payments have finally been received. I have increased my rating from 1 star 3 stars too. Clearly Gapbuster have had some quite major issues in their business. From what I understand payments were made to some who weren't due them and others (me included) who were owed were not paid. Sorting out this gigantic mess has clearly been challenging for the business as those who weren't owed aren't exactly coming forward to repay the funds. However, having been contacted by the company's managing director for Europe following my post on here I'm pleased to say that the company are now sorting things out. I have been paid for March and April work (£75) and just June remains (£10).

I think the most important message for any business is to communicate and not to falsely promise. Gapbuster were guilty of a complete lack of communication and consistently falsely saying that payment would be made in 3-5 days knowing full well it would not be.

I'm glad that this has been resolved. I have had two and a half good years working for the business but will not do so any longer and would urge others to consider carefully only working for them if you can genuinely afford to not be paid for work you've done. If the money is a bonus and the shops are not out of your way and costing you lots then it's a freebie; if you're relying on the money then do something else as if this happened to someone again who needed the money it would potentially cause them financial hardship.

I hope that those working for them in the future have some success and I hope Gapbuster learn from this that if your business relies on mystery shoppers then not paying them is going to seriously damage their willingness to do further work.

Thanks again to the European Director for resolving the issue.

ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM JULY 2019
No payment still

I read with interest others reviews saying they've not been paid. I completed assignments in March, April and June and am currently owed a total of £85. I have regular emails saying that they are having "payment issues". I am about to log a small claims court action against the company and would welcome knowing if anyone wishes to either join my action or consider the same for themselves.

Since they lost the McDonalds contract and various other assignments they clearly are struggling as a business.

Updated 16/7/19 - if anyone is interested in making a joint small claims court application then please let me know about the amount of money you are owed and the date you believe it was due. I will happily collate this before assessing whether or not to put the claim in.

Please email me: sccgapbuster @ gmail.com

Receipt of the email does not guarantee that a claim will be made and all email addresses will be kept confidentially. I am not a lawyer or professional looking to make money merely someone also affected by GAPBuster failing to pay out and looking to take action.

In addition to the above why not contact Spar UK direct on 0208 426 3700 to let them know that the company who run their mystery shopping programme have not paid those who have conducted it for them.

Furthermore why not contact Savers here www .savers.co.uk/ contact to make them aware too - I have also done this with a chap called Ryan.

This is a very stupid company and they never pay you for the assignments you completed and not even responds to your mails. Don’t signup with this company. They are waste fellows.

****SCAM***
Do not sign up to work for this company as you’ll be out of pocket, they’ve always taken months to pay for completed evaluations but this time I haven’t been paid for an assignment I did in March! They keep saying they’re having “payment issues” but have yet to pay and are now ignoring all of my enquiries. Terrible company, I’m tying to find a way to report them in order to stop others from being ripped off.

Did an assignment in April and still haven’t received any payment! They took 2 months to reply to my email and keep saying they’ll pay, but still nothing...

We are in Australia and also encountering difficulties in receiving a substantial payment for jobs completed. We are also getting the run around from their staff in Malaysia. We are located in Melbourne where their Head Office is. This company is a disgrace and clearly needs to be shut down and stopped from operating! Keep spreading the word to everyone “DO NOT SIGN UP TO THIS COMPANY”.

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SCAM - completed an assignment in March, awaiting a large refund and no sign of payment. Have contacted GBW frequently with the same answer.