Small Business Terms & Conditions

Welcome to Secret View! These terms and conditions are meant to guide and govern the access to and use of the services of Secret View via the platform (https://platform.secretview.io) and the mobile application and all its content.

Secret View is part of Secret Collect B.V. (Velperplein 23, 6811 AH, Arnhem, The Netherlands). In these terms and conditions, Secret View is referred to by “Secret View”, “we” and “us”, and we refer to you as user of our platform as “you”, “mystery shopper” and/or “Community Approver”. By “platform” we refer in these terms and conditions to both Secret View’s website that is only accessible by creating an account (https://platform.secretview.io), and the mobile application.

These terms and conditions are applicable to everyone who registers as a member of Secret View’s community. By registering, you declare that you understand and agree to these terms and conditions. Also, upon registering you declare that you have read and understood our Privacy Statement. After registration, you are fully authorized to do assignments with Secret View.

These terms and conditions are originally written in Dutch. In the event a translation of these terms and conditions conflicts with the Dutch original version, the original version will always take precedence. These terms and conditions may be modified by Secret View at any moment.

Should you have any questions and/or remarks about these terms and conditions, please contact us via the live chat or via mysteryshopping@secretview.io.

Registration

1. Only registered users are allowed to do assignments with Secret View. Registration is free. Upon registering, you are obliged to enter your personal details truthfully and completely. You declare not to create an account with the aim of committing fraud, misuse, or abuse. You are solely responsible for keeping your account, the finances, and the security of your password up to date.

2. It is not allowed to create more than one account per person.

3. There is no working relationship between you and Secret View. As a result, you are solely responsible for any insurances, tax declarations, handling accidents and damages during assignments, et cetera.

Applying for assignments

4. All available assignments are shown on the platform.

5. You become eligible for an assignment when you apply to or receive an invite for an assignment.

6. An assignment has several conditions, such as the timeframe the assignment can be done in and the (financial) reward given for it.

7. You can only apply to assignments if you belong to the assignment’s target audience.

8. For some assignments it may be mandatory to verify personal data such as your age with a verification tool.

9. You only apply for assignments if you agree to the conditions in the assignment description and intend to do the assignment.

10. The selection process is based on several aspects such as target audience, location, previous experiences, and quality ratings.

11. Secret View may select mystery shoppers for assignments manually and automatically using an algorithm. The algorithm bases its decisions on several aspects such as target audience, quality, speed, and reliability of the mystery shopper based on previous experiences.

Doing assignments

12. You will only do an assignment once you have been selected and the overview in your account indicates that the assignment is ready to be carried out.

13. You will only do an assignment once you have read and understood all available information, such as the briefing and survey.

14. You always check the date range and timeframe within which an assignment must be done before doing an assignment. You can access public information such as a store’s opening hours or a web shop’s delivery times for this information.

15. Should anything go wrong during an assignment, you always contact Secret View first before filling out the survey.

16. You will only do assignments yourself and will not let anyone else do assignments for you, unless explicitly agreed otherwise.

17. You will do every assignment in an honest and thorough manner.

18. You will never do any assignment for a client you are in any way related to (e.g. as employee, former employee or friends/family employed by the client).

19. In the event you unexpectedly meet someone you know while doing an assignment, and that person works for the client, you will let Secret View know immediately. We will then evaluate whether your research result is still usable.

20. You will never do an assignment while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.

21. You will never visit a specific location of one client more than once every 180 days in order to prevent recognition, unless explicitly agreed otherwise.

22. You will always adhere to the given scenario for an assignment.

23. You will always ensure your behavior and appearance adhere to the requirements of the assignment.

24. In the event you are no longer in the capacity to do an assignment assigned to you it is possible to cancel an assignment. In case you have already received a compensation, you will receive a refund request.

25. You will never return a purchase made for regular assignments, unless explicitly allowed or required. This is not applicable for compliance research assignments.

26. It is not allowed to resell or rent any products purchased during an assignment.

27. You will never reveal yourself as a mystery shopper to the client, unless explicitly allowed or required.

28. It is not allowed to initiate contact with one of Secret View’s clients concerning an assignment, unless explicitly allowed or required.

29. Secret View maintains the right to modify an assignment, the selection of an assignment, and to cancel an assignment at any time.

Doing compliance research assignments

30. In the event an assignment requires you to purchase products that have an age restriction, such as alcoholic beverages and tobacco, it is your responsibility to handle these products carefully and correctly (i.e. according to local laws).

31. You will buy a maximum of one age-restricted product unless explicitly stated otherwise in the assignment.

32. You will always return age-restricted purchases you may have done for your compliance research assignment to the client of Secret View through the method indicated in the assignment, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the assignment. This does not apply to regular mystery shopping assignments.

33. In case you do duo-assignments, with one minor mystery shopper and an adult supervising mystery shopper, both mystery shoppers guarantee that age-restricted products are always handed over to the supervising adult immediately after purchase.

Delivering research results

34. You always fill out the survey of an assignment within the indicated time limit, unless agreed otherwise.

35. You always follow Secret View’s guidance regarding the survey.

36. You ensure the survey reflects factual events and not opinions, unless requested otherwise.

37. You safely store all notes and documentation (photos, brochures, receipts, etc.) you may have collected for an assignment during at least one month after the assignment. Also, you will provide this documentation to Secret View upon request.

38. You make sure that all explanations, descriptions, and other answers to survey questions are:

a. Informative and give a precise description of the mystery shopping visit

b. Clear and do not contradict other answers in the survey

c. Objective, complete, and free of excessive use of punctuation marks

d. Free of opinions, assumptions, comparisons, and conclusions unless specifically requested otherwise

e. Constructively formulated and elaborated on when requested

f. Motivating and descriptive for the receivers of the feedback

Community Approval

39. Community Approvers are members of the Secret View community who do so-called micro-assignments for a small financial compensation. The reward per assignment may differ and may be modified by Secret View at any time.

40. As a Community Approver, you are free to choose when you work and how much work you do.

41. By accepting the role of Community Approver, you declare to understand and accept the rules that are shared with you.

42. The Community Approver role may be assigned to a community member on request and may be removed from an account by Secret View at any time without giving any reason.

Financial

43. You receive a compensation per assignment on the bank account that you provided in your account on our platform. The amount is indicated in the assignment description. Some assignments may have additional expense compensations, these are also included in the assignment description.

44. When you receive a shopping budget for an assignment, you always spend the full amount during your assignment, unless agreed otherwise. Oftentimes it is allowed to spend more than the shopping budget at your own expense, unless stated otherwise.

45. Compensations may be transferred before or after having done your assignment, or a combination of both. The payment method is indicated in the assignment description.

46. Secret View may for various reasons ask you to refund a previously received (partial) compensation. A refund request must be complied with within 14 days. In case the refund is neglected, Secret View may turn to debt collection measures leading to collection costs of at least €40.00 euros. Reasons for requesting a refund may be:

a. The assignment was not or not correctly done

b. The survey was not or not correctly filled out

c. The total amount spent was less than the shopping budget received

47. A refund request can only be fulfilled via the process initiated by Secret View. Self-initiated transfers to Secret View’s bank account cannot be processed.

48. You are solely responsible for declaring your income with Secret View to your local tax authorities.

49. You are solely responsible for payment of any turnover taxes if applicable in your situation.

50. You are solely responsible for keeping track of your earnings with Secret View and the consequences of these earnings on your tax situation and any social securities or contributions you may receive.

51. Secret Views pays all community members under the Dutch IB-47 regulation. This regulation stipulates that you do not earn a salary but are compensated financially for the assignments carried out.

52. Secret View registers all payments for assignments with the Dutch tax authorities (De Belastingdienst), which is why we need personal details such as your address. Your earnings with Secret View usually count as ‘income from other work’, but please check with your local authorities.

53 Secret View cannot accommodate invoicing to and from freelancers and other entrepreneurs who are registered as community members for their assignment compensations.

Confidentiality and privacy

54. You will never share information about the performance of (a location of) one of Secret View’s clients related to an assignment with others.

55. You will never initiate contact with one of Secret View’s clients without previous written consent from Secret View.

56. You will never approach or use any media outlet to voice complaints about Secret View or its clients. If you have any complains, please let us know by sending us an e-mail at mysteryshopping@secretview.io.

57. We handle your personal information with the utmost care and will never share your information with third parties without your consent. Please find more about this in our Privacy Statement.

Terminating the relationship

58. The relationship between you and Secret View can be terminated by you at any time if all payments and refund requests have been finalized.

59. The relationship between you and Secret View can be terminated by Secret View at any time without giving any reason.

60. When there is reasonable suspicion or proof of misuse, abuse, fraud, theft or otherwise not adhering to these terms and conditions, Secret View maintains the right to claim €500,00 for damages, to demand the refund of all or part of the received compensations, to immediately terminate the account, and if necessary to press charges and/or take subsequent legal action.

61. If you would like to terminate the relationship between you and Secret View, you can delete your account on our platform.