Sand Castle Field Services Agent Review

Sand Castle Field Services is likely not an app you’ll come across unless you’re specifically looking for Field Agent work. And even then, it never came up in Google results for “field agent services” or similar inquiries. It was only when I happened upon someone mentioning it on a random gig economy forum post that I realized the company existed. Sand Castle Field Services doesn’t outright share many details about where they’re based, but it appears from the BBB that they are based in Brookfield, WI. My experience with Sand Castle Suggests that despite their more rudimentary web presence, they are actually a bit more established in the industry as they appear to partner with local credit unions, various lenders, real estate investment groups, and even Harley Davidson Financial Services. Like other Field Agent apps, they suggest a wide range of services provided to these institutions, but thus far I’ve almost exclusively performed letter drops and observational inspections on what to appear to be assets that are in default on their loans.

Types & Frequency of Jobs Available

On any given day, there’s usually about 5 jobs available within a 50 mile radius from where I live and while that might not seem like many, I feel as quickly as those are accepted another job fills in behind it within a few hours in the same area. That said, in addition to jobs available in the immediate area, Sand Castle also has a large list of available assignments that extend as far out as 200+ miles. This is kind of neat, because you can potentially plan a travel day to pick up some assignments at locations outside of your home area.

Companies seeking information about assets they have liens on and that are currently in default tend to be the vast majority of job types, at least in my area. And then tasks come in two forms, contact or letter drop requested and non-contact. The nature of these types of jobs promote not scheduling with the customer, allowing you to drop in unannounced on your terms within the deadline. With the letter drop jobs, you basically just hop out of the car, take a photo of the front of the property, a photo of the house number, and a photo of the envelope taped to the door as well as photos of any vehicles on site (including of course the collateral vehicle) before heading off and with the non-contact tasks, you just need to take a photo of the property and a photo of the collateral. If the vehicle in question isn’t on site, you just snap a pic proving you showed up and note that.

Unlike WeGoLook, which isn’t very heavy on questionnaires, Sand Castle Field Services does require a short form to be completed with each task and it asks things about the color of the property and a bit more in depth information about occupancy. The form doesn’t take much more than 30 seconds to a minute to fill out but every job seems to require the same basic form regardless of the underlying task.

Income and Payment

Available assignments on Sand Castle Field Services typically fall in the $15 range, but occasionally I’ll see some at $35 if they’re in an underserved area and/or require some sort of double visit. Sometimes I’ll see some posted in the $8 range for property inspections, but unless they’re just a few minutes away I rarely accept those. I feel like orders on Sand Castle average a higher rate for similarly timed jobs (i.e. something that requires taking a few photos) compared to WeGoLook; however, I also feel like there’s less potentially for any single job go above $30, whereas I think that happens relatively commonly for Automotive Inspections that sit unclaimed with WeGoLook.

In my area, Sand Castle Field Services doesn’t tend to have much activity with projects being claimed as frequently. My only inclination for this is that jobs can sit on there for a few days without much change, so with some strategy you can probably squeeze an extra $5 or so out a job, but more importantly, I’ve found that Sand Castle had a lot more orders I could string together and they were more willing to work with me when I called in regarding my intention to bulk several jobs into the same day even if it meant pushing a deadline by a day or two.

Orders that sit unclaimed don’t tend to increase in value, but they do provide an area to input your requested amount and due date.

Exterior Inspections in my opinion often don’t pay well enough as a stand alone job on their service, because for the $10 they request you often have to take quite a few more pictures and answer more questions than the field visits where you’re just taping a notice to a door for $15. That said, I feel like the orders on this app don’t waste my time as often waiting around to schedule, but that could be because of the type of orders I frequent around here.

Because I haven’t had to schedule an order with anyone, I haven’t resulted in any cancellations or jobs I show up to that can’t be fulfilled. Even in cases where the collateral vehicle wasn’t on site, as long as I proved I went there, that was good enough to earn their payment. I can typically hop out of my vehicle, begin snapping photos as I’m walking up to the door, take a picture of the house numbers, and then finally take a photo of the posted letter before heading back to my vehicle in the matter of maybe a minute or two and for that I’m getting paid $15 typically.

Granted, that doesn’t cover my drive time or gas to the location, but assuming I’m already in or commuting through an area, that’s some amazing money on a per hour basis! Payments do take a little bit longer to process than with other apps. They pay twice a month, on the 15th at the last day of the month, and depending upon whether a job was completed in the first or last part of the prior month determines where it gets paid. A benefit I’ve found though is that since you’re not just getting paid immediately, and then wasting that pay immediately, you end up with a more sizable deposit. If I do a job for $10 through Field Agent app and get paid immediately, it’s really easy to view it as just extra income and then go buy a burger for $10 that I probably wouldn’t have purchased, but if I don’t get paid until the prior month and I’m getting paid on 10 tasks with a bank direct deposit, that can end up being $100 and I’m more likely to spend it more intelligently…or at least feel like I got something out of it.

Interface

This is probably where Sand Castle is the weakest. They don’t have an app and the interface of their mobile site is kind of clunky.

Instead of a username, you login with an agent ID and once you’re logged in, navigation makes sense but yet still seems difficult because there’s no sense of fluidity between parts of the site that appear to display as a mobile version and other parts of the dashboard that try to retain a desktop view on mobile. It becomes a frustrating mess of knowing which menu you’re trying to look for, but then being unsure how exactly to get to the right view to find that menu.

It’s easy enough to search through their available assignments, but then there’s a whole area to fill in line after line after line of zip codes and an associated desired pay for it. I feel like it does provide a layer of preciseness about controlling pay rates and automated assignments, but it also just feels overwhelming.

There’s a wealth of detailed information about your statistics as a Field Agent that are kind of nice, but most of the time you’ll only want to concern yourself with 4 pages: Assignments Available, In Progress Assignments, the Assignment Submission page, and then also the Mobile Field Representative Access page. The Mobile Access page is supposed to be what you use on a cell phone and it provides a list of orders with a place to upload photos and tag them appropriately, but once you’re off that page the result of the site loses it’s mobile responsiveness.

One of the things nice about Sand Castle is that you can take the photos separately from dealing with the app, so if you want, you can take photos (even if you don’t have a phone), upload them through either the mobile access page or on the computer, and then worry about filling out the submissions all at once at the end of the day. And because navigating the site on mobile phone can be a pain, that might be preferred for some agents.

Agent Support

I’ve dealt with support a few times and they’re always great to work with.

On a couple of occasions I was having car problems and on another I was sick and upon calling in I was greeted with a helpful support person that was able to cancel, reschedule, or adjust the order for in some way.

Unlike WeGoLook, where failure to meet the demands of an assignment results in loss of the assignment and lower score, it doesn’t take much to be placed on a hold. Holds are typically placed for failure to complete a job and when you’re on hold you can’t accept or see any new jobs. To be pulled off hold requires calling in to customer support, but again, they tend to be understanding.

Final Thoughts

I’m not a huge fan of the app, but as an overall service I prefer it. I get more orders, better pay, and can focus on the tasks at hand without fumbling through a mobile app and take care of uploads all at once during “office time”. Their app pays marginally better than other apps, but they also require a lot more detail in their inspection forms, so it can also feel like it’s a bit more work.

While automotive insurance claims can be frustrating and leave people frustrated toward you even as an independent contractor, for the most part Automotive Inspections with WeGoLook don’t have many difficult encounters; however, my experience with Sand Castle Field Services is that because (at least in my area) they’re contracting out with lien holders on defaulted loans, the people you might encounter won’t be as happy you’re on their property.

In general, I’d say I average about $200 a month from Sand Castle services I perform for their partners. I think if I had a fuel efficient enough vehicle and time available to spend on dedicating to this, I could probably significantly increase that even more than other apps, mostly because there’s such a higher volume of assignments available outside my area that could be appealing to travel to.