If you want to keep busy shopping, you will need to sign up with companies that do not use the ISS platform. There are over 200 companies that offer shops, most of which (including the largest ones) do not use ISS. I’ve done 96 shops so far this year, only about 10 of which were through ISS.
Explain exactly what happened to the MSC and hope for the best. You may be asked to do the shop again or it simply might be rejected. If you are really lucky, they might accept the shop - it depends on what the client’s purpose in requesting the receipt is. The most important thing is to be honest: your integrity is the most important thing in this business.
The "badges" really just tally the number of shops you have successfully completed. Schedulers can look at them to get a quick idea as to how much experience you have on iSS. Of course, they will not tell a scheduler about shops you do through other platforms and companies that do not use iSS.
You'll find the other forum is geared much better for this sort of question as this one is mostly geared towards iSS opportunities. On the other one, there is a list of over 200 perfectly good mystery shopping companies. Many are smaller and won't serve a particular region. I hesitate to name companies on this forum that are not affiliated with iSS.
There are well over 200 mystery shopping companies - only a small handful of which use the iSS platform. There is another forum (Mystery Shop Forum) that is geared towards this sort of question. It has a list of well over 200 legitimate companies.
i would start with the Mystery Shop Forum. It is a far more active forum than this one and caters to shoppers who use all companies. it has a list of over 200 legitimate companies linked to it.
To also answer your question directly:
As a general rule you want to be a typical, boring shopper at the particular location. You walk in, make the requested interactions/purchase/whatever and you leave. You then write up your report. Unless guided to do so through the instructions, do not do anything that will make you memorable.
Scott -
You are going to want to stop cancelling shops or you simply will not be assigned more. MSC's rely on our integrity first and reliability second. If we are not able to complete the assignments we are handed, we will not be handed additional ones.
If the shop has not yet been approved, you will see on the "assigned shops" tab, below any currently assigned (but not yet completed) work. There will be a banner over it saying something like "assignments pending approval." If the shop has already been approved, check the "Payments" tab. It will list all the work you have completed and either the date you were paid or state that you have not yet been paid.
How long you must wait for payment depends on each company (not iSS). If you read the ICA from the particular company for whom you did the work, you should be able to figure it out. It is common to need to wait up to two months. Some companies are much faster and some are far slower.