When you signed up with iSS, you should have submitted payment information - likely a PayPal account. Some companies will also send you a paper check. You will want to read your ICA with each MSP to find out what their pay schedule is, but two months is fairly typical. (There are a few companies that will pay you within two weeks and others that might take four months. Every company is a little different.)

Looking at Intouch Insight specifically, they issue payment through PayPal every second Friday. Once your report is approved, the payment will be processed. Of course, if your report is approved just a couple of days before one of those Fridays, you might have to wait until the following payment date.

You must just have a lull in your area... It is the end of the month and not all MSC's have begun to advertise their June shops. Try expanding your area - if you are near a city, there is almost certainly something near you. I'm in Seattle and there are quite a few options advertised online.

If you are not getting enough work through iSS, there are a lot of other mystery shopping companies....

Hi Jamie,

The standard video equipment used for hidden video shops is the PV500 button camera. Dan at Greyhawk (http://greyhawkvideosolutions.vpweb.com/apps/webstore/) is very familiar with shopper needs and can help to set you up. Note that it will be an investment of about $400 to get started, so you want to make sure that you are willing to commit to doing these shops before investing. Once you become known as somebody who does high quality video recording in your area, you will be sought out by MSC's looking for help. My investment has paid for itself many times over.

Hi Tiana!

I have a few thoughts...

* First, any company (whether secret shopping or otherwise) that cannot be flexible with a parent who has an emergency with his/her child is not one worth your time. Family has to come first. If this truly is the attitude of a particular MSC, you are likely better off without it. Your child will get sick again. Your child will need to go to the ER at some point. Your child's teacher or principal will call you to come in someday. That's parenthood and must be prioritized over any silly shopping assignment.

* If you have done several shops with this particular company (not iSS, but the specific MSC on iSS), it might be worth looking up a contact number for somebody actually in the company. Schedulers are often independent contractors like we are and could very well be operating as such without the knowledge of the MSC ownership. Give the company a call and explain the situation and expressing your desire to continue to work for them.

* No, the odds of anybody responding to a phone call on a Sunday evening are not good. Email is generally a fine way to communicate when a shop must be cancelled - most MSC's prefer it. (Besides, for all you know you could be calling a scheduler in a different time zone and waking him/her up at 2:00 AM!).

HI Robin,

iSS has a system in place for us to use. When you are assigned a shop that requires a phone recording, your guidelines will give you a specific phone number to call and code to use. You'll dial the number and, by putting in the code, the iSS system will place the call to the target location and record the call for you. You will be able to listen to the recording when you enter the shop record on the iSS site.

I get over 200 emails a day....I completely ignore 95% of them after reading the subject line. However, the other 5% can have job offers (often with bonuses) that are very worthwhile. It's just the nature of the business.

If the shop is not listed in your "assigned shops," it was assigned to somebody else. If it is in your "assigned shops," you should be able to open it up and find the guidelines there....

Hi Dolores,

Quite a few shops are compensated by allowing you to keep a purchased item or giving you a significant discount off that item. This is every common for shops that involve purchasing a meal, for instance. These shops tend to fit shoppers who specifically want the item that must be purchased. If, however, you are not interested in the required purchase, the shop may not be right for you.

iSS is a platform that provides work with a good handful of mystery shopping companies. However, this is only a small fraction of the companies that provide shops. You will not find information about those other companies on this site as the companies that pay to use iSS are not interested in advertising for other companies. If you are looking for more work than what you can find through iSS, I suggest you check out a different forum - "MysteryShopForum." You'll find information there that will help you to become a stronger shopper in general - as well as links to over 200 legitimate companies.

Paige -

That's fairly common. The MSC needs multiple shops conducted over a period of time and is required to have them spread out a little. However, the system does remove the shop from the board once it is no longer possible to pick any more dates. If you email the scheduler, s/he might have the ability to schedule you for a date that is not available through the system.