I have two shops I submitted back on the 22nd & 24th of January that haven't been reviewed yet. How is that fair? How long is too long to wait? They were simple online inquiry shops too, with just a few questions /answers. I'm annoyed and frustrated.

Ps- If I were to submit my shops late I'd be penalized so how is it fair that I had a deadline and they can sit on them for way over a week?

Every MSC is different in this way. Sometimes it can take better than two weeks for shops to be approved - especially at the end of the month, when more shops (by far) tend to be completed. Though we have contractual agreements for completing shops, the MSC does not generally have that same agreement in our ICA. If they were to have such agreements, they would have to hire a lot more editors at the end of each month, which would decrease the quality of the work they turn into their clients and increase their bottom-line costs, both of which would make them less financially healthy and, therefore, able to pay us less than what they do currently.

Yes, it can feel frustrating. It might be worth checking each MSC's ICA with which you work to see if they pay a certain amount of time after shop completion or after shop approval. If they pay X days after "completion," the shopper is not affected by lags in time to approve the shop on the MSC's end.