I think you've hit what I was thinking, Steve. I felt there was no assistance. There was a denial - "the company is okay, they just have a bunch of new employees and it's caused problems, give them some time....." Dan did offer empathy, including attempting to delay me from taking any action and telling me to come back and follow up with him. All my attempts at following up with MSPA were ignored. I felt that Dan offered empathy in the manner that you pat a child on the head and say "everything's going to be all right, now go outside and play" to get rid of me and then did not respond.
Is there truly a threat of being stripped of membership? I did not see anything to indicate that there was any threat. With the Freeman lack of payment, which, thankfully, I was not involved in, having listened to warnings on this forum and never worked for him, nonpayment and shopper complaints continued for a long time. The MSPA repeatedly issued statements affirming that Freeman was doing fine. When Jacob posted on the forum about Freeman nonpayment and demanded that the MSPA act, MSPA initially responded somewhat angrily, affirming that Freeman was okay and stating that they would not act because of a forum demand. Other mystery shoppers started to tweet, and post to Facebook, and within a couple of weeks, it became impossible for the MSPA to continue to ignore and deny. MSPA did a complete turn-around. I think MSPA was forced by a loud collective scream from this forum and from other shoppers to respond.
I don't think a single shopper complaint, or even a whole bunch of shopper complaints, is a concern to MSPA. Unless the complaints become extremely public, I don't see MSPA doing anything but cover its MSC members.
And maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe I remember my situation and the Freeman situation incorrecctly. But that's how I remember it all and I wouldn't bother with asking for help from the MSPA.