How long is too long to wait for pay?

My first depo I took was April 30, 2012. I didn't receive my first paycheck until August 3, 2012. Is this too long to be waiting to get paid from an agency? This is how my agency has their pay period schedule:

CUT OFF IS EVERY 10TH AND 25TH OF THE MONTH. - IT IS 85 DAYS AFTERWARDS (WHEN WE GET PAID BY THE INSURANCE COMPANIES) THAT YOU WILL BE PAID.....SO HERE IS A BREAKDOWN OF THE NEXT COUPLE OF MONTHS.

I personally think, from my experience, that that is too long to get paid from an agency.  I myself work for agencies that pay me every other week, and that's been the only experience I've had with agencies in New York.

Maybe where you live that might be the norm?  Are you working for a nationwide agency?  Sometimes the big agencies take longer to pay, I hear.  But waiting 85 days for a pay check seems rather lengthy to me.  How can you pay your bills if you're waiting months for a pay check?

What do others think about this?

There's an agency located in Brooklyn, NY, who used to take about six weeks to pay its reporters. I found it rather odd considering the amount of volume this agency had, and I wondered aloud why the owner would wait so long when we all knew she had the funds to pay. Daringly, I asked her once when contemplating picking up work from them, and she explained that it was to the reporter's benefit to have such a delay. Dumbfounded, I asked her how on Earth that could possibly be, and she hissed, "Well, you'll have a steady income once you start working for me on a regular basis, and if you ever leave my agency, you'll continue to receive checks for the next six weeks. Consider it severance pay."

Some people are crooks and/or horrible businesspeople. She's one of them. Sounds to me like you're potentially getting strung along by someone just like that if it's taking that long to get a check.

We have the same issues here in Georgia.  Successful CR firms are here as well that string reporters along and keep them hopping from one job to the next and then get angry if the reporters ask simple questions regarding the time frame to expect payment for completed jobs.   Unbelievable how unprofessional that is.  I often wonder why we as reporters have no protection for payment from firms so we don't starve while they live high on the hog with our money!!