Who Do you Complain to About the Better Business Bureau?

What is the Better Business Bureau? It’s not a government agency. It’s not policed by a government agency. It’s not even run like a top down corporation. It’s a franchise model, run by local “owners” or “President/CEOs.” It is a private institution run by local presidents that make their living on selling local merchants on becoming a member. Their tactic is to first incent a merchant by sharing data on how many hits their website gets from people inquiring about their particular type of business. They offer assurances that this will lead to more business. Then, they use the old fashioned scare tactic that if you don’t become a member, people will not be able to find you on their site and will become concerned about doing business with an unaccredited firm. To make matters more interesting, they then scare you into thinking that complaints will be filed against you and you will have no recourse if you do not become a member. Well, I caved and signed up. I had no choice. Here’s what happened since…

At first, we were listed with a B- (before we joined). How they knew anything about us is beyond me, but that is where we got started. I told them I’d be happy to sign up if that rating was increased to an A. In a matter of hours, we were an A- and we agreed to join. Since joining, we have received only a handful of complaints (9 complaints in four years, all resolved, out of ~150,000 appointments). Not too shabby IMHO! Even better, we resolved all of them to full satisfaction and refunded all monies requested. That’s how we do business at Make It Work.

I’ve remained a skeptic about the BBB and as a result of an email I received a couple of weeks ago from them, I have raised the skepticism threat level.

Here’s the email I received:

Eric,

My name is (removed as a courtesy) emailing from the Better Business Bureau.

Your BBB has formed a strategic alliance to help save you money in your everyday costs starting immediately. The savings is significant and guaranteed (check the attachment to learn more)!

Here’s the Attachment:

The BBB just changed credit card processors because of the 72% savings offered on our processing costs.  This amounts to more than $4000.00 per year.  First Data of Santa Barbara has offered to extend below market rates to current accredited businesses like yours – again, just like they did for your BBB.  Real quickly, most companies that offer credit card processing are a middle-man (most banks are middle-man).  But your BBB wants you to get processing directly from the largest processor in the world.  No Middleman means Big Savings!

I am sitting at the BBB right now!  I am not just some salesman from another middleman company offering you some illusion or miniscule amount of savings that isn’t worth your time.   I have been asked by your Better Business Bureau to help accredited businesses like you keep more of the money you earn.  This is my sole objective for January of 2010.

To get your free rate comparison to find out how much ________ of Santa Barbara can save your business, fax your last processing statement to the BBB secure fax line at (805) xxx-8557.

If you have any questions email me at theguysname@santabarbara.bbb.org or give me a call on the BBB member’s only line at (805) 965-xxxx or on my cell at (805) xxx-80xx to discuss these benefits.

Have a great day and thank you for supporting the BBB.

To Your Success,

_____________ / Regional Accounts Manager

cell: (805) ___-8001
fax: (805) ___-8557
theguysname@santabarbara.bbb.org
www._____data.com

________ of Santa Barbara
_____Coast Village Rd. 10-J
Santa Barbara, CA 93108

Notice that the email address “_______@santabarbara.bbb.org” is from the BBB itself. He even starts the email by saying “…from the Better Business Bureau.” I should trust that right? But this is a pseudo regulatory body, the official “complaint department,” at least that’s what I’ve always believed? Why would they solicit me on credit card processing? Anyhow, I replied and asked who pays who here and found that the processing company pays the emailer a commission for his sales. Shocking, right? I then called the president of the Santa Barbara BBB and asked him why they do this. He told me this was a service the BBB provided to its customers since they saved so much money on the same service. Great I said, but why use the BBB email address and pose as a BBB staff member if that’s the case? Anyhow, I won’t go into the details of the rest of the conversation as most of it was just bbb b.s.

Today, I received this email from the BBB:

We’re writing to let you know that during the past month the Reliability Report that we publish on Make It Work was accessed 6 times.  In most cases these viewings are done by potential customers who are checking on your company’s rating.

Our reporting system relies on an algorithm that takes into account a variety of business factors including complaint and other business information.  Based on those factors, it assigns ratings from “A+” down to “F.” The thousands of inquiries we get every day show that the public believes our reports are an important predictor of a company’s reliability.

We also want you to use and understand this valuable product so that you may attract and retain customers. One immediate step you can take to maximize your company’s rating is to ensure that all information we publish on your company is accurate and up to date.

Please click on the following link to view the report on your company:

http://www.santabarbara.bbb.org/BusinessReport.aspx?CompanyID=11000916

Remember that incomplete or inaccurate information can affect your company’s rating.  If any information in the report is inaccurate, or if you have other concerns or questions, please contact us at __________.

Being accredited by the Better Business Bureau places you with an elite group of companies whom the public trusts.  Again, thank you for your time and support!

BBB of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties

So I clicked on the link as they suggested. When I got there, two complaints were showing, both from 2008. I was saddened to read them as we really are all about EXTREME Customer Service at Make It Work. On the first complaint, we had responded immediately and provided a “full refund.” However, the second complaint, had no response from us. I checked with our Director of Delight and she assured me we gave a full refund to both and that we formally responded to this within the required time, but the BBB website had a technical issue. I emailed the CEO:

I’m very concerned about two matters.

First, we remain an A-. Our history is practically impeccable. Please advise.

Also, at

http://www.santabarbara.bbb.org/PublicComplaints.aspx?CompanyID=11000916 we have been unable to resolve this issue due to technical issues on your site and yet this remains on our profile. The customer comment about us being a scam without our ability to rebut, is quite unfair and damaging to our brand.

Can you please advise how to remedy these issues.

They replied with:

The algorithm that we use takes into account a variety of factors in its calculation and one of them of course is complaint traffic but also such factors as your length of time in business.

We have tested the algorithm on millions of businesses over a span of almost six years now and feel that it produces a fairly accurate representation of a company’s reliability.  We regret that you feel the algorithm doesn’t accurately reflect your opinion of your company’s reliability but remember that if all factors remain fairly constant, as time goes by your rating will increase.

As to your inability to respond to a complaint filed and you were accused of “scamming” the consumer, you already have responded to the complaint.

However, we removed it from the complaint details page of our website.

Please let me know if there is anything else we can help you with.

“Removed it from the complaint details page of our website.” << REALLY? Now it gets good! Here’s what I got next…

Again, I regret the fact that you disagree with our algorithm.

Here are some stats

2006 Closed Complaints – 1
2007 Closed Complaints – 2
2008 Closed Complaints – 2
2009 Closed Complaints – 4

Let me ask you this, how many customers do you service in a month?  What is the dollar volume of business you do in a year?  I ask because you may qualify for a different algorithm

I don’t understand what you are referring to about a complaint where we removed your response.  We have not removed any responses from any complaints.  Can you let me know where on your report you get the impression that you didn’t respond to a complaint?

http://www.santabarbara.bbb.org/Business-Report/Make-It-Work-11000916

Moments later, both complaints were completely GONE from the site and our A- is now an A+.

To me, this BBB thing doesn’t seem to be what it’s cracked up to be. I’m thinking Yelp knows this.

UPDATE: After writing this post, I found this Tweet from the same BBB:

“Sick and tired of unwanted email ‘Spam’? Review our tips on how to ‘can’ that Spam at http://bit.ly/7bQ0so“

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