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Los Angeles Better Business Bureau. Are the Numbers Behind The Grades the Smoking Gun?
Link: http://www.bbbroundup.com/LosAngelesBBB.html
On January 1, 2009, the Council of Better Business Bureaus launched their new Letter Grade system nationwide. Many in the press were quick to call it pay for play grading system. I don’t disagree. However, nobody has gone to motive yet. In other words, we in the media have pretty much known all along the BBB members get preferential treatment from the BBB. So the pay for play was in some sense of the word, a dressed up rehash of old news. The Letter Grade system just made the preferential treatment more obvious, and so became a story.
But I had the thought that if it truly is a pay for play scheme, where’s the money? Show me the money. Let me follow the money. They say that numbers never lie. Truly they don’t. Thanks to several sources and the Freedom of Information Act, I have numbers, lots of numbers.
The Letter Grade system that the BBB launched in January was based on the Letter Grade system and algorithm developed by the Los Angeles BBB in 2004. The numbers will show that the Los Angeles BBB increased their revenues from member dues by over 40% (or $4 million) in the first four years of using the Letter Grade system. From 2006 through 2007 the rest of the BBB offices had zero growth in member dues revenues. During the same period, the LA BBB experienced a 14% increase in member due revenues. So, is that the smoking gun? You tell me. The complete report on behind the numbers of the BBB Letter Grade system is here.
