BBB Under Scrutiny

Link: http://bbbroundup.com/LeadStory.html

It was quite a week. We led with our exclusive story on the LA BBB giving HAMAS, a fictitious business, an A- grade. The Connecticut Watchdog and Mother Jones jumped on the story and before you knew some 45,000 websites had picked up the story. I think we got the attention of the Better Business Bureau.

It was gratifying to see this unfold and the small business feedback has been amazing. But let's not lose sight of the main principles we're discussing:

- The BBB Sells Grades
- The BBB cannot be held accountable for anything they do thanks to the anti-SLAPP law
- The BBB grades in themselves are totally irrelevant, misleading and often wrong
- The BBB does a miserable job handling complaints.

HAMAS was just the opening shot, fired across the bow of the BBB. Merely a wakeup call. More developments coming soon, so stay tuned.

Link: http://www.bbbroundup.com

Interesting story about the BBB Defense as used by Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly to justify their support of Goldline International, Inc.

EDITORIAL
A Real Slapp In The Face Of Justice (And Common Sense)

Consider the basic thought behind the anti-SLAPP motion. It was designed to protect the little guy, like a whistle blower against having to carry the burden of prohibitive legal fees in their quest for justice.

For over a decade, the Better Business Bureau of Los Angeles has used the anti-SLAPP defense to ward off lawsuits by small businesses claiming they have been libeled by unjustified bad grades from the LA BBB.

This interpretation of the anti-SLAPP laws means that for the small business, trying to inform the public of the lack of merits inherent in the BBB Letter Grading System (in this scenario, it's the small business who is the whistle blower), they need to have around $1,000,000 in the bank to fund the legal fees...$500,000 for their lawyer, plus $500,000 for the Better Business Bureau (upon inevitably losing to the BBB on the anti-SLAPP motion, the plaintiff, or small business, is required to pay legal fees for the defendant, or the BBB ) in order to get to the appeal stage of fighting the anti-SLAPP. Up to this point, the small business has yet to even get their day in court.

But what choice does a small business have when faced with the fact that a disparaging grade from the LA BBB is costing them $400,000 in revenues annually? Both the Los Angeles BBB and the CBBB (the national organization) flat out refuse to even enter into a dialogue on the grading issue.

Currently, the courts have ruled that small business has no legal right to challenge a disparaging grade from the BBB, at least in Los Angeles. This must change, as no one entity, such as the LA BBB, should be above the law, a status that ironically the courts have empowered them with. The BBB grades themselves have been shown to be full of error, with numerous documented corrections, especially when called out by the media.

This means the anti-SLAPP, designed to protect the little guy (small business) from punitive legal fees, as currently viewed by the Los Angeles Courts, does exactly the opposite.

Where's the justice in that?