BBB Under Scrutiny

Link: http://www.bbbroundup.com

There's an old saying, "Payback's a bitch." We turned the tables on the Better Business Bureau to demonstrate that their complaint system does not work. Here's the scenario.

Over the last few months, we've been collecting complaints small businesses have made to bbbRoundup about the practices of the Better Business Bureau regional offices. Over two weeks ago, we emailed the regional offices using an email identical to that which the BBB sends to businesses that the BBB has received complaints on. The BBB allows two weeks for the business to respond before classifying the complaint as unanswered. We did the same. Not surprisingly, not a single BBB regional office responded to the complaint notifications we sent them. This has been our point all along: why would any business respond to a complaint notification from the BBB?

In any event, using the BBB's own grading algorithm, we assigned grades to each of the offending Better Business Bureau branches. Two branches earned a grade of F: the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau and the Dallas Better Business Bureau. Another 13 regional BBB offices earned grades of D-. The complete bbbRoundup Grades for BBB offices is here.

If you are a small business and believe the Better Business Bureau has screwed you, send us the details using the form found here