BBB Under Scrutiny

Link: http://www.bbbroundup.com

It's the day after 20/20 released a number of news stories about the sham that is the BBB's grading system.

From the beginning, our goal was to get the story out there, and thanks to the hard work by ABC News, that just happened. Now, we get to wait and see what the BBB does in response. In a perfect world, they'd issue a mea culpa, fix the problems, and get rid of what/who is corrupt. This is far from a perfect world, and up til now, the BBB has demonstrated an arrogance that makes this unlikely. Then again, I don't think they had a clue about what hit them last night.

The most gratifying thing to me is the outpouring of thanks I received from small businesses that have been unfairly victimized by the BBB. Here's a small sampling. It's refreshing to me, and all the thanks I need. So excuse me while I gloat:

"I just wanted to extend our sincerest gratitude to you for all of your dedication, motivation and persistence in taking these criminals
down!!! I will be forever grateful to you. In the past six months our
company has had to close due to their criminal behavior. We are now
starting to get back on our feet. But it is to you and your good will
that we can move forward with no more criticism from our clients about
not being members. As I look over our profit and loss statement from
09 to now we took a 46% hit due their unfair and biased grading system."

"Thanks to your commitment to help small business in America, I hope
tonight's 20/20 report gets the attention it deserves and sets the BBB on the right course. Consumer Advocacy not small business extortion."

"Thank you for your hard work exposing the hypocrisy at BBB, and I'm sure the 20/20 story will put more pressure on BBB to clean up their act. We receive regular cold calls from the San Jose BBB asking us if we would like to pay for their services although we always tell them to stop calling us. A major focus of our business is customer
service and this can be evidenced by the lack of customer complaints with our BBB rating. Yet this only rates a C- rating from BBB."

To you, and the many more who expressed their appreciation, you are very welcome. The story has always taken on a life of its own; it appears to have heated up substantially which is awesome. And to those of you who are former or current BBB employees who have come forward in the last day, thank you. I'll be in touch soon.

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://bbbroundup.com/LeadStory.html

Apparently, the terrorist organization HAMAS is now a member in good standing with the Los Angeles BBB. HAMAS joined the LA BBB on July 12th of this year and have been given a BBB company ID number of 100096748.

HAMAS is described by the Better Business Bureau as a company who provides educational programs for troubled youth. This sounds like a ‘cleaned up’ description of exactly how HAMAS recruits its members for jihad.

The contact listed for HAMAS is one Bill Mitchell. It may be a co-incidence, but the CEO of the LA BBB is one William Mitchell.

However, five minutes of due diligence reveals that this listing for HAMAS is a joke. Of course, that is five minutes more due diligence than the BBB ever undertook. This speaks volumes about the credibility of the Better Business Bureau. In fact it's all you really need to know to understand just how corrupt the BBB actually is.

For the complete story on how HAMAS joined the BBB and received an A- grade, click here.

Link: http://www.bbbroundup.com

I was talking to my colleague, Scott Jordan, of the BetterEthicsBureau.org last night. At about the midpoint in our conversation we both agreed that when we started our investigation of the Better Business Bureau, we knew they were bad. What we didn't know until we started looking into things was just how bad the BBB is.

By bad I mean unethical, without morals or principals. The BBB offices are hypocrites, greedy and arrogant beyond belief. They mislead the public, they run rampant over small business, and they do nobody any good. You could argue that they actually make things worse when they interject themselves into a customer dispute situation. They rarely help the consumer, they slow down and make lots of extra work for the business which gets in the way of resolving things with the customer.

In the coming weeks, we will produce compelling evidence that shows the BBB, as presently operated, needs to clean up their act immediately or be shut down permanently. Bold statements, all true. Wait and see.

Link: http://www.bbbroundup.com

bbbRoundup turns one year old today. We thought we'd take some time to reflect on the past year.

In January of 2009 the Better Business Bureau rolled out their new Letter Grading System on a national scale. The media outcry was predictable. Short lived criticism before moving on to the next story. This reporter thought the story had legs, and that's when bbbRoundup was born.

Originally, this website was designed to house a ten part investigative report on the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau. Quickly, the story grew to include the Better Business Bureau (CBBB and all the member BBB offices )itself. Recently, the story has grown to include the Canadian BBB. Here is some of what we uncovered in the past year.

- The Letter Grade System was conceived and tested by William Mitchell of the Los Angeles BBB before being adopted by the National BBB.

- The Los Angeles BBB has patent rights on their letter grade algorithm.

- The Los Angeles BBB generates more revenues than any other local office, and by a large margin.

- The Letter Grade System of the BBB has been shown to be completely ridiculous on multiple occasions.

- The BBB makes judgments on businesses they know nothing about.

- The BBB is not a member of the Better Business Bureau

- If you are in certain businesses, you can do no better than an "F" grade.

- Graded by their own system, the BBB earns an "F" grade.

- The next William Mitchell project is TrustLink, now being tested by the Los Angeles BBB and five other regional BBB offices. It is setup as a for profit corporation and owned by the Los Angeles BBB (William Mitchell) and the other five participating regional BBB offices. There is a lot of prime space on the Los Angeles BBB website, a not-for-profit corporation, given to TrustLink. This comes real close to conflict of interest.

- The type of business the Better Business Bureau operates as is a boiler room telemarketing company that sells memberships and grades. (Yes, you do get a better grade if you pay to join the BBB ). They have made clear by their actions that they have no interest in protecting the consumer or playing the role of a consumer advocacy organization. It makes one wonder if they really qualify for their not-for-profit tax status.

- The complaint system which is the "prime feature" of the BBB Letter Grade System is seriously flawed. There are too many reports of favoritism shown members in the complaint process. Non-members have reported multiple cases of their responses to complaints getting mislaid by the BBB. The BBB does not factor in the size of business, or number of transactions, when assigning a business' complaint score.

- Multiple websites have sprung up decrying the tactics used by the BBB to allegedly extort membership dues from businesses.

- This reporter remains mystified as to why the Better Business Bureau chooses to employ the Tiger Woods' PR strategy when faced with these news stories. Is the BBB so arrogant they think we will all go away?

- Law suits are appearing with more frequency with cases in the last year in Los Angeles (on appeal of anti-SLAPP); North Carolina (ruled against BBB in out of court settlement); Minnesota (just going to court). There are also increased rumblings of multiple class action suits against the BBB.

We look forward to providing continued coverage of the "Investigation of the Better Business Bureau," both our own stories and those that represent the best of my colleagues across North America.