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AN INVESTIGATIVE NEWS SERIES ON THE STANDARDS AND PRACTICES OF THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU START WITH TRUTH |
| V 1.5 Nov 2010 | ||
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| BBB OUTSOURCES
MEMBERSHIP SALES TO TELEMARKETING FIRM |
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| We've long maintained that the true
business the Better Business Bureau is engaged in is telemarketing
sales. Their product: memberships. We believe that we have
proved that point several times with Bogus Businesses that were set up
where the only due diligence performed by the BBB was to verify that
charges against the credit card supplied by the business seeking
accreditation went through. Now there's further reason to believe the core business of the BBB is telemarketing. Recently, there was an ad in Craigslist in Houston soliciting people to work for a telemarketing firm, The O Factor, to sell BBB memberships. In other words, the BBB has found that their own employees are not good enough at selling memberships so they decided to outsource their telemarketing to a firm that specializes in just that. Thanks to a sharp eyed reader, here's what we have found out so far: Juan Ortega is the President of The O Factor. Prior to that he was with the BBB for 22 years. Most recently, Juan was the former National Training Director for the BBB. Currently, The O Factor has agreements in place with five BBB offices to supply telemarketing sales. They are trying to expand this and bring in more regional BBB offices. The training website they use can be located at http://accreditationdepartment.org. The O Factor has been in business for three years and suggests in the ad that telemarketers can make upward of $150,000 a year selling BBB memberships. While working as the National Training Director Juan was based out of the Houston BBB Office and would travel to various regional BBB offices to train sales reps. The National BBB realized that everywhere Mr. Ortega went sales increases were sure to follow. However, once he left, sales would start to decline. Recognizing a good thing when they saw it the National BBB (CBBB) asked Mr. Ortega to leave the Houston BBB specifically to open up The O Factor. The plan is for regional BBB offices to hire (outsource) all U.S. BBB membership sales in the future. Mr. Ortega personally writes the sales pitches and sales manuals, and then submits them to the National BBB Council for approval. Our source found out that the number one sales technique The O Factor uses is described as the "Fear Pitch" and works very well when used upon owners of small businesses. O Factor employees are insructed to use fear as a selling tactic, and are trained on how to use the prewritten rebutals (which have been approved by the national BBB) to convince a company to join and become accredited. While based in West Houston, The O Factor uses local area codes to contact businesses in other states, and before calling look up the current weather in the area they are calling. The concern with this approach is the impact this outsourcing will have on the already alarming lack of due diligence performed by the Better Business Bureau. Our feeling is that it can only lead to further degradation of what is already a virtually worthless grading system. |
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| Editor's
note:
There
is
a
need
for a consumer advocacy
group
that the public can turn to, and it used to be that the Better Business
Bureau fulfilled this role adequately. No longer. It is
obvious the Better
Business Bureau does not now, nor ever will have, the resources to
fully investigate the four million businesses in their database, much
less grade them with any sense of accuracy. It's an impossible
job,
and to think otherwise is a mistake that the BBB should acknowledge so
they can get back to their reason for existence--protecting the
consumer. There's an old saying, "who will watch the watchers"
and it
applies here as the BBB has set themselves up to be above the
law. We
are simply here to help the Better Business Bureau do a better job so
that they may properly serve the consumer, the business community and
themselves. If they refuse to reform, then they must bear the
consequences. |
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