So about 5 this afternoon, I get this mail in my Company inbox:
(Female name that is definitely not La_Kabong),
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today, attached is the invoice for your company’s yearly membership dues. Please visit our website www.bbb.org or locally www.bbbhou.org to review all the benefits and services that come with your membership. I look forward to speaking with you soon, if you have any questions feel free to give me a call.
Thank You
K(idding) A(round)
Accreditation Specialist
713-341-6170
Attached is an invoice for one-year membership in the Houston Better Business Bureau. For $910.
Off I go to the office of the person whose name the E-mail was apparently intended for, even though it was sent to my address. Did you talk to someone from the BBB today? sez I. “Oh yeah, someone called and said they were doing a survey, so I answered a bunch of questions and then they asked if we’d like to become members and I said they’d have to talk to El_Kabong first.”
So you gave her my E-mail address?
“Yep.”
:smack:
Now of course, I’m a naive soul who trusts everyone, and despite this looking like the frickin’ Better Business Bureau, fercryinoutloud, trying to scam us out of a membership fee, I’m sure it’s all just an honest mistake, and I can’t wait to hear Ms. KA’s explanation. No worries, in any event: neither the other employee or I have the authority to sign off on an expense of that type.
OK, but I do have a question, Ms. KA: if this is how the BBB operates, who the fuck would ever trust their ratings for any other business?
I get told how I am such a great candidate…blah blah and how they only contacted me after careful screening and checking licences, etc.
Then I ask:
How come he didn’t know I had only been in business for 4.5 years when I just told him 15?
What are the relevant licences for a computer shop in CA…they don’t know and didn’t check.
These guys are basically expensive BS telemarketers, I dated a girl who worked there… as an accredation specialist (pronounced telemarketer).
As far as I am concerned the BBB rates half a step up from the slimeballs that wander around trying to sell labor law posters for $300 that the state gives away for free.
Holy crap, I’d actually never seen that scam with the labor law posters and today we got a very official looking piece of mail addressed to the owner- looked like a tax form, in fact. I opened it up and lo and behold, labor law posters for sale. WTF? And it was something like “It’s that time of year, better do your annual order!” Man, the envelope almost had me fooled and I really had to read it closely before realizing it was a scam. Strange that you mention it on the same day.
Just helped open a new business and we got one of those calls. They make it seem like they are with some govt agency, I wasn’t going to be fooled into giving them money, but I did waste time listening to what I thought was just someone from the bureau of labor wanting to send me some free posters.
I can’t imagine making your living trying to scam people. How do you look yourself in the face in the mirror?
Don’t get me wrong- that’s incredibly shady. I’d call up her manager and explain that they of all folks should understand proper business practice.
That said, in our field, many of our competitors have F ratings with the BBB, countless class actions lodged against them, and are generally shady. We, on the other hand, have an A+ rating with the BBB. So, our annual membership actually generates more business than anyone else (when a client says they want to price out a few competitors, I always offer the friendly suggestion that they check everybody out with the BBB). So, not only do we have a good rating, but we’re accredited. It works well for us.
If you’re not in some sort of service or consulting business, though, I don’t know why it matters.
Sure. I should mention that I work for a good-sized global oilfield services company. We have to jump though all sorts of audit hoops even to bid for jobs. Being a member of a local BBB wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans with our clients. That’s part of the reason I was more amused with this deal than anything else.
Oh, yeah; had a message back from Ms. Kidding Around. So according to her, the co-worker asked her what the price was and all she had was an invoice listing the amount (which just happened to end up with our name and address on it), and besides, she was told to send it to me. Yeah, right. Apparently on her computer it’s impossible to type sequences of numbers into the body of an E-mail message.
We get those all the time as well. I love that they explain that you could be fined thousands and thousands of dollars if you don’t buy their posters. I get calls from them as well. “We can provide you with all the posters and this that and the other thing for a one time fee of $170”
“Ummm, you know I can just get them for free right? My state puts them on their website”
“Well, sir, how do you know that that you’ll have all of them, and the right ones, and the most up to date labor posters”
“Ummm, because the website tells me exactly which ones I need to print out and hang in the break area or by my time clock…if they’re free why would I pay you $170”
“Thank you for your time sir”
“Could you please put me on your do-”
[click]
“not call…dammit”
Now I’ll admit, I’d rather just have one giant poster then 10 individual pieces of paper stapled to the wall…but not for what they charge.
We had a guy come in saying he was from Labor Compliance, business card with official looking stuff on it. The company is/was called…Labor Compliance. My employee calls me up saying some guy from “labor compliance” is here asking about our posters. I run back to the store to find out its one of these freakin idiots and damn near went postal on the guy.
He left the store and headed for the next occupancy and I followed him and told him he might as well not bother because I will make sure he cannot sell anything to any of the 20 odd businesses in the complex.
He threatened to call the police if I didn’t leave him alone…I said “Please do”
Back to the OP. Maybe you could talk to the person that took the survey. Perhaps the ‘survey’ was more of an ‘membership application.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if the questions on the survey were things like “How long have you been in business?”, “Who’s the owner?” and “What is the legal name and billing address of the business?”.
I was just contacted by K_____ A_______ of the BBB who inquired why we were choosing not to join the BBB of Houston. When I told her that I had already been contacted on Friday by another person following up on our file, she replied rather rudely that she was the person chosen to handle our file because “Amy” had quit to start her own business (in a condescending tone, as though “Amy” was an idiot). Kathy then asked why we were not interested in joining the BBB. I told her that we did not want to pay the fees at this time. Her response was “So, THAT is the only reason? Because of the money?” and I replied “Yes” and she replied in a VERY snotty tone “Well, that’s silly because the BBB MAKES you money!” It was absolutely rude and in a condescending tone. I almost hung up on her, but instead said “OK, thank you” (obviously noting my irritation with her attitude). THEN she changed her tune and said “Well, please let us know if we can do anything to help you.” I hung up.
If the Better Business Bureau is going use tactics of guilt or condescending remarks to get people to join, we will NEVER be joining. In a time like this in our economy, advertising budgets and overhead is watched carefully for all businesses, including ours. We will not be spending money to an organization who was rude to us when trying to get us to use their services. It’s just not worth it. There are OTHER organizations, such as “Angie’s List”, etc. which are getting our business “out there”.
I did a google search for the number which came up on our business line when K_____ A______ called us and I found this blog! I found a list of district managers for the Houston BBB and emailed a complaint about this woman AND I referenced THIS blog as well.
RUDE! She lost our business, rather than getting it.
I don’t think the BBB has been relevant for years. I would never consult their ratings. There are better places online, which don’t charge a membership fee to businesses. For vehicle repair there is The MechanX Files at CarTalk.com. For any sort of home maintenance or repair we have ServiceMagic.
Servicemagic is a pay per referral site, not any kind of “oversight” agency. In my biz they are well known as an epic pain in the ass. Their game is as follows. Customer call looking for service. Service magic keeps Cust on phone and calls service A, no answer, send email or text and charge for hot lead, call service b, no answer, charge, call C, c answers, Gets charged, talks to client, books job. Provider a or b calls customer back a few min later, job is already taken.
I run a construction company. Although the BBB is of limited value, it does have some value, and homeowners take it as gospel.
ServiceMagic is the devil. For every roof lead, they charge $50-65, and they give it to four contractors, making anywhere between $200-260 per lead. Their criteria is no more stringent than BBB. Most leads homeowners don’t answer their phone or emails, say “You’re the 10th guy to call, we don’t need you to come out” or “Nevermind, I already have some one to do the job” even though the lead came in less than 5 minutes ago. You pay for the lead whether you ever get a chance to bid on the job or not. We get about 1 in 10 jobs from Servicemagic, which is an abysmal rate. The only good thing is they post ratings, which is helpful.
If you are going to use ServiceMagic, please treat the contractors right, they are paying for your inquiry.
Angie’s List is the worst shill out there. Once you get a rating, they hound you for advertising revenue. HOUND YOU FOREVER. Additionally the clientele of Angie’s List tend to be more demanding in general and will threaten to write a bad review if you don’t give into their demands. We still have an A rating with Angie’s List, but I won’t advertise with them, and I won’t provide one of their “Big Deals.” I don’t think many consumers realize that most of their revenue is NOT your membership fee, but advertising revenue.
I’ve always said if you have an A+ rating with the BBB, it’s not only because you provide excellent service, it’s because you’ve taken it up the ass at least once from some customer.
fisha
BBB A+
ServiceMagic 4.8 stars
Angie’s List A
Taking it up the ass almost every day…
Like I said upthread, this may be true for certain industries, but for the one I’m in, the BBB is probably the #1 reason people choose us. If they are torn between us and a competitor, I heartily encourage them to check us out with the BBB. Why? I know we’ve got an A+ and zero complaints, while competitor has an F and 378 complaints in the last 12 months alone. Of course, in addition to the BBB, I tell clients to just Google— same thing: we’ve got good reviews while our competitors are all over RipOffReport and various consumer watchdog sites.
The actual LEADS we get FROM the BBB are pretty low (ie: emails directly from BBB about prospective clients)- maybe a handful a year. The real selling point for us is the ability to use it in a close.
And heck, I check out anyone I’m entering into a contract with on the BBB. Sure, it’s not the end all be all and can certainly be manipulated, but if somebody has 1,000 complaints, that’s generally a bad sign of things to come. Also, the few times I’ve been terribly wronged by a company, I’ve filed BBB complaints as a means to warn other consumers.
