WTF, BBB Houston?

[mhendo]

@DiosaBellissima

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.

I’m sure it does, but your post is also a perfect encapsulation of why the BBB can be fine for (some) businesses, but is, in many important ways, useless for the consumer, and useless as an overall indication of business quality.

You use the term “accredited” as if it actually means something, as if your business actually had to meet some minimum standards of professionalism and service and reliability and honesty. What it means, as you’re no doubt aware, is that you fork over a membership fee to the BBB every year. Being “accredited” means, essentially, “This business gives the BBB a bunch of money every year.”

Not only that, but your A+ rating is, in some considerable measure, a reflection of that payment. It is literally impossible to get an A+ rating if you’re not a paid-up member of the BBB. You could be the greatest company ever on the face of the planet, but if you don’t hand over the BBB’s [del]extortion[/del] membership fee, you can’t get an A+ on your BBB report card.

Numerous investigative reports into the BBB have found that paying them tends to improve your ratings, and that, in many cases, paying customers with numerous complaints can still receive excellent ratings. As this LA Times article says:

The private, nonprofit Better Business Bureau insists there’s no “pay-for-play” component to its new rating system.

But a random search of the organization’s database of about 4 million North American companies seems to show that the roughly 400,000 accredited businesses, even those that get numerous complaints, very often receive higher grades than unaccredited companies with spotless complaint records.

“There is no guarantee that an accredited business will get an A-plus,” said Steve Cox, a spokesman for the Better Business Bureau. “But should they get an A-plus? The answer is yes if they uphold the standards we espouse in the marketplace.”

Then why do so many unaccredited businesses get significantly lower grades?

“I can’t explain that,” Cox replied. “Clearly we need to do a better job in articulating what the differences are.”

That last line should probably read: “Clearly we need to do a better job of spinning our pay-for-play ratings system.”

and, from the same article:

A search for accredited travel agencies in L.A. produces 15 listings. All but two are A-plus operations. One of the laggards, Southfares.com, received an A-minus after getting a single complaint from a customer, which the bureau’s site says the company resolved satisfactorily.

The other outlier, Lion of Judah Travel, received an A-minus after it “responded to and gave proper consideration to most complaints.” However, the bureau notes that “some complaints are unresolved, meaning the company failed to properly address the complaint allegations or their response was inadequate.”

Compare that with another Los Angeles agency, All American Travel, which didn’t pay for accreditation. It earned a B-minus despite never having received a single complaint.

And here’s how the BBB addresses the issue of complaints:

But the biggest reason for that A-plus, she says, is the way PC Drivers Headquarters has handled all those complaints. Here, if the bureau is to be believed, the company’s performance is perfect.

How did the company satisfy each and every one of its 312 unhappy customers? Well, it is not clear that it did. More than a dozen of the complaints were “administratively resolved,” the Better Business Bureau’s report says, which means the bureau “determined that despite the company’s reasonable effort to address complaint issues, the consumer remains dissatisfied.”

Defining a “reasonable” effort is up to the bureau.

So, if the company screws you but convinces the BBB that it made a “reasonable” effort to resolve your dispute, you complaint essentially has no effect on the company’s rating. And the definition of “reasonable” seems to depend on whether you’re a paid-up member of the BBB. As the same article says:

But critics of the bureau have also contended that, in recent years, membership buys a business what could politely be called the benefit of the doubt.

In a follow-up article about the same computer company, the New York Times notes:

But, as you may recall, the deeper the Haggler dug, the lamer the PC Drivers Headquarters’ complaint-fielding record seemed. And now it seems lamer still. The protocol of the Better Business Bureau is to offer mediation services to those customers whose disputes can’t be resolved through talk, e-mail and reason. What the Haggler did not know as of deadline two weeks ago was that the Austin area’s Better Business Bureau charges consumers $70 a mediation.

That’s right. To get back your $39, you need to spend $70.

Consider what a magnificent deal this is for PC Drivers Headquarters. It pays $550 a year in dues, and for that money, it puts between itself and its many unhappy customers a toll booth operated by no less an authority than the Better Business Bureau. And passage through this toll booth costs nearly twice as much as the product for which a refund is sought.

Also, if you check out the second example in the last link, you’ll see that, in some cases, the BBB buries complaints altogether. That is, in the case discussed, they didn’t even err on the side of the business; they simply decided that the complaint didn’t actually qualify as a complaint at all. Of course, the BBB spokesperson

said Amazing Tree’s annual membership dues of $375 played absolutely no role in this matter.

Yeah, right.

And finally, an ABC 20/20 crew:

was present as two small business owners in Los Angeles were told by Better Business Bureau tele-marketers that their grades of C could be raised to A plus if they paid $395 membership fees.

Terri Hartman, the manager of a Los Angeles antique fixtures store, Liz’s Antique Hardware, was told only a payment could change her grade, based on one old complaint that had already been resolved.

“So, if I don’t pay, even though the complaint has been resolved, I still have a C rating?”

Hartman then read off her credit card number and the next business day the C grade was replaced with an A plus, and the one complaint was wiped off the record.

In a second case, Carmen Tellez, the owner of a company that provides clowns for parties was also told she had to pay to fix her C- grade, based on a two-year old complaint that she says had already been resolved.

The C minus became an A plus the very next day after she provided her credit card number for the $395 charge.

“If I’m paying for a grade, then how are the customers supposed to really trust the Better Business Bureau?” she asked.

BBB: Good for the businesses that pay; shitty for everyone else.

[DiosaBellissima]

@mhendo

Numerous investigative reports into the BBB have found that paying them tends to improve your ratings, and that, in many cases, paying customers with numerous complaints can still receive excellent ratings.

While I agree that this is at least true in regard to the rating, the point is that the number of complaints is (and the nature of those complaints are) still reported. Personally, I first look at a company’s rating, then I look at the number of complaints, the nature of those complaints, and how they are resolved.

As far as it being unfair that all the company has to do is respond-- we’ve had exactly one BBB complaint at one of our locations. The person who filed it is, genuinely, crazy— not because they filed a complaint against us (not that at all), but I mean literally has clinical medical problems. What she alleged in her complaint was literally impossible, so when we responded with full documentation to the agency showing the difference, she didn’t respond. Thus, it was settled in our favor. FWIW, we only became “accredited” in the last few years-- this complaint was predated our paying up or even considering it.

So while we have an A+ rating at all of our locations, all but one have zero complaints. And not zero complaints because the BBB disappeared them, zero complaints because we have no complaints.

I’m not saying the BBB is the end all be all of business ratings nor am I saying that they aren’t making a profit themselves, I’m just saying that it is one tool consumers and businesses can use (with caution) to make decisions. Like I said, even knowing how the BBB works, I still personally use it when checking out people I’m entering contracts with. Is it the only reason for my decision? Certainly not, but it’s part of information gathering without a doubt.

It’s like Yelp or RipOffReport-- I’m going to read what people say to learn about something, but that’s not going to be my only deciding factor in going to a particular business. I’d be foolish, though, not to cautiously use all the information before me. Heck, 1,0000 BBB complaints or 6 RipOffReport pages about Company X might lead you to Googling them and finding out more information about their business practices. It’s a tool, I guess is my point.

[mhendo]

@DiosaBellissima

While I agree that this is at least true in regard to the rating, the point is that the number of complaints is (and the nature of those complaints are) still reported. Personally, I first look at a company’s rating, then I look at the number of complaints, the nature of those complaints, and how they are resolved.

And yet the very reports i linked to show that this is not always, in fact, the case. And also, when they are listed as “resolved,” all this means is that the BBB has determined that the business made a “reasonable” effort to resolve the dispute.

A consumer looking at the BBB website and seeing “Resolved” next to a complaint could be forgiven for thinking that the business actually resolved the problem to the consumer’s satisfaction. But that’s not what it actually means; it’s possible that the consumer is still frustrated and angry, but the BBB has decided that the company has done enough.

For example, i looked up my mechanic on our local BBB. It has 3 complaints. Two were apparently resolved with BBB assistance (although there’s no indication of what that actually involved), and one is listed as “BBB found business made good faith effort to resolve complaint but customer not satisfied with business response.” The problem with this is that there is no way for me to get a sense of whether the business’s “good faith effort” was, in fact, any good. This gives me no indication at all of whether the customer was an unreasonable asshole, or whether the business screwed him. And the fact that the BBB’s own income model relies on getting money from businesses does not give me a great deal of faith in the Bureau’s neutrality.

Your comparison with Yelp, though, is quite appropriate. Yelp has been in some hot water over the past couple of years for attempting to extort money out of businesses by pushing negative reviews to the top of the businesses’ Yelp pages, and then offering to relegate or remove those bad reviews if the business placed advertising with Yelp. And businesses that do place ads find it much easier to ensure that glowing 5-star reviews are prominently displayed on their pages.

I think that review aggregators have some value, especially if there are lots of reviews. As the number increases, it becomes harder for a few malcontents to sink a business’s reputation with bad reviews, and it also becomes harder for a business to boost its own reputation by getting a few friends to post positive reviews.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

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.

My husband and I were thinking of subscribing to AL. Now I think that we won’t. We want to do some remodeling, and don’t know anyone who knows a contractor or two, but if AL is just a sort of Yellow Pages, then we can get Yellow Pages for free.

[fisha]

@Lynn_Bodoni

My husband and I were thinking of subscribing to AL. Now I think that we won’t. We want to do some remodeling, and don’t know anyone who knows a contractor or two, but if AL is just a sort of Yellow Pages, then we can get Yellow Pages for free.

If you want to find a good contractor:

Go to a lumberyard (Not a Home Depot, a lumberyard) describe your project, ask if they’d recommend anyone. Check their recommendations out, BBB, county court, state licensing, etc. Confirm how long they’ve been in business. Not how long THEY say they’ve been in business, but actually how long legally.

Call, meet, interview, ask for references and CALL REFERENCES. Talk to a couple contractors.

You can get into ServiceMagic to look at ratings without using their service. I think you search from a small tab on the bottom for the specific project. You can then contact the contractor directly-not the phone number on SM’s site, that’s a bogus one, rather look them up on google. Even though Service Magic is disappointing from my perspective, it’s not a bad tool for the consumer. You do have 4 contractors that are doing the minimum requirements, and they should be very responsive and price competitive.

One of the reasons I don’t like ServiceMagic as a contractor is because I am paying for leads no matter what (see previous post for rant,) and I am now competing against legit businesses (not a guy with a ladder and a truck) that are all about equal with me. As a homeowner, your decision now often is determined on price alone. So…I pay for a lead that I now have a lower profit margin on because I am competing head to head with 3 other guys. To further illustrate, if I get approximately 1 job in 10 leads, and pay an average of $65 per lead, each job is $650 to win. That’s quite a chunk of my profit margin. There are a lot better options for ROI than that. Granted I’m only in there for roofs, and other leads are much cheaper than $65 a pop. Although I am pretty sure that general remodel leads are over $100 each.

You can look for a contractor on the BNI website in your area-they typically have a higher standard, it’s part of the deal.

Some manufacturer’s have preferred contractors, that’s an option, too.

[Clothahump]

@CharlieBravo

I was just contacted by K_____ A_______ of the BBB who inquired why we were choosing not to join the BBB of Houston.
…snip…
RUDE! She lost our business, rather than getting it.

Wow. I’ve dealt with BBB Houston for many years and they’ve always been nice to me. Sorry to hear about your bad experience.

[Clothahump]

@mhendo

Not only that, but your A+ rating is, in some considerable measure, a reflection of that payment. It is literally impossible to get an A+ rating if you’re not a paid-up member of the BBB.

Not so much. My business has an A+ rating with them and I have not been an active member since 2007.

[mhendo]

@Clothahump

Not so much. My business has an A+ rating with them and I have not been an active member since 2007.

That may simply be a hangover from the time you were an accredited member, and is probably just an oversight on their part. You never would have received the A+ in the first place if you hadn’t paid up, no matter how good your business was.