78 Comments

  1. Gary Lowe

    Wow i had a thought that the reviews put up with BBB was not so good as it used to be. Understandable though as we move forward in the information age. Thank You so Much for your help in my confirming the facts. There is a good side always do your homework more so today than ever.

    • Kyle

      The reviews generally speaking are real, although someone cannot remove a review or feedback about a program after the fact even if it was a complete misunderstanding. Platforms like BBB naturally will attract negative feedback about a program, hence giving people incentive to spend money to clear their record.

      Unfortunately, those that are conscious of their product/service quality typically don’t feel it is right to have to pay the BBB for a high ranking, whereas those that are running illegitimate business are eager to pay and clear their names thus creating a disservice and an inaccurate environment for those using BBB.

  2. Sue Kanda

    I am victim of construction fraud and lost over $60000.

    This construction company owner damaged my house more than fixing and took money without finishing work he supposed to do.
    Almost all work he did is shockingly sloppy and I have report of local police statement to prove his very low quality of work.
    He prey on senior citizens and people have no knowledge of how to protect themselves.

    What I found out is he has long history of criminal activities and served jail sentence!

    He is known to take pay in advance and disappear.

    BBB IS GIVING THIS CRIMINAL A PLUS RATING!!!!

    This shows BBB does not check criminal record of people who are ripping off innocent people.
    I am checking how long does it take BBB to stop giving A plus rating to this criminal.
    He changes his address like gypsy and hard to find where is his present address.

    I wonder exactly how many people are victims because they trusted rating of BBB.

    I am old lady who lost husband several years ago and he knew I had nobody to protect me. I spent many sleepless night because he took almost life long saving for my retirement.

    I learned hard way not to trust BBB rating. I reported to DA office of Pennsylvania.

    I am not only victim but many other people are victims and I saw complaint of them in face book, and other sites. I hope our new DA in PA is going to put his effort to protect old people from notorious criminals who are taking people for ride. I am immigrant and English is my second language.

    • Kyle

      So sorry to hear about your experience with this one particular company and the fact that the company owner is what you deem to be running an orginization that is taking full advantage of people. This happens more often than you think and I know of many companies that are taking advantage of customers and have a high rate of complaints, yet have great BBB rankings because they are willing to spend the money to get accredited.

      BBB definitely tries their best to offer a service to consumers, but unfortunately when money is involved in the “ranking” aspect, it influences the overall ranking system in a way where customers can get hurt.

  3. Mary

    I recently filed a complaint with a company listed on the BBB and noted 159 complaints filed!

    Every single complaint references the same issue (automatically charging for an annual membership fee that the consumer either did not see or even worse, had proof of prior cancellation and was still charged.

    159!

    Their rating is, wait for it, a B+!!!

    This is a relatively small, new company – this completely illustrates your point.

    • Kyle

      That is exactly my point. Companies that shouldn’t have B+ ratings, that are new and have TONS of complaints exist within BBB. Companies that shouldn’t have F rankings, that are actually high quality companies with very few complaints, also exist within BBB.

      Although, depending on the chapter of the BBB that you deal with they can be very helpful, there are still far too many companies paying them off to boost their rankings and ultimately fooling prospective customers. If you are a new company with 159 complaints about shady billing practices, there is simply no way you should have a B+ rating.

  4. Karen Murawski

    I was wanting to know if you could let me know if NHE Fitness is a legit company. My daughter is going to get a job with them. She is to work from home on her computer. This is a fitness company. I don’t trust it.
    Thank you,
    Karen

    • Kyle

      I have never heard of them, but what you can do is leverage a Google search and see if they are a legitimate company. If there isn’t much information about them, they might be a new company. If there is lots of negative information about them, then she might want to be careful.

  5. anon

    My business has had a stellar rating for years and is the top choice on every search engine. Despite over 100,000 orders a month and excellent ratings on all major review websites the BBB drops the score if just ONE person complains, even when the complaint isn’t valid and service department replies with a reasonable explanation. They’ve offered to increase the score if I pay but don’t think I should have to but a poor score might hurt my ability to expand and hire more staff. I don’t know what to do, I really do feel like this is extortion, “pay or we’ll ruin your business”.

    • Kyle

      It could be deemed a style of extortion, if you do contact your local BBB though they can be quite helpful. I don’t like the “pay for ranking” sort of model that many review style websites are instilling, but unfortunately with the leaders of BBB, Yelp, etc. that have huge backings and a lot of trust as authority of rankings.

      People tend to only go to sites like this to complain, so when you do 100,000 orders with a few small complaints (or invalid ones), it is truly an unfair metric to assign you with a ranking without any understanding of your business. You may want to try to get ahold of a BBB rep in your area, they may be able to help you out here (without you having to pay them a bunch of money).

      • Kyle

        There are many things that you can do from home to earn money, but the BEST way to build a business from home these days it through the Internet. If you are looking to build an online business in ANY niche that you want, I would consider affiliate marketing/internet marketing.

        The business model is brilliant and as an affiliate marketer, you can choose from 100’s of MILLIONS (yes, millions) of products/services you can promote without having any inventory, any product, dealing with any support, and no shipping. You simply act as an intermediate and drive traffic to merchant sites (all BIG brands have affiliate programs).

        There a 4 steps to building a business online. First, choose a niche. Second, build a website. Third, learn how to drive traffic. Fourth, generate revenue.

        The best platform in the industry and one that is completely free to get started with, is Wealthy Affiliate. By lesson 4 of the training you are going to have your very own website up and running online.

  6. CherylK

    This is so good to know. Another rating site that I’m suspicious of is JD Power. I was checking a company that claims to have JD Power highest rating but found so many negative reviews of the company (just by doing a search for reviews) that I question that rating…is that another “buy a rating” company?

    • Kyle

      I cannot speculate on whether or not they have, but I can tell you that there are definitely companies that are buying their way to much better rankings than they should have. This could absolutely be one of them.

  7. Nancy Boey

    Hi Kyle, I never even was aware of the BBB since I am over here in Belgium but when I read this, my stomach squeezes together. How such a company can keep on going on with their scam, and that on such a big scale.
    There must be something we can do. What would happen if we, Wealthy Affiliate, would all complain ? Isn’t there an authority that stands over BBB and watches over large scale scams ? It may sound funny but the FBI does have a section on internet scams. Have you checked if they are on there ?

    • Kyle

      They are a very credible service, they do a lot of good, but there are definitely things that can really touch on the side of unethical behaviour and I am not the first person to point this out about the BBB nor will I be the last.

      Authority does a lot of the “clean up” so for an authority to try to take down the clean up crew, it could represent issues as the governments don’t have the resources or know how to police businesses/internet in the same sort of way that a large scale enterprise like BBB does.

    • Blake

      They can go on with this scam because consumers give them the power to do so. If consumers would stop treating the Better Business Bureau as an “official government” company and like what it really is, a glorified yelp, then businesses won’t feel the need to be a part of their accreditation.

  8. Mike B

    Thanks, Kyle, for this eye opening revelation about the BBB!

    I’m surprised they haven’t been taken to court over their “Extortionist” behavior!

    I think this needs more exposure to the public!

    • Kyle

      It is actually, I think at this point though they are viewed as an authority and almost a government entity versus a business (which is what they are). I think shining some light on what they do will help serve the public and help them realize what is truly taking place.

      What is unfortunate at the end of the day is that people are going to BBB to get credible insights into a company before dealing with them and as a results are getting ripped off by companies that simply pay their way to good rankings (even though they are illegitimate).

  9. Boniface

    Hi Kyle,
    I’d always thought BBB to be so professional and helpful. I even before joining WA went ahead and checked WA’s profile there just to be sure. Almost 2 months later I read this and it gets disturbing. I wonder how they ever got to build that trust from all many of us? Anyway, it’s bad enough that they rate Wealthy Affiliate badly but my experience in the same WA community has been superb. I’m still in my early lessons and am going on. What I’ve learnt in a few weeks on internet marketing is much more than what I’ve ever known on the same since 2012.

    Thanks Kyle and Carson.

    • Kyle

      Yeah, unfortunately that is what I use to think as well before I experienced the BBB process. Our rating is much higher as we have since created a relationship with them and worked with them to clear up some falsifications and inaccuracies, but there are still companies paying for “ratings” which is easy to do through their accreditation program.

      I unfortunately don’t know of a true rating site that is not doing unethical things in attempt to make money, some of the most “credible” ones are doing the worst and the most shady things. Yelp, BBB, RipOffReport.com…just to name a few.

  10. Chris

    Well I always thought that the BBB ( Better Business Bureau ) was a trustworthy force when it came to recommending online opportunities.

    When I first arrived online to earn a little extra I was using a site similar to yours here for ideas. They were giving a BBB rating for nearly every earning option they covered/reviewed.

    Has the BBB always been this sketchy or is this a more recent occurrence?

    • Kyle

      It is still normal for companies/review sites to reference this as a lot of the time they don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes at BBB. Is BBB better than nothing? Probably. Are there better ways to do research, most definitely.

      Do your due diligence when looking to purchase anything online, a few searches online will go a long ways.

  11. David

    Over the years I’ve had a very positive view of BBB. I know that they have helped many people resolve problems with shady businesses and have built their brand into a major symbol of trust. Their code of integrity for member businesses is very impressive as well.

    Recently, however, I began a small business out of my home and quickly registered with BBB, only to realize later that it would take me several months of income just to pay my dues. And your experience with Wealthy Affiliate receiving an F rating, with 5 complaints all closed out of hundreds of thousands of subscribers was very eye opening.

    I’m coming to agree with you that In this information age, there are other — perhaps more helpful — ways to check out business practices.

    • Kyle

      Yeah, I would never argue that they were created with good intentions. Perhaps the BBB is a good case study of what happens when “money” takes precedence over ethics within a company. It is quite evident that the service was created to help the general public, unfortunately those that are behind the rankings can easily be paid off to achieve higher ratings.

      As a side note, our rating did move up from the F (now a B+) with a total of 7 complaints in 10 years.

  12. Jason

    This is very interesting stuff, as I refer to BBB a lot to see if a website or company is trustworthy. And i’m positive i’m not the only one. Thank you for the heads up, I always trusted them simply because that’s what there known for.Is there any sites alike the BBB which can actually be trusted and I can refer to? Thanks again for the informative article

    • Kyle

      The problem is that several companies caught on to the business model of BBB (companies like Yelp, RipOffReport.com, etc) and they are doing the same thing. People can pay for good ratings and if they have things they don’t like on the site, they can pay to get rid of them.

      It is unfortunate to say, but there is no ONE source I would recommend. I would say use your intuition about a product, contact their support to see if they truly care about their customers, and also read “peer” reviews online and see what the consensus is.

  13. Fisher

    I think BBB doesn’t seem to operate a business but is more like to work on extortion, bullying around and blackmailing the online businesses.

    I’ve heard a radio program in Australia talking about this organisation a year ago with the opinions very much like yours, which means their bad practice is now widely known to the world. Maybe your review has helped to expose their true nature.

    I think you are very brave to post this review way back in 2013, as you have a number of high profile online businesses right at their doorsteps and they could do something quite nasty to you. My salute to your courage.

    • Kyle

      That is a fair analysis, they do extort money out of folks through their bullying tactics and by allowing people to submit absolutely anything about a company without a fair process for a rebuttal.

      The thing that frustrates me even more than this is the fact that illegitimate companies can pay for positive BBB rankings which skews the service in a disproportionate manner. People go to BBB thinking they are getting trustworthy ratings when in fact the companies that “appear” to be the most trustworthy are those that are actually most likely to be ripping folks off.

  14. Zeno81

    Wow…I will readily admit that this was a very eye-opening article on how the BBB actually works. I thought that they were an honest and legitimate organization, and I found the comments from business owners even more eye-opening (especially the one regarding bribes to RipOffReport). Good reporting, Kyle. Please keep it up..

    • Kyle

      It is not a “charity” like most people tend to think it is. It is a very lucrative business as a result of many of their unethical practices. Anyone running a legitimate company usually does’t have too much nice to say about the BBB. Anyone running a scam, like them as they can fake their rankings simply through spending a little money to get their ratings boosted (and to get accredited).

  15. Tanya

    Thanks for the insights about the Better Business Bureau. I had no idea that this is how they operate. I still hear people saying “you better check their BBB rating first” when talking about legit companies vs scams.

    I am part of an MLM company that has a bad BBB rating. I always wondered why. They are also not accredited. All of the complaints are with billing (which if people read the terms and conditions section when signing as a customer they would know how biling works). I had no idea their rating could be low because they are not accredited.

    I will pass this info on to my friends who think the BBB is the be all and end all.

    • Kyle

      Of course, in particular the older generation heads over to BBB to make sure something is “legit” before purchasing it or putting their trust in it. It used to be the source of legitimizing a business, however through the years the BBB has become more concerned with making money than offering a service that is doing the general public a service.

      Glad I could open your yes to what is really happening Tanya and give you some perspective on the “system” they are running over there.

      • Tanya

        You are right, it definitely seems to be the older generation that trusts everything the BBB has to say. If a company doesn’t have a good rating or isn’t accredited, then many people assume must be hiding something or have shady business practices. I will share this posts with people that think the BBB is the be all and end all!

        • Kyle

          Yeah, people tend to believe what they see without any further investigation. A lot of the time a good way to judge a BBB profile is more to do with the actual number of cases a company has versus their rating (as the rating can be bought). If a company has a lot of cases against them within BBB, this can be a more telling sign whether or not people are complaining about them or not.

  16. Dan

    Hey, Kyle.
    I have just finished reading the BBB scam review. I had no idea that BBB was a scam and that you actually have to pay the $Fee in order to have a bad review removed from their website. $400 to $1000 is just a ludicris amount of money to pay to extortionist like BBB. That bunch of thieves should be shut down. Is there any way to stop them from doing this to legit business’s I think an inquiry by an Ombudsman into BBB is in order. Just my thoughts.
    Dan

    • Kyle

      BBB is just one of the reputable companies that do this sort of thing, there are many others out there that charge a fee for removal of negativity. The problem is that they make it difficult to refute any claims and sometimes dont’ allow a response at all.

      It is at the best of times an awkward, biased, unfair and unethical platform that takes advantage of businesses.

  17. Jerry

    Right on the money. It is absolutely sickening how some of these older agencies like BBB, AARP and others that managed to earn credibility years ago now function by taking advantage of their members or nonmembers and are still considered legitimate. I would hope by using the internet and posting reviews like this that, over time, the common person will learn not to rely on these frauds. Do you have any other organizations you can let us know about? You mentioned Yelp.

    • Kyle

      They earned credibility by offering a quality service that was consumer facing. They lost credibility by “selling out” for the sake of money. This happens with far too many businesses and always results in the demise of the business.

      There are other websites like RipOffReport.com that do the same thing, they allow comments on any program/service and charge $2,000 or so for the removal of negative posts. One thing I do like about their platform is that they at least allow the product owner to offer a rebuttal.

  18. mike murphy

    We had the BBB rep in our business telling us we had a complaint (just one) and wanted over $400 to get “accredited” in order to respond to it.

    I took his cars plate number and told him I knew the BBB was a scam and if I saw the complaint on their web site I would track him down and deal with him in person. Needless to say, the complaint never got published. Thats what we are dealing with here, the BBB is famous for extorting money from folks in this way.

    • Kyle

      To be honest, this doesn’t really surprise. They are known for this sorts of tactics into scaring businesses into earning money off of “bogus” complaints. The RipOffReport is another well known website that does this. They allow anyone to comment, positive/negative, true/false and you can respond to these complaints yes, but if you want them removed you have to pay the $1,000’s.

      I am not sure who we can trust these days if our business authority review sites are actually the ones scamming.

      • D Jollymore

        I am disappointed but I suppose not surprised. I learned many years ago that the credit reporting system is the same. Are you or are you not a paying member? How has that anything to do with my business or credit rating. Thanks for the heads up on the BBB.

        • Kyle

          No, we are not paying members of BBB. If we were, we would automatically have an A or A+ rating over there. You can pay your way to quality there and that is the unfortunate thing about the BBB platform. Some of the most unethical and unscrupulous companies are the ones with the highest ratings simply because they have paid to do so.

          The same thing honestly goes for many of the “review” type networks, don’t get me started on how unethical Yelp is operated.

    • Kyle

      Yeah, that is the lie that BBB is hiding from the public. Ratings don’t mean that one company is more legitimate than the other, in fact quite the contrary. In your case and most cases that I have seen, the companies offering the worst service (and that are unethical) are the first to get accredited with BBB to boost there rankings.

      Those that are ethical, don’t out of principle and suffer as a result of a few complaints and often time illegitimate ones from the competition. It is a broken world we live in when people are actually putting trust in services like the BBB when they are the actual ones scamming folks.

    • Kyle

      And it doesn’t appear to be getting any better Brett. Although we have vastly improved our rankings in BBB (by contacting and getting them to remove the false information they were publishing), what frustrates me most is when I see illegitimate businesses paying money to BBB and getting excellent rankings as a result.

  19. Yvonne Duncan

    Kyle,

    This was very good. I called once on the builder of my house
    he gave them a lie and they accepted it.

    Yvonne

    • Kyle

      Yeah, they are very sporadic with their decision making and at the end of the day, their final decisions are usually made and swayed on the financial aspect of their business. They “front” like they are for the good of consumers, but the average consumer doesn’t realize the shady stuff going on behind the scenes at BBB.

    • Kyle

      Wow, this takes things to the next level. You lose your accreditation if you critique their service, yet they can forcefully pay you to even refute any claim, regardless of the legitimacy. Thanks for sharing Dan.

  20. Karen

    I just came across this article, and couldn’t agree more with you, Kyle. I learned from a reliable source that if you write them a check for $2500, no matter what your business it is suddenly granted a triple A rating. I know of several money-sucking scam organizations who have gained their rating in just this way.

  21. Thanks for posting this, Kyle. I know of BBB but have never turned to them to look up companies , however I am ashamed to admit I always believed it was an honest company. In fact I thought it was some kind of government owned rating system and not a private company.

    Not too long I have written a similar article about RipOffReport. Anyone can remove bad reviews from them, for a fee of course ($2,000+). The worst part is, if a customer leaves you a bad review on RipOffReport, then you make things better and the customer decided to REMOVE the review he wrote – RipOffReport will not allow him to do so, unless he pays, of course.

    It’s completely ridiculous especially when we realize that these are the trusted “authority” sites…

    • Kyle

      It is crazy isn’t it Alex. These so called “trust worthy” institutions that people rely on are in fact running the biggest scams of all.

  22. This is just terrible! So many people actually believe the BBB is trustworthy. I have used BBB in the past when trying to check out whether something is a scam or not, but I do believe I noticed that you have to pay to be a member, which doesn’t seem right to me.
    Once I noticed that little fact, I haven’t really bothered to check BBB for anything anymore since it seems it would be biased to me. I guess my instincts were right after all.
    Why should a legitimate company have to pay money to get a good rating? That is just crazy and ridiculous! I don’t blame you for being angry, I would be too. Actually, I am angry about what the BBB is doing to you and other honest businesses. I sure hope people open their eyes as to what’s going on here.

    • Kyle

      It reminds me what Samsung is currently doing with their phones. They are contacting journalists and paying hefty fees to buy “good reviews” of their phones. It is shady business. People on BBB are essentially doing the exact same thing. You can very easily pay for an A rating and I looked at some of the worst companies in my local area, and I noticed many of them (although having very poor Yelp & Trip Advisor ratings) had obviously paid BBB for a positive rating.

      It is a total hoax and there has a lot been published on this, I just hope that people stop using BBB as their deciding factor of whether or not a company is legit. BBB is a total scam.

  23. Vitaliy

    Kyle, I accidentally found a 20/20 report on the BBB confirming everything you wrote here. I strongly suggest anyone who still takes the BBB seriously Google that report. Quite shocking as are the comments…

  24. Nadia

    I wonder if it would be possible to add BBB as a company to be rated on BBB?

    I’ve seen restaurants that have added the BBB logo on signs at the counter. It reminds me of when people add NBC or AS Seen On TV logos to their websites. Then you know they are a scam! It’s funny how it does the inverse of what is intended.

    • Kyle

      Exactly, companies that are “flaunting” their BBB rating are paying for the accreditation (paying for the high rating) and this should set off red flags as a consumer. Quite the contrary to what we are lead to believe. And unfortunately BBB don’t have a BBB rating, if they did I am sure their REAL rating would be an F.

  25. Linda

    Paying to get an A is wrong. Think we believe the same if we pay to get an A in school. The history of profit for the non-profit non-taxable BBB has been a scam for too long. A 2010 video from a 20/20 investigative report along with a site dedicated to the truth about the BBB are in my files for any client asking about my BBB rating. This excellent article will be added.

    My favorite foodie Wolfgang Puck has an F rating, he refuses to pay. Have great respect that you don’t either Kyle as a reputable business owner.

    Just as scams on the internet, the legal system can’t seem to touch. Many reputable businesses have filed complaints against the BBB. With a staff of 6 figure paid division heads, this decades old monster will be around a long time.

    As consumers we must do our own ‘due diligence’ and have resources such as this site to give us warning. Maybe we need to find other internet companies that have F ratings, do not pay up and want to share their story.

    • Kyle

      I had no idea Wolfgang Puck was in the same boat as us. Like him, we work of principle. It is completely unethical to pay a scam company like BBB for a rating…and to be able to even respond to claims. If they allow negative reviews, they should at the very least allow the companies to respond to the claims or help these customers out. But they wouldn’t make money if they took this ethical approach.

      We have 3 complaints in 8 year, not too bad out of 100,000’s of customers…and have an F rating because we refuse to pay and never will. I would suggest to anyone that is planning on reviewing a product or doing due diligence on a product via independent review sites or industry specific review sites. There are sites like urban spoon and trip advisor that people can use to much more efficiently review restaurants like Wolfgang and people can use industry reviews to check out programs like Wealthy Affilaite and see what people really think.

      BBB is becoming more irrelevant by the day and it won’t be long before they are completely irrelevant and not used. People are catching onto their scam.

  26. Charlie

    Thanks for exposing this Kyle!

    Who do you think has the fairest rating system, and why?

    Thanks for your input.

    Charlie

    • Kyle

      No problem Charlie. The fair rating system is dependent on the type of program/service you are trying to review, but I would recommend that you do a good old Google search and search for positives and negative when performing your product due diligence and as mentioned, I would stay clear of the BBB rankings altogether as they have been deemed meaningless (since a scam business could BUY their A+ ratings)

  27. Wendy

    I had no idea, but I thought it seemed fishy that companies like Project Payday were receiving A ratings from the BBB! This explains it!

    • Kyle

      Yeah, the reason: THEY PAY FOR RATINGS. Isn’t it disgusting that one of the most trusted resources online is actually one of the most unethical? I hope this review truly exposes them to a lot of people that were putting trust into BBB and getting ripped off as a result.

  28. Craig

    I had heard that the BBB was good for people to learn about a company. If this sort of thing was going on with an online company they would be brought up on charges. I guess the mighty dollar rules again.

    • Kyle

      Yeah, there is a still a large crowd that relies on BBB for credibility. I can assure you of one thing though. If BBB had their own profile on BBB, they would have A LOT of complaints and ironically, be up for one of the lower ratings on the network. I wonder why they are not on there? LOL

  29. Oh…my-my-my!! I am totally shocked Kyle!! This is just another one of your outstanding reviews that so many people will learn from. I have been getting into Local Marketing lately and I’m just going to tell every single client I get about this big deal. Also, I will teach them how to find a better review before they make a final decision on anything.

    WOW!! I always appreciate the outstanding review’s you deliver us, but this one is really, really appreciated because this is definitely something that is very important to so many business owners. Everyone deserves and should know such things that actually go on that are hid so well from us. You really out-done yourself on this one Kyle!! 😉 Thank you so very much and as always…I appreciate “You” and your “efforts” to make us all aware of such things as this 🙂

    • Kyle

      Most people don’t really know about the BBB methods of madness, however anyone that has ever been involved with BBB usually doesn’t have anything good to say about them. They feel pressured to get BBB accredited and once you give in, you can expect a good deal of internal “upsells”.

      If you are dealing with local businesses, first and foremost you should work to help them get ranked and help them get positive rankings within the most popular review sites out there.

  30. Stephen J Parkin

    While I think that you have valid comments about how the BBB system works, I am not sure of the wisdom of attacking them in a public forum. I personally checked out their rating of WA and they believe they have reason for their rating.

    However I do not know what (if anything) WA has done to try to clear their name. If BBB will only allow this to be corrected on receipt of payment from WA I am with you.

    I agree it can be frustrating dealing with an autocratic members only club. However BBB have been around for years and taking such a strong view without stating all the facts of the case could leave you open to a slander or liable suit from them. This I believe would be more costly than paying for their membership.

    I know you are angry and that this has been ongoing for some time, but I do not wish to see you put what has taken you years to build at risk. I have personal experience of litigation and there are no winners except the lawyers (who appear to be able to operate without applying their own associations ethical guidelines) – Another scam?

    What I do know is that throwing a punch at an angry bear is not the best route to survival. I know what your intent was, but consider all the WA members who rely on you and the resources you provide. You may be Wealthy, but litigation gobbles wealth fast!

    • Kyle

      Stephen, you cannot “rebut” anything that is said on BBB as a business unless you PAY them. That is the point I was trying to get across. This is unethical and this proves that BBB is in the business of making money, not acting as a third party business legitimacy medium. In a world filled with a good deal of “low quality” businesses, it is ironic that the business that is providing the reviews is one of the most unethical ones of them at all.

      And I am the “angry bear”, I am just voicing my opinion and telling it like it is. If the BBB would like to comment on this thread and refute anything that has been said, I would be more than happy to publish it. We have personally been in touch with them and they don’t like to be “called out” on their unethical behaviours, they prefer to call others out and to FORCE PAYMENT. I’ll keep poking and I would encourage others to as well as I know there 100,000’s (if not more) folks out there that do not shine BBB in a very good light.

  31. Amazing. I had no idea. I have checked the BBB before, to do research for various products and services. I always noticed that you had to be a ‘member’ to receive a rating, and though in the back of my mind I felt that was a bit weird, I didn’t really check my facts.

    And it’s even more shocking that WA got an ‘F’. It’s strange that don’t provide any justification for it either. It’s too bad that some people may read that and get the wrong impression. I guess there’s not much you can do about it, but I’m sure it makes you mad. I know it would make me mad.

    So what you’re saying is that all you would have to do is pay a yearly fee and they then you could dispute this rating?

    • Kyle

      Exactly, we could pay the yearly fee and get accredited and an A+ rating. I was looking up several local sites with LOTS of complaints (many in the 100’s) and they had an A+ rating simply because they were accredited. The money you pay to BBB just starts with the accreditation, they upsell the heck out of you once you are in their payment program…another sign of how unethical they really are.

      You should do yourself a favour going forward and AVOID using BBB rankings, they will only skew the reality of the products you are researching. Almost all low quality products and services are willing to pay for an A+ rating and it is as easy as that, a total dis-justice to the actual customer.

  32. I am faced with this dilemma all the time with local clients as they perceive that the BBB is a legitimate website and rating system thus they feel obligated to become ‘accredited’.

    But it is a double edged sword because consumers typically rely on these ratings and make decisions based on what grade the business has.

    Solution?
    Work with other rating sites that offer the opportunity for businesses to reply to reviews.. positive and negative.
    Hmm.. Maybe Google+ Perhaps? 😉

    Great post as always!

    • Kyle

      That is a tough situation to be in Jay. In for an inch is being in for a foot with the BBB and the accreditation is typically just the start of the expenses and the “upsells” that you are going to exposed to within the BBB spin cycle.

      I would like to think that consumers are waking up to the idea that the BBB might not be the best place to get reviews from and as we all move forward we can continue to relay what BBB is really doing to other folks that may be using them for their own personal reviews. It is actually doing someone a disservice in this “information” age to tell people to go to BBB or even let them go there. There are much better mediums for capture reviews and real, two way conversations about a product or service.

      And fortunately for business people do a Google search for reviews which will almost always lead people in the other direction of BBB.

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