4 ms·

Can you explain why you think the BBB is evil? Don't they simply supply a center point for raising and addressing business issues?

tptacek 16y ago
They are, it is credibly alleged, pay-to-play; the overall tenor of what BBB reports on you can be readily influenced by giving them money.
- mkr-hn 16y ago
  Being funded by the people you're supposed to keep account of is not the best of strategies.
  - phlux 16y ago
    Unless those you're keeping account of are willing to pay you.... This is how Congress works.
    - estel 16y ago
      In what way? The people both pay for and keep account of their Government.
      - phlux 16y ago
        Lobbyists. How do you think laws are written so fast in response to events? Surely there has not been a single law in a very long time that was actually, truly, written by the sponsors in congress pushing for them. They are written by aides and lobbyists.
        gamble 16y ago
        Exactly right. It's in practice impossible for politicians to draft legislation themselves and still have the time and political capital to pass it. In modern politics it's a mistake to see 'Senator Smith' as an independent entity; he is more like the CEO of 'Senator Smith Inc.': leading, glad-handling, and making high-level decisions - but the grunt-work of drafting laws falls to lower-level members of the organization, lobbyists, or so-called 'think tanks'. There is a great book on this subject by Paul Light, "The President's Agenda", that goes into how even the president is usually forced to choose between pre-existing options rather than draft his own initiatives.
stellar678 16y ago
My one data point of experience with the BBB: The company sent a response to my complaint saying, essentially, "We have informed the customer we are unwilling to resolve his complaint." The BBB metric weighed this as a satisfactory response.
potatolicious 16y ago
The BBB operates on the same model that Yelp is (allegedly) operating on: i.e., a consumer-driven account of a business, until the business pays up. There have been credible accounts of businesses being offered a higher BBB grade, and even entire complaints dismissed from the pool for being a paying member. Conversely, there have been reports of the BBB threatening to lower grades for businesses that won't play ball. Even ignoring these allegations, the BBB's system is broke in a number of ways, the most egregious of which is that they admittedly give paying businesses a higher default grade than non-paying businesses. So, disregarding any consumer complaints, a paying member is automatically rated higher. And like the controversy surrounding Yelp, usually when these things come to light and indisputable proof is presented, the whole thing is easily swept under the rug as a rogue sales agent not sanctioned by the organization - the issue of creating an environment where this sort of activity is de facto encouraged and abuses are deliberately ignored is, of course, never addressed.
tokenadult 16y ago
Link to ABC News investigative report on the Better Business Bureau: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-money-buy/story?id=12123843 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-m... (Thanks for asking the follow-up question. The two replies already posted prompted me to Google Better Business Bureau pay to play, which is how I turned up the link.)

tptacek 16y ago

They are, it is credibly alleged, pay-to-play; the overall tenor of what BBB reports on you can be readily influenced by giving them money.

mkr-hn 16y ago
Being funded by the people you're supposed to keep account of is not the best of strategies.
- phlux 16y ago
  Unless those you're keeping account of are willing to pay you.... This is how Congress works.
  - estel 16y ago
    In what way? The people both pay for and keep account of their Government.
    - phlux 16y ago
      Lobbyists. How do you think laws are written so fast in response to events? Surely there has not been a single law in a very long time that was actually, truly, written by the sponsors in congress pushing for them. They are written by aides and lobbyists.
      - gamble 16y ago
        Exactly right. It's in practice impossible for politicians to draft legislation themselves and still have the time and political capital to pass it. In modern politics it's a mistake to see 'Senator Smith' as an independent entity; he is more like the CEO of 'Senator Smith Inc.': leading, glad-handling, and making high-level decisions - but the grunt-work of drafting laws falls to lower-level members of the organization, lobbyists, or so-called 'think tanks'. There is a great book on this subject by Paul Light, "The President's Agenda", that goes into how even the president is usually forced to choose between pre-existing options rather than draft his own initiatives.

stellar678 16y ago

My one data point of experience with the BBB: The company sent a response to my complaint saying, essentially, "We have informed the customer we are unwilling to resolve his complaint." The BBB metric weighed this as a satisfactory response.

potatolicious 16y ago

The BBB operates on the same model that Yelp is (allegedly) operating on: i.e., a consumer-driven account of a business, until the business pays up. There have been credible accounts of businesses being offered a higher BBB grade, and even entire complaints dismissed from the pool for being a paying member. Conversely, there have been reports of the BBB threatening to lower grades for businesses that won't play ball. Even ignoring these allegations, the BBB's system is broke in a number of ways, the most egregious of which is that they admittedly give paying businesses a higher default grade than non-paying businesses. So, disregarding any consumer complaints, a paying member is automatically rated higher. And like the controversy surrounding Yelp, usually when these things come to light and indisputable proof is presented, the whole thing is easily swept under the rug as a rogue sales agent not sanctioned by the organization - the issue of creating an environment where this sort of activity is de facto encouraged and abuses are deliberately ignored is, of course, never addressed.

tokenadult 16y ago

Link to ABC News investigative report on the Better Business Bureau: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-money-buy/story?id=12123843 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-m... (Thanks for asking the follow-up question. The two replies already posted prompted me to Google Better Business Bureau pay to play, which is how I turned up the link.)