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FeeFighters Loses BBB Accreditation Over Investigative Blog Post

455 points by LiveTheDream 15y ago

jarrett 15y ago
Just a friendly question to anyone at BBB who may be reading this thread: Suppose someone on here happens to own a business with BBB accreditation, and that person posts a comment to this thread critical of BBB's handling of the FeeFighters situation. Would you consider that a violation of your terms? For the record, I'm not criticizing or endorsing what happened with FeeFighters, since I don't necessarily know all the facts.
lpolovets 15y ago
I think this will lead to a Streisand effect for the BBB. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect). By taking away a company's accreditation for a reason that has nothing to do with the company's business practices, the BBB is showing exactly how objective it is.
andjones 15y ago
On the one hand Fee Fighters is fighting the "noble" fight, but they lose points for being so ideological. BBB is a business and their terms are well known. Fee Fighters knew them and was required to abide by them and chose not to. I do like that Fee Fighters is bringing this issue to bear. I'm personally not a fan of BBB. Pay to play doesn't seem like the incentives are aligned correctly. That and I can't afford their accreditation process for my business.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - loumf 15y ago
    It's in the letter, which is in the post. You may not agree that those terms are good, but Fee Fighters agreed to them, and BBB is stating that they weren't followed. I doubt FF cares about fighting back in courts, so it will never really be settled whether they did or not.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      Nobody here cares about "codes of conduct" that require members of organizations not to say mean things about those organizations, so this whole argument is a dead end and I strongly recommend we all not try to hash it out. Nobody cares about the BBB code of conduct. Quick guess: more than 3/4 of HN would agree that "codes of conduct" are harmful --- not just "not binding" but "harmful and evil --- that require members not rat out organizations as scams.
      - andjones 15y ago
        I actually quite agree that the BBB code of conduct is harmful. I'm not trying to argue for the code of conduct. What bothers me about the article is that Fee Fighters is arguing from the point of a victim. Yes BBB has a harmful code of conduct, but Fee Fighters had a chance to review it and signed up for that. > Nobody cares about the BBB code of conduct. I don't understand this comment? This article is about how Fee Fighters lost their accreditation due to the BBB code of conduct? I think Fee Fighters cares about the BBB code of conduct. Many people who have upvoted this post and downvoted my original comment care one way or another I believe.
        tptacek 15y ago
        FeeFighters isn't arguing that they're a victim. They're arguing that they're the good guys, as evidenced by how obviously BBB is acting like the bad guys. You're missing the fact that FeeFighters thinks BBB accreditation is laughable. They didn't write this post because a cosmic injustice was done to them. They already felt like the BBB was a cosmic injustice, even when they were accredited. They're gleeful that BBB is so willing to play the villain, and absolutely are willing to twist the knife into BBB's self inflicted PR wound. If you're getting downvoted (I didn't), it's probably because you're missing the subtext. The BBB is worthy of mockery; this post mocks it; you seem surprised... why would anyone mock the BBB? Click click downvote.
        lsc 15y ago
        >What bothers me about the article is that Fee Fighters is arguing from the point of a victim. Yes BBB has a harmful code of conduct, but Fee Fighters had a chance to review it and signed up for that. The thing is, every agreement written by a lawyer has some overly broad "I can screw you" clauses. Heck, this one doesn't even read that badly. I mean, it sounds like they are reserving the right to stop people from associating the BBB with broadly offensive causes. I mean, if you are supplying the KKK with robes, I'd rather you not have my logo on your website. That seems pretty reasonable. If you turn around and then use that clause against someone who is legitimately criticizing you, you are a scumbag and should be called out on it.
  - jarrett 15y ago
    The original post quotes the term.
tptacek 15y ago
So tone deaf. A PR coup for FeeFighters. A total PR debacle for BBB. FeeFighters could in fact give a fuck about their actual accreditation, so they had nothing to lose. BBB meanwhile looks petty, out of touch, and defensive. You didn't need to be a chess grandmaster to see how this will play out. You barely even need to see one move ahead. What moron at BBB OK'd this? How incompetent is the rest of their organization?
- cbs 15y ago
  You didn't need to be a chess grandmaster to see how this will play out. Yeah, it will all blow over in a week or two because Fee Fighters is relatively small. A few more people will find out how sleazy the BBB is, but not enough to actually impact the BBB.
  - patio11 15y ago
    I think Thomas and I are thinking less "Probability that this will kill the BBB" and more "How many tens of thousands of dollars of PR firm time would produce demonstrably less press hits than this event will."
    - tptacek 15y ago
      It's that and the "let's punch ourselves in the face" aspect of taking a story that you want to minimize, and deciding months later when it has completely blown over to send it aloft in a gigantic fusillade of skyrockets and roman candles. "PLEASE, ENTIRE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, PLEASE REVIVE THIS ABSOLUTELY TOXIC STORY. And if you could, could you maybe mix in a David vs. Goliath element to it this time?" Having been in the room with PR people during (supposed) crises in the past: every single one of them would tell you not to do what BBB just did here.
    - kls 15y ago
      I think the BBB has already sustained the fatal wound, it will just take a time-frame of decades for it to play out. Their service means nothing to most of the generation that grew up on the internet. Those people tend to utilize several key data points (trusted blogger, Amazon Review, a forum, Yelp, Urbanspoon) to make decisions about businesses and products. Where those that are rapidly becoming elderly, grew up in a generation that had to rely on these data aggregation and trust business entities. As those people become less and less of a consumer force via attrition, entities like the BBB in their current form will cease to exist. I think they sense it and are selling that last thing that they had (their credibility) in the death throws. All efforts to adapt their model has thus-far failed.
eli 15y ago
Is the BBB even relevant? My assumption was that its influence is quite low since the advent of the Internet. If I were looking to see for a plumber or a moving company, I'd check Yelp or Angie's List not BBB.
- cbs 15y ago
  BTW, Angie's list runs the same kind of scam.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    This is why Consumer Reports is so trusted. They take no money from companies. They don't do ads or have sponsored listings of any sort. They buy the products retail and review them. If you have sponsored listings you'll always be succeptible to this. There's rumors of the same happening on Yelp (reviews being filtered and such).
  - cfaubell 15y ago
    I hadn't heard that about Angie's List. I'd be interested in reading about it if anyone has a link.
aresant 15y ago
In extensive conversion testing we've found that the BBB symbol is the MOST beneficial trust-symbol to incorporate into your website. This data is across multiple markets / products and joining the BBB is one of the things that we recommend early on to conversion clients. Consumers trust the brand immensely which is sad given the BBB's "protection money" business model.
- forensic 15y ago
  They have a good reputation but it's utterly undeserved. Some of the biggest and longest running scams I've seen display prominent BBB logos.
- pitdesi 15y ago
  You are totally correct, although it depends wildly on who your customer is (IE older people grew up trusting the BBB, younger folks don't care). We had an internal argument about whether doing this was the right thing or not for our business. I did it against the wishes of some other FeeFighters because I believe it's the right thing to do (I HATE scams like these so much), but it did mean that we had to take their symbol off our site and suffer whatever consequences come with that. When we do focus groups or usability tests with small businesses, they always look at the BBB ratings of the credit card processors on our site. However, I think with our new product Samurai (for online payments - http://samurai.feefighters.com http://samurai.feefighters.com) we'll have a more savvy crowd who doesn't care too much about the BBB. For those of you who aren't too familiar with FeeFighters - our original product is comparison shopping for credit card processing. A good chunk of our customers are e-commerce businesses, startups, and other "sophisticated" merchants, but we also have a bunch of mom and pop shops (of every sort) who care about stuff like the BBB. As it turns out, in the couple of months since we had to take the BBB logo off, we have seen no difference whatsoever in our conversion stats.
  - alsocasey 15y ago
    You should now use a (not)BBB Accredited! logo of your own design and see how it performs...
rorrr 15y ago
The original report is extremely interesting too, I don't see how it's even legal what BBB does http://feefighters.com/blog/the-bbb-is-a-scam/ http://feefighters.com/blog/the-bbb-is-a-scam/ Xpay asked the BBB what they could do to fix the problem. It turned out that all they needed to do was grease the wheels. The BBB noted that Xpay wasn’t a member organization, and by becoming a member organization the BBB would “look into” those 11 complaints to see if they were worthy of being wiped clean. Xpay paid the BBB a fee of $760 (see fee schedule). Within a couple of days the rating had changed from an F to a C. A few days later and another phonecall, and the rating was changed to an A-. That's extortion.
- pitdesi 15y ago
  Interesting sidenote on that... When the BBB contacted us the first time, they referenced that they searched through their records and couldn't find a company named xpay... pretty funny that they didn't realize that xpay was a pseudonym (even though I made that explicit in the blogpost) They also spelled my name incorrectly (2 different ways!). A classy organization all around.
- powertower 15y ago
  Racketeering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)
- rapind 15y ago
  This article reminds me of some of the stuff I read about the American Kennel Club and the whole puppy mill thing a few years ago (don't look into it unless you're willing to suffer severe outrage). It's depressing how many companies that once were trustworthy have gradually been taken over by scumbags.
- dennyferra 15y ago
  A friend of mine owns a small trucking business and was bidding on a contract for freight services for a university. Upon winning the bid they notified him that he had to get BBB accreditation in order to be awarded the contract.
AlexC04 15y ago
Sounds a lot like the Yelp.com criticisms I've read.
rkalla 15y ago
For anyone on the fence about the claims, 20/20 did an investigation[1] of the BBB and found exactly the same thing. They worked with companies with complaints against them and low ratings that were called by BBB representatives asking them to re-up their registrations. Without much coaxing the BBB agents clarified that the ratings could be "reinstated" or "take care of" if the signup process was completed. Once the businesses did that, in every case, the scores were re-adjusted to A or A+ for those companies. Conversely, companies that didn't re-up would have all their past complaints re-instated on their review page and scores drop to C/D/F levels. Not unlike the Yelp stuff we saw going on last week or the week before here on HN. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw
keltex 15y ago
If you do lose your BBB accreditation and want it back again, all you have to do is re-register (and pay the $600 or so) under a new name and you'll be back to square one. It sounds like a joke, but completely true. One of my clients has a competitor who had an F rating due to numerous consumer complaints. They simply did the above and presto they were back to A- again.
genieyclo 15y ago
Is that drop down in-your-face share menu a Wordpress plugin or something? Fantastic way to get your attention. I think I've seen it before, not sure where though.
- wnight 15y ago
  It's a way to get attention all right. When I saw it drop-down I closed the site. I can cut and paste a URL, thanks. This 'Like' spam is something I dislike.
taylorbuley 15y ago
This sounds pretty scammy to me. The good news is that I found a company on the Internet that lets you report scams: https://www.bbb.org/scam/report-a-scam/ https://www.bbb.org/scam/report-a-scam/
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  "We have received your scam report and will only be back in touch if our investigation team needs further information." I'd love it if they followed up.
innerphaze 15y ago
BBB is totally useless and corrupt. Used them before with a complaint and accomplished nothing but a waste of time and effort. Great job FeeFighters!
mkopinsky 15y ago
While I am totally on the side of FF here, it's hard to call a blog post titled "The BBB is a F&#ing Scam" an investigative blog post. The BBB may indeed be a F&#ing Scam (I have gotten horribly burned in the past for reporting something to the BBB), you gotta admit that the language in the blog post is pretty incendiary.
- lsc 15y ago
  I'd be interested to know how you got horribly burned by /reporting/ something to the BBB. (as a side note, is it the 'scam' word that you find incendiary? or the cussing? If it's the cussing, how old are you? To me, calling someone a scam is dramatic, while cursing doesn't really register.)
  - mkopinsky 15y ago
    The story is one which I do not feel is appropriate to post publicly at this point. If you really feel like hearing it, email me at myHNusername@gmail.com and I _might_ oblige. It is both the cussing and the use of the word scam. While I don't generally cuss myself, I have no problem with people speaking or writing like that, but I feel that it does frame the post as "I'm angry and have an anti-BBB agenda" rather than "I am a blogger trying to investigate a potential issue."
    - lsc 15y ago
      ah. If you don't feel comfortable talking about it, that's fine. I dono I find the subject of the cultural acceptability of cussing to be kind of interesting. I'm considering adding appropriate asterisks to my own writing, more as a humerus affectation than anything else, as I personally can't imagine how the asterisks would make it less offensive, but eh, it's interesting to hear what people think about the subject. I sometimes wonder if I'm being way more offensive than I intend.
vsl2 15y ago
Maybe there's a market opportunity for a new business accreditation site. Though you have to wonder if anything short of a government entity or extremely well-funded nonprofit would be able to maintain its integrity. Do I smell a Y Combinator success story in the future?
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  It has to be something like wikipedia.
waivej 15y ago
I declined to pay BBB when I started my business, but recently worked with a business that made me rethink the decision. This article reminds me of the vibe I got from the salesperson years ago.
noonespecial 15y ago
Someone should make some sort of organization that objectively tracks sleazy businesses like this so consumers have a place to go to find out about it before committing to use them...
suking 15y ago
They are in bed with the FTC so nothing will happen to the BBB. Total bunch of scammers.
spoiledtechie 15y ago
I find it wild at times that old fashioned companies like the BBB are so out of touch with the world today that they think a new company can not last long enough without their support. It just goes to show that FeeFighters are shaking things up in both their technical field along with other business sectors. If you ask me, that is exactly what a start up should be doing! Congrats FeeFighters for shaking things up.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
orblivion 15y ago
"If you're not paying, you're not the customer, you're the product that's being sold." comes to mind. Perhaps we need more Angie's List and Consumer Reports, and less Yelp and BBB.
Bud 15y ago
In a just world, there would be some sort of humorous regulatory body that would force the "Better" Business Bureau to rename themselves something more suitable in response to this story. Lamer Business Bureau? Sycophantic Business Bureau? I leave the actual name as an exercise for the reader.
- mkopinsky 15y ago
  Bustin' Balls Bureau is more accurate. They can keep their acronym, and their logo shouldn't be too hard to adjust.
Drakeman 15y ago
Honestly, I don't know anyone who really seeks out BBB accreditation as a means of judging a business's credibility (I'm talking at the consumer level). In fact, the only times I've ever caught myself viewing any of their web content was for businesses I already knew sucked.
jasonwatkinspdx 15y ago
The BBB is a racket. That should be clear to anyone who thinks about it even briefly.
greengarstudios 15y ago
An organization that had goals similar to the BBB's would be very valuable for many consumers. What are some of the BBB's competitors? What's currently the best alternative?
- bphogan 15y ago
  For the consumers, there's the various state agencies. In Wisconsin, you don't contact the BBB, you contact the department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection. Those guys shut down a regional cellphone provider because of some complaints I and a few others filed about billing practices, etc. They responded to my web form submission with a half-hour very interested phone call. I've heard similar stories in other states. I've always been told, as a consumer, to avoid the BBB and go through the state agencies.
jrockway 15y ago
This has caused them to gain the "jrockway certified excellence" accreditation, which is, in my opinion, infinitely more valuable than the BBB's accreditation. So, I think, it's a net win. (What's that you say? The limit of 0 * x as x goes to infinity is still zero? Hmm...)
davidmurphy 15y ago
The LA Business Journal had an article on the Los Angeles Chapter of the BBB. Unfortunately, it's behind a paywall: http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2011/jul/25/scandal-may-shut-business-bureau/ http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2011/jul/25/scandal-may-sh... Scandal May Shut Business Bureau L.A. chapter hurt by pay-for-play revelations. // By ALFRED LEE // Monday, July 25, 2011 Here's a LA Times article: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/08/business/la-fi-bbb-president-20110209 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/08/business/la-fi-bbb-p...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

455 points by LiveTheDream 15y ago

Just a friendly question to anyone at BBB who may be reading this thread: Suppose someone on here happens to own a business with BBB accreditation, and that person posts a comment to this thread critical of BBB's handling of the FeeFighters situation. Would you consider that a violation of your terms? For the record, I'm not criticizing or endorsing what happened with FeeFighters, since I don't necessarily know all the facts.

lpolovets 15y ago

I think this will lead to a Streisand effect for the BBB. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect). By taking away a company's accreditation for a reason that has nothing to do with the company's business practices, the BBB is showing exactly how objective it is.

andjones 15y ago

On the one hand Fee Fighters is fighting the "noble" fight, but they lose points for being so ideological. BBB is a business and their terms are well known. Fee Fighters knew them and was required to abide by them and chose not to. I do like that Fee Fighters is bringing this issue to bear. I'm personally not a fan of BBB. Pay to play doesn't seem like the incentives are aligned correctly. That and I can't afford their accreditation process for my business.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- loumf 15y ago
  It's in the letter, which is in the post. You may not agree that those terms are good, but Fee Fighters agreed to them, and BBB is stating that they weren't followed. I doubt FF cares about fighting back in courts, so it will never really be settled whether they did or not.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Nobody here cares about "codes of conduct" that require members of organizations not to say mean things about those organizations, so this whole argument is a dead end and I strongly recommend we all not try to hash it out. Nobody cares about the BBB code of conduct. Quick guess: more than 3/4 of HN would agree that "codes of conduct" are harmful --- not just "not binding" but "harmful and evil --- that require members not rat out organizations as scams.
    - andjones 15y ago
      I actually quite agree that the BBB code of conduct is harmful. I'm not trying to argue for the code of conduct. What bothers me about the article is that Fee Fighters is arguing from the point of a victim. Yes BBB has a harmful code of conduct, but Fee Fighters had a chance to review it and signed up for that. > Nobody cares about the BBB code of conduct. I don't understand this comment? This article is about how Fee Fighters lost their accreditation due to the BBB code of conduct? I think Fee Fighters cares about the BBB code of conduct. Many people who have upvoted this post and downvoted my original comment care one way or another I believe.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        FeeFighters isn't arguing that they're a victim. They're arguing that they're the good guys, as evidenced by how obviously BBB is acting like the bad guys. You're missing the fact that FeeFighters thinks BBB accreditation is laughable. They didn't write this post because a cosmic injustice was done to them. They already felt like the BBB was a cosmic injustice, even when they were accredited. They're gleeful that BBB is so willing to play the villain, and absolutely are willing to twist the knife into BBB's self inflicted PR wound. If you're getting downvoted (I didn't), it's probably because you're missing the subtext. The BBB is worthy of mockery; this post mocks it; you seem surprised... why would anyone mock the BBB? Click click downvote.
      - lsc 15y ago
        >What bothers me about the article is that Fee Fighters is arguing from the point of a victim. Yes BBB has a harmful code of conduct, but Fee Fighters had a chance to review it and signed up for that. The thing is, every agreement written by a lawyer has some overly broad "I can screw you" clauses. Heck, this one doesn't even read that badly. I mean, it sounds like they are reserving the right to stop people from associating the BBB with broadly offensive causes. I mean, if you are supplying the KKK with robes, I'd rather you not have my logo on your website. That seems pretty reasonable. If you turn around and then use that clause against someone who is legitimately criticizing you, you are a scumbag and should be called out on it.
- jarrett 15y ago
  The original post quotes the term.

tptacek 15y ago

So tone deaf. A PR coup for FeeFighters. A total PR debacle for BBB. FeeFighters could in fact give a fuck about their actual accreditation, so they had nothing to lose. BBB meanwhile looks petty, out of touch, and defensive. You didn't need to be a chess grandmaster to see how this will play out. You barely even need to see one move ahead. What moron at BBB OK'd this? How incompetent is the rest of their organization?

cbs 15y ago
You didn't need to be a chess grandmaster to see how this will play out. Yeah, it will all blow over in a week or two because Fee Fighters is relatively small. A few more people will find out how sleazy the BBB is, but not enough to actually impact the BBB.
- patio11 15y ago
  I think Thomas and I are thinking less "Probability that this will kill the BBB" and more "How many tens of thousands of dollars of PR firm time would produce demonstrably less press hits than this event will."
  - tptacek 15y ago
    It's that and the "let's punch ourselves in the face" aspect of taking a story that you want to minimize, and deciding months later when it has completely blown over to send it aloft in a gigantic fusillade of skyrockets and roman candles. "PLEASE, ENTIRE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, PLEASE REVIVE THIS ABSOLUTELY TOXIC STORY. And if you could, could you maybe mix in a David vs. Goliath element to it this time?" Having been in the room with PR people during (supposed) crises in the past: every single one of them would tell you not to do what BBB just did here.
  - kls 15y ago
    I think the BBB has already sustained the fatal wound, it will just take a time-frame of decades for it to play out. Their service means nothing to most of the generation that grew up on the internet. Those people tend to utilize several key data points (trusted blogger, Amazon Review, a forum, Yelp, Urbanspoon) to make decisions about businesses and products. Where those that are rapidly becoming elderly, grew up in a generation that had to rely on these data aggregation and trust business entities. As those people become less and less of a consumer force via attrition, entities like the BBB in their current form will cease to exist. I think they sense it and are selling that last thing that they had (their credibility) in the death throws. All efforts to adapt their model has thus-far failed.

eli 15y ago

Is the BBB even relevant? My assumption was that its influence is quite low since the advent of the Internet. If I were looking to see for a plumber or a moving company, I'd check Yelp or Angie's List not BBB.

cbs 15y ago
BTW, Angie's list runs the same kind of scam.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  This is why Consumer Reports is so trusted. They take no money from companies. They don't do ads or have sponsored listings of any sort. They buy the products retail and review them. If you have sponsored listings you'll always be succeptible to this. There's rumors of the same happening on Yelp (reviews being filtered and such).
- cfaubell 15y ago
  I hadn't heard that about Angie's List. I'd be interested in reading about it if anyone has a link.

aresant 15y ago

In extensive conversion testing we've found that the BBB symbol is the MOST beneficial trust-symbol to incorporate into your website. This data is across multiple markets / products and joining the BBB is one of the things that we recommend early on to conversion clients. Consumers trust the brand immensely which is sad given the BBB's "protection money" business model.

forensic 15y ago
They have a good reputation but it's utterly undeserved. Some of the biggest and longest running scams I've seen display prominent BBB logos.
pitdesi 15y ago
You are totally correct, although it depends wildly on who your customer is (IE older people grew up trusting the BBB, younger folks don't care). We had an internal argument about whether doing this was the right thing or not for our business. I did it against the wishes of some other FeeFighters because I believe it's the right thing to do (I HATE scams like these so much), but it did mean that we had to take their symbol off our site and suffer whatever consequences come with that. When we do focus groups or usability tests with small businesses, they always look at the BBB ratings of the credit card processors on our site. However, I think with our new product Samurai (for online payments - http://samurai.feefighters.com http://samurai.feefighters.com) we'll have a more savvy crowd who doesn't care too much about the BBB. For those of you who aren't too familiar with FeeFighters - our original product is comparison shopping for credit card processing. A good chunk of our customers are e-commerce businesses, startups, and other "sophisticated" merchants, but we also have a bunch of mom and pop shops (of every sort) who care about stuff like the BBB. As it turns out, in the couple of months since we had to take the BBB logo off, we have seen no difference whatsoever in our conversion stats.
- alsocasey 15y ago
  You should now use a (not)BBB Accredited! logo of your own design and see how it performs...

rorrr 15y ago

The original report is extremely interesting too, I don't see how it's even legal what BBB does http://feefighters.com/blog/the-bbb-is-a-scam/ http://feefighters.com/blog/the-bbb-is-a-scam/ Xpay asked the BBB what they could do to fix the problem. It turned out that all they needed to do was grease the wheels. The BBB noted that Xpay wasn’t a member organization, and by becoming a member organization the BBB would “look into” those 11 complaints to see if they were worthy of being wiped clean. Xpay paid the BBB a fee of $760 (see fee schedule). Within a couple of days the rating had changed from an F to a C. A few days later and another phonecall, and the rating was changed to an A-. That's extortion.

pitdesi 15y ago
Interesting sidenote on that... When the BBB contacted us the first time, they referenced that they searched through their records and couldn't find a company named xpay... pretty funny that they didn't realize that xpay was a pseudonym (even though I made that explicit in the blogpost) They also spelled my name incorrectly (2 different ways!). A classy organization all around.
powertower 15y ago
Racketeering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)
rapind 15y ago
This article reminds me of some of the stuff I read about the American Kennel Club and the whole puppy mill thing a few years ago (don't look into it unless you're willing to suffer severe outrage). It's depressing how many companies that once were trustworthy have gradually been taken over by scumbags.
dennyferra 15y ago
A friend of mine owns a small trucking business and was bidding on a contract for freight services for a university. Upon winning the bid they notified him that he had to get BBB accreditation in order to be awarded the contract.

AlexC04 15y ago

Sounds a lot like the Yelp.com criticisms I've read.

rkalla 15y ago

For anyone on the fence about the claims, 20/20 did an investigation[1] of the BBB and found exactly the same thing. They worked with companies with complaints against them and low ratings that were called by BBB representatives asking them to re-up their registrations. Without much coaxing the BBB agents clarified that the ratings could be "reinstated" or "take care of" if the signup process was completed. Once the businesses did that, in every case, the scores were re-adjusted to A or A+ for those companies. Conversely, companies that didn't re-up would have all their past complaints re-instated on their review page and scores drop to C/D/F levels. Not unlike the Yelp stuff we saw going on last week or the week before here on HN. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw

keltex 15y ago

If you do lose your BBB accreditation and want it back again, all you have to do is re-register (and pay the $600 or so) under a new name and you'll be back to square one. It sounds like a joke, but completely true. One of my clients has a competitor who had an F rating due to numerous consumer complaints. They simply did the above and presto they were back to A- again.

genieyclo 15y ago

Is that drop down in-your-face share menu a Wordpress plugin or something? Fantastic way to get your attention. I think I've seen it before, not sure where though.

wnight 15y ago
It's a way to get attention all right. When I saw it drop-down I closed the site. I can cut and paste a URL, thanks. This 'Like' spam is something I dislike.

taylorbuley 15y ago

This sounds pretty scammy to me. The good news is that I found a company on the Internet that lets you report scams: https://www.bbb.org/scam/report-a-scam/ https://www.bbb.org/scam/report-a-scam/

ceejayoz 15y ago
"We have received your scam report and will only be back in touch if our investigation team needs further information." I'd love it if they followed up.

innerphaze 15y ago

BBB is totally useless and corrupt. Used them before with a complaint and accomplished nothing but a waste of time and effort. Great job FeeFighters!

mkopinsky 15y ago

While I am totally on the side of FF here, it's hard to call a blog post titled "The BBB is a F&#ing Scam" an investigative blog post. The BBB may indeed be a F&#ing Scam (I have gotten horribly burned in the past for reporting something to the BBB), you gotta admit that the language in the blog post is pretty incendiary.

lsc 15y ago
I'd be interested to know how you got horribly burned by /reporting/ something to the BBB. (as a side note, is it the 'scam' word that you find incendiary? or the cussing? If it's the cussing, how old are you? To me, calling someone a scam is dramatic, while cursing doesn't really register.)
- mkopinsky 15y ago
  The story is one which I do not feel is appropriate to post publicly at this point. If you really feel like hearing it, email me at myHNusername@gmail.com and I _might_ oblige. It is both the cussing and the use of the word scam. While I don't generally cuss myself, I have no problem with people speaking or writing like that, but I feel that it does frame the post as "I'm angry and have an anti-BBB agenda" rather than "I am a blogger trying to investigate a potential issue."
  - lsc 15y ago
    ah. If you don't feel comfortable talking about it, that's fine. I dono I find the subject of the cultural acceptability of cussing to be kind of interesting. I'm considering adding appropriate asterisks to my own writing, more as a humerus affectation than anything else, as I personally can't imagine how the asterisks would make it less offensive, but eh, it's interesting to hear what people think about the subject. I sometimes wonder if I'm being way more offensive than I intend.

vsl2 15y ago

Maybe there's a market opportunity for a new business accreditation site. Though you have to wonder if anything short of a government entity or extremely well-funded nonprofit would be able to maintain its integrity. Do I smell a Y Combinator success story in the future?

felipemnoa 15y ago
It has to be something like wikipedia.

waivej 15y ago

I declined to pay BBB when I started my business, but recently worked with a business that made me rethink the decision. This article reminds me of the vibe I got from the salesperson years ago.

noonespecial 15y ago

Someone should make some sort of organization that objectively tracks sleazy businesses like this so consumers have a place to go to find out about it before committing to use them...

suking 15y ago

They are in bed with the FTC so nothing will happen to the BBB. Total bunch of scammers.

spoiledtechie 15y ago

I find it wild at times that old fashioned companies like the BBB are so out of touch with the world today that they think a new company can not last long enough without their support. It just goes to show that FeeFighters are shaking things up in both their technical field along with other business sectors. If you ask me, that is exactly what a start up should be doing! Congrats FeeFighters for shaking things up.

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orblivion 15y ago

"If you're not paying, you're not the customer, you're the product that's being sold." comes to mind. Perhaps we need more Angie's List and Consumer Reports, and less Yelp and BBB.

Bud 15y ago

In a just world, there would be some sort of humorous regulatory body that would force the "Better" Business Bureau to rename themselves something more suitable in response to this story. Lamer Business Bureau? Sycophantic Business Bureau? I leave the actual name as an exercise for the reader.

mkopinsky 15y ago
Bustin' Balls Bureau is more accurate. They can keep their acronym, and their logo shouldn't be too hard to adjust.

Drakeman 15y ago

Honestly, I don't know anyone who really seeks out BBB accreditation as a means of judging a business's credibility (I'm talking at the consumer level). In fact, the only times I've ever caught myself viewing any of their web content was for businesses I already knew sucked.

jasonwatkinspdx 15y ago

The BBB is a racket. That should be clear to anyone who thinks about it even briefly.

greengarstudios 15y ago

An organization that had goals similar to the BBB's would be very valuable for many consumers. What are some of the BBB's competitors? What's currently the best alternative?

bphogan 15y ago
For the consumers, there's the various state agencies. In Wisconsin, you don't contact the BBB, you contact the department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection. Those guys shut down a regional cellphone provider because of some complaints I and a few others filed about billing practices, etc. They responded to my web form submission with a half-hour very interested phone call. I've heard similar stories in other states. I've always been told, as a consumer, to avoid the BBB and go through the state agencies.

jrockway 15y ago

This has caused them to gain the "jrockway certified excellence" accreditation, which is, in my opinion, infinitely more valuable than the BBB's accreditation. So, I think, it's a net win. (What's that you say? The limit of 0 * x as x goes to infinity is still zero? Hmm...)

davidmurphy 15y ago

The LA Business Journal had an article on the Los Angeles Chapter of the BBB. Unfortunately, it's behind a paywall: http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2011/jul/25/scandal-may-shut-business-bureau/ http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2011/jul/25/scandal-may-sh... Scandal May Shut Business Bureau L.A. chapter hurt by pay-for-play revelations. // By ALFRED LEE // Monday, July 25, 2011 Here's a LA Times article: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/08/business/la-fi-bbb-president-20110209 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/08/business/la-fi-bbb-p...

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