September 18, 2014
 
Boycott Watch Exposes Yet Another Scam At The Better Business Bureau
 
Summary: Better Business Bureau Claims it stands for Integrity and ethics, yet Posts Non-Member Complains and Hides Complaints against Members.
 
    American Express® has the motto "Membership has its privileges" but consumers lose daily because that is the actual working practice of the Better Business Bureau.® While the BBB website claims "Our Vision: An ethical marketplace where buyers and sellers can trust each other" the fact is they do not live up to their own standard.

    In 2010, Boycott Watch wrote about the Hamas terrorist organization becoming a member of the BBB and how consumers have lost faith in the BBB in general. Boycott Watch thought that the BBB would have cleaned up their act by now, but sadly that is not the case. Not only that, but the company that triggered our new investigation uses a Post Office Box for their address, which we discussed in our first report where the BBB considers such companies to be inherently shady. Perhaps the BBB was right about that, but the BBB is still protecting that company, defying their own standards because that company paid membership dues to the BBB. Shady, in deed.

    Boycott Watch started a new investigating about the BBB gives members special privileges in early August, 2014 after an incident when Fred Taub, the President of Boycott Watch filed a complaint with the BBB which states their policy of "…integrity and performance. Integrity includes respect, ethics and intent" on their website. Mr. Taub's complained was about a BBB member company, the Nature's Beauty Tree Service, LLC whose employees blocked oncoming traffic on a residential road, forcing cars to back up more than 100 feet to accommodate their trucks when they should have managed traffic for their work zone, then blocked Mr. Taub from advancing on the road for no reason, then harassed M. Taub about forcing him to back up, all for no reason. Nature's Beauty Tree Service, LLC staff should have acted professionally, letting the cars in their work area pass, and then stopping traffic outside the work zone to allow traffic and their trucks to pass efficiently. The tree company employees were simply being lazy when it came to traffic management of their work zone.

    After the incident, Mr. Taub complained to the BBB and received a form letter back from Sirita Queen, Trade Assistant, stating the BBB would not act on the complaint "Because the nature of this matter does not appear to be a consumer/ business marketplace transaction." While the BBB is correct that there was no monitory transaction between Mr. Taub and the Nature's Beauty Tree Service, there was still an interaction that included the BBB vision of "…integrity and performance. Integrity includes respect, ethics and intent." Later in a phone call with Ms. Sirita Queen, Mr. Taub asked if the lack of action and refusal to post the complaint on the BBB website is because Nature's Beauty Tree Service was a BBB member, and the BBB representative adamantly claimed that not to be the case.

    After more than a month, Mr. Taub's complaint against Nature's Beauty Tree Service has not appeared on the BBB website just as Ms. Sirita Queen stated, yet we noticed that complaints against non-member companies are posted on the BBB website for everyone to see. While we could not possibly examine every company listed on the BBB website, we did see a clear pattern - BBB members do in fact receive special privileges, as shown in the following screen shot compilation:

BBB Member vs Non-Member pages

    Simply stated, complaints against BBB members neither show up on the BBB member pages, nor can be examined by the potential customers. That means people who trust the BBB for information about the reliability and trustworthiness of businesses the BBB fails to be honest - the phrase "…integrity and performance. Integrity includes respect, ethics and intent" in their mission statement is not being followed. Meanwhile, Non-members can expect to see complaints about their company posted for everyone to see. This practice reminds Boycott Watch of the classic mafia demand of money for protection, because that is essentially what the BBB does - if you don't want problems for your business, you must pay the BBB membership dues. If that's not enough, the BBB continues to violate their own standards by giving a pass to businesses using a P.O. Box as long as the company pays membership dues.

    When we asked the BBB if members get special privileges in complaints, the BBB representative said no - Boycott Watch, however, proved that was clearly a lie. Is that RICO racketeering? Boycott Watch will let you decide, but one this we can tell you for sure is that Boycott Watch does not charge any business membership fees, nor takes any money from companies to sway reports because that would be unethical.

    Boycott Watch therefore sees the BBB as a sham. Since BBB membership fees result in a better reports, consumers cannot trust BBB reports for fairness or accuracy.
 
 
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Boycoting Peace
by Fred Taub
President, Boycott Watch
 
 
 

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