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:
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.
|
|
|
|
|