Bbb

[muddywater]

How many of you have landed jobs off of BBB? They keep calling me and i never join. All i have heard is people reporting people to them, i never really hear of people landing jobs from it. I have had good luck with angies list and landed several jobs from it.

I also don't like how they charge more if you have more employees.

I guess i think they are obsolete. What do you think?

[Jimslawncareservice]

Tried it. Was kinda a joke. A few commercials asked about it. Most care more about being a member of our local chamber.
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[cgaengineer]

I'm on the BBB, but not for gaining work...
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[Ijustwantausername]

I actually have a theory about the BBB. I was contacted about a year ago and was told that "someone" had contacted the BBB and asked about my business, you know, was I trusted and did I have good reviews etc, (I have numerous 5 star reviews on Google) . So they then asked a few questions about my business since I "wasn't a verified business", so I gladly told them what they asked about, and wouldn't you know my business lands on their site within a week or so. All the information I gave them was submitted and posted without my permission and at the top of the listing in nice, very convincing letters it read, THIS BUSINESS IS NOT BBB ACCREDITED.

BUT, for the low price of $400/year I can get the shiny BBB stamp of approval without having done anything else but write them a check.

Hmm, sounds to me like I have no choice, either write the check, or have my business "NOT ACCREDITED" and make it seem like I am not a trusted/verified business. I even called and asked that the information be removed, and they said once someone calls asking about the business they can't take it down.

I will never use them, ever.

[herler]

I could fill this entire page with a wall of rambling text concerning my resentment with that company.
Just reading this thread has got my blood boiling.

The only good news is that as of now, they haven't called us in a few years.
But they used to pester us every year, every single year, no matter how many times and how many different ways we asked to be taken off their list AND not to call us ever again, they'd call us exactly a year later.

We entered their telephone number into a system that would advise us when it was them calling, it was something we had started doing with all telemarketers.
The BBB was one of the few out of a whole lot who would call from different numbers hoping they'd get through.
It worked at least once, guess they thought they were so smart.
We eventually had compiled quite the list of BBB telemarketing telephone numbers.

This is a company whose mission in life is supposedly to 'better' the business experience for consumers and businesses alike.

[herler]

At one point we became members.
Overall, it did not improve our experience.

Matter of fact we believe it actually increased the number of telemarketing calls we were getting.

We wrote to them, we explained that if they would put just HALF the effort and time and money they were spending on advertising into doing what they were SUPPOSED to be doing that they would probably find they didn't need to advertise.

Nothing ever happened.

We wrote to them, we explained that we felt their performance outside of their marketing department was poor at best, that no company could nor should survive just because they were expert advertisers and if they did that they should be in the advertising business.

Nothing ever happened.

Nothing, not even a thank you letter, not even a canned answer.
Certainly nothing ever changed, either.

And paying them money doesn't make it better.
If anything it gets worse, we got calls from companies that were up and down the list from ours, see how that works...

They act like they're the polished diamonds we've been looking for all our lives, truth is bastards haven't a clue
They PUT our MAIN email address on THEIR web site!!!
If you think nothing of it, they didn't either.
Ever hear of spam bots?
Another name for those bots is "email address harvesters," yes these are a very real threat to anyone with an online presence.

We didn't know what was going on but when we found out I was HIGHLY ticked off, a simple phone call and email and someone at the BBB took the email address off the page but the damage was done, the harvesters had finished foraging for their food and thus email addresses were compromised, it took us YEARS to get rid of the spam.

Then we realized we weren't getting clicked.
Our web site was not getting traffic from them.
But Oh their report spoke of how many people checked us out every month!

They had forgotten to list our web site's link...

You know, for $400 all they had to do was make a correct listing.
Finally, one year I never wrote them the check, they called and called...
Perhaps the one saving grace is our listing stayed for some time.
Then, much time later they called us one day...
I answered the phone thinking it was one of our customers and because of that was quite cheerful.
But it was them AGAIN!
By now I was beyond anger, way, way way beyond.
I was utterly and totally disappointed.
My exact words at the time was "Oh it's YOU..."
And I mean I don't think you could have gotten me to sound worse if you had delivered a pile of steaming crap to my front door which I thought would be diamonds.

I was, quite simply, THAT put off.
We have not heard from them since.
THANK GOD!

It's like getting rid of that nagging relative that JUST WOULD NOT LEAVE!
You know what I mean, someone you don't like is all up in your house and they WON'T LEAVE...
That was the BBB to me, no matter how we asked and begged and pleaded and cussed and fussed they wouldn't go away.

[muddywater]

Damn, its worse than I thought!

[orangemower]

Originally Posted by Ijustwantausername

I actually have a theory about the BBB. I was contacted about a year ago and was told that "someone" had contacted the BBB and asked about my business, you know, was I trusted and did I have good reviews etc, (I have numerous 5 star reviews on Google) . So they then asked a few questions about my business since I "wasn't a verified business", so I gladly told them what they asked about, and wouldn't you know my business lands on their site within a week or so. All the information I gave them was submitted and posted without my permission and at the top of the listing in nice, very convincing letters it read, THIS BUSINESS IS NOT BBB ACCREDITED.

BUT, for the low price of $400/year I can get the shiny BBB stamp of approval without having done anything else but write them a check.

Hmm, sounds to me like I have no choice, either write the check, or have my business "NOT ACCREDITED" and make it seem like I am not a trusted/verified business. I even called and asked that the information be removed, and they said once someone calls asking about the business they can't take it down.

I will never use them, ever.

Here is the answer. They are a scam. All they do is recommend or condemn companies. Oh, for a price they will talk good about you but if you do what this man did, they'll do the opposite. Heck, even if you pay them, they can and will talk bad about the company. They are a joke and only out to make the money. I rank them right up there with "service magic" as a middle man thief.

[Weekend cut easymoney]

We get most all our business from referrals, not random advertising--
i might say it would benefit a new business, but its not for us--Angies list seems like a better advertising method-

besides, I don't need a middle man negotiating customer problems with us--our customers can call abnd discuss anything--