‘the bad’ is that they shake companies down and give them bad ratings not based on how they treat consumers, but how they treat the BBB. meaning if they don’t pay up and make other concessions to let the BBB twist their arm, they get bad grades.
it scales with size. local companies with more than just a few employees can expect to pay four digits a year. looking at their website they even have a fee to apply lol (‘may be waived in some regions’, meaning it’s charged anywhere it’s legal to charge an application fee)
other concessions such as in this post’s title, they have to agree to handle customer complaints within BBB’s terms (the specifics of which i’m not privy to).
the reason they really strike a nerve in autistic online communities though is that they’ve committed the cardinal sin of offering a rating service where the rating isn’t really about them, the consumers, but how good they are to the BBB. so does an F grade mean they have terrible customer service and a history of fraud or does it mean they wouldn’t fork out for a membership? maybe bucees is an ass backward business of hucksters but the rating doesn’t actually indicate that.
Thanks for this. I get it now. I think my opinion is now that it’s overall a good thing we have BBB against big companies, but they’re also themselves sort of shady and probably treat small businesses like trash pretty often.
Basically, any complaint made against you is an opportunity for the BBB to sell you a membership.
The argument is that if you don’t buy a membership, then complaints against you tend to substantiated, and your response to those complaints is deemed inadequate. If you do buy a membership, then the complaints against you are generally unsubstantiated, and your responses are exceptional.
That definitely makes sense. I appreciate the explanation. I wonder if there’s actually evidence of this being how it goes. Since again, my only experience with them is they made an insurance company pay what they owed me.
‘the bad’ is that they shake companies down and give them bad ratings not based on how they treat consumers, but how they treat the BBB. meaning if they don’t pay up and make other concessions to let the BBB twist their arm, they get bad grades.
Ok. What are they paying? Is it a yearly fee or something?
And what other concessions?
it scales with size. local companies with more than just a few employees can expect to pay four digits a year. looking at their website they even have a fee to apply lol (‘may be waived in some regions’, meaning it’s charged anywhere it’s legal to charge an application fee)
other concessions such as in this post’s title, they have to agree to handle customer complaints within BBB’s terms (the specifics of which i’m not privy to).
the reason they really strike a nerve in autistic online communities though is that they’ve committed the cardinal sin of offering a rating service where the rating isn’t really about them, the consumers, but how good they are to the BBB. so does an F grade mean they have terrible customer service and a history of fraud or does it mean they wouldn’t fork out for a membership? maybe bucees is an ass backward business of hucksters but the rating doesn’t actually indicate that.
Thanks for this. I get it now. I think my opinion is now that it’s overall a good thing we have BBB against big companies, but they’re also themselves sort of shady and probably treat small businesses like trash pretty often.
Basically, any complaint made against you is an opportunity for the BBB to sell you a membership.
The argument is that if you don’t buy a membership, then complaints against you tend to substantiated, and your response to those complaints is deemed inadequate. If you do buy a membership, then the complaints against you are generally unsubstantiated, and your responses are exceptional.
That definitely makes sense. I appreciate the explanation. I wonder if there’s actually evidence of this being how it goes. Since again, my only experience with them is they made an insurance company pay what they owed me.