
FeeFighters Loses BBB Accreditation Over Investigative Blog Post - LiveTheDream
http://feefighters.com/blog/bbb-accreditation/
======
tptacek
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
_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
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
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.

------
rkalla
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>

------
aresant
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.

~~~
pitdesi
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>) 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
You should now use a (not)BBB Accredited! logo of your own design and see how
it performs...

~~~
ShabbyDoo
The Made to Stick (<http://www.heathbrothers.com/madetostick/>) authors might
say that the surprise of seeing an explicit claim about NOT being accredited
would make the FeeFighers site more memorable. When's the last time you saw
such a claim?

------
jarrett
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.

------
taylorbuley
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/>

~~~
ceejayoz
"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.

------
lpolovets
I think this will lead to a Streisand effect for the BBB.
(<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.

------
mkopinsky
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
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
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
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.

------
innerphaze
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!

------
spoiledtechie
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.

------
keltex
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.

------
orblivion
"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.

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

------
davidmurphy
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-
sh...](http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2011/jul/25/scandal-may-shut-
business-bureau/)

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-p...](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/08/business/la-fi-bbb-
president-20110209)

------
eli
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
BTW, Angie's list runs the same kind of scam.

~~~
kenjackson
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).

------
genieyclo
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
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.

------
AlexC04
Sounds a lot like the Yelp.com criticisms I've read.

------
Bud
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
Bustin' Balls Bureau is more accurate. They can keep their acronym, and their
logo shouldn't be too hard to adjust.

------
jrockway
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...)

------
noonespecial
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...

------
greengarstudios
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
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.

------
Drakeman
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.

------
vsl2
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
It has to be something like wikipedia.

------
waivej
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.

------
rorrr
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/>

    
    
        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.

~~~
powertower
Racketeering.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)>

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

------
andjones
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.

