Ask Amy Episode 14: How the Better Business Bureau works to help you
[Music] welcome to this episode of ask Amy today joining me is the president of the Houston Better Business Bureau the Better Business Bureau of Greater Houston Dan Parsons thanks so much for talking with us today it's honor to be here yeah well we're having you in because it's sort of a birthday anniversary 100 Years of our chapter of the Better Business Bureau that went quick 100 years ago well actually it didn't go but you've been there for 40 of them yeah that went quick that went quick the 100 I don't know but um yeah I went through some some of the fun times not the early what got us started stuff but more of the uh well if you're going to work an organization that fights fraud having a lot of fraud is a lot of fun yeah it's not good on the people that are affected but it's interesting it keeps it interesting right okay so Dan if if people for people who don't know you're the president now you started out in investigations I was the director of Investigations and uh I remember my boss at the time he only goes I don't like that word it implies that we're you know like kind of under I said that's what we do he goes oh yeah meaning like what what did you do I think um this is a fun story I started with the bureau uh investigating the influence of organized criminal people from the witness protection program being relocated into the Houston area from the East Coast they were in timeshare they were in business promotions they were in telemarketing and they were professionals at bringing audiences in they boiler rooms they have order rooms of 100 people and they would bring in peop uh basically gullible people to sell them stuff land property sweepstakes all sorts of garbage and they were people that had really had come out of the organized crime families in the east coast but you're not supposed to know that because they were in the witness protection program a while to figure it out finally I'm talking to people that are you know they're they're Crooks but they're in a new line of business and it's like you're not from around here um and you sound like you might be from Brooklyn yeah you are uh and it's like you had of course they would deny it and uh they got exposed for who they were so that was a fun era we got to work with a lot of regulators we actually I actually got a citation from the FBI for helping to to stop not stop alone but work with a coalition to take down telemarketing for it was a big it was a big thing in the late 80s yeah during the 90s right and then we morphed into some other stuff you know in the cyber world you know the joke about Crooks is they're always one step ahead are we smart I mean there's Amy there's something about the mind of a con artist that makes our world interesting yeah it's because they could be captains of industry but they choose instead they choose to steal right let's call it what it is but they do it in a way that um it's a Sizzle yeah they have to do it it's just like a DNA aberration well in the Better Business Bureau the reason that sort of um I reach out to the Better Business Bureau anytime we're doing a story on a business because you you your organization usually has the back story The how many people have complained um how long they've been in business who was listed as the owner when they started the business versus now you can look businesses up by their phone number so if they've changed names four times but kept the same phone number you know all that we track them yeah yeah but a lot of people these days with the Google reviews and the Yelp reviews um I say check them all but the interesting thing about the Better Business Bureau it's different you were sort of the original place that people went to to complain well yeah we were probably the first ratings and complaint service and I would argue today I'm going to sound a little bit pompous with this I still think we're the cleanest in it in how we do it what are having a set of Standards having a set of guidelines that we work from that said consumerism today is at its Best Time Ever yeah you may not feel that with the economy and with other things but in terms of making decisions I'll email make a statement that can be the 11th commandment on the on the stone you should never be ripped off that's not fair you should never there's enough sources enough weighties to get information so sometimes you're Your Own Worst Enemy so some of those what I call quasi-competitors you mentioned we embrace them in other words when you're looking you're going to hire a contractor look at everything yeah absolutely and you know at the end of the day that you should look at I'm going to point to Anatomy your gut what's it in your brain right okay I've checked all these things what's this telling me what's this guy all about how do I feel about this I see complaints I still read every complaint review we get I have no life but I see them and they go I should have done it's like yes subtle you got it magic words yeah you knew it right you knew it was wrong so okay let's address the elephant in the room a lot of people and you know whenever I do stories or I might post something online but they say oh well they're never gonna you know say anything bad about this business because they're a member all it is is if a business pays to be part of the Better Business Bureau then they're not going to get a bad rating true false well not with us um across the United States there are BBB chapters that probably put over emphasis on their large members I don't and I know there are some that don't eat as well the reality is they sometimes justify in their own brains well it's a big company it's going to get a lot of complaints oh yeah we hear that right like in proportion to how many customers they have yeah and I'll make a reverse argument I'm I'm kind of a a i challenge that because if you're that big you should have mechanisms in place to stop from getting the complaints let's forget about solving them that's a given you're going to have to do that but why are you still getting the pattern so I'm dealing right now with some very large companies in Houston that habitually have been picking up stuff we've been meeting with them we just parted with a two different major energy retailers because they they bought up companies that had bad ratings but of course they didn't ask our permission they're not going to do that they don't care uh but they got kicked out they got kicked out of the Better Business World they were revoked we revocation of membership is like the uh it's excommunication yeah okay it's the big thing it's basically a business has paid to be a member because they want that seal they want to be able to say we're accredited we're a member of the Better Business Bureau and then how do they get kicked out well and just to be fair it's not just that Dan woke up one day feeling cranky and kicked you out it's a pure process we are we as staff come in and make sure it's almost like I refer to it as the grand jury where the staff's the prosecutors the membership Committee of our board the name's a little little bit of a misnomer because it implies they get numbers actually they're the tribunal they set the standards and look at them they're the grand jury they look at our evidence and go up oh maybe whatever and then even then when there are decisions made it either goes to the executive committee of the board so it's it's a double process it's a Control process and generally they're going to agree with the membership company not all the time but generally they'll agree and you're kicked out or you're kept or you're under some like probationary thing we're watching you and you see how your your thing goes so it is a it's not it's not us that that got you it's your peers and and so yeah and so basically though you're looking at maybe complaints from consumers how the business is addressing or if they're actually answering those complaints I'd say the operative big word is pattern I'm looking for I mean some companies are going to get complaints we know it um again members you're you're responsible for taking care of them or being responsible in your answer so that's a given we're already watching I'm looking for why are you picking up and this has been a lot of post-pandemic there's something going I actually did a little thing on our BBB newsletter to our members I said maybe you should be fired before you're hired and that was a provocative headline but what I was trying to say is I get it you're trying to get all the business you can get there are truly supply chain issues we know that there's truly labor and hiring issues we know that there's truly economic factors that make business harder we know that called communication if you're a pool contractor and okay I can't get gunite or I can't get some matter I can't get rebar I can't get a crew I get it but when you don't talk to your customer they're thinking that the magic two words pool fraud move right pool fraud or they filed for bankruptcy and they haven't told me right well again that's and that's even going further you file for bankruptcy or you're not paying Subs well suddenly we just went to a way accelerated area the automobile Market okay it's it's it's their world right now cars are hard to get yeah I mean you're getting away I can't can't deliver to you but I got the chips in the car there's right now as we speak 40 to 50 000 cars at one manufactants Ford sitting that's right yeah yeah and the dealerships dealerships can't really do it Carl on a dealership it's been sold now we hear this may come around in the first of the year chips are starting to come back and and some of the tactics that have been going on like for example uh going over MSRP factories are not approving that right the factories are like you'll sell the car you get your profit we understand that but uh Market adjustment Market adjustment is for Bugattis yeah and drivers that you really have it's not for your everyday twenty two thousand dollar car right so when they're doing that that's greed but it's kind of like if you don't like it there's a line of people that will do it and it's not illegal but again the manufacturer of the vehicles that are provides supplying them with the Vehicles don't want them to do that Amy I'm going to make you a prediction it would probably be January first of the year when things get better you're going to see some car dealerships with new names oh yeah because they will have lost their franchises I mean manufacturers are not happy with some of the stuff going on right at all and so if I'm a consumer I'm filing a complaint with the BBB but I'm somehow letting the Fords or the GMS or you know letting the corporate office know that this local dealership did this or is trying to charge me this amount as bad as you're being treated and all the stuff they're still giving you the survey go well give us a 10 on the server I'd like to give you something well we'll give them a one and go back to the factory knows that hey I was treated this way and right now like car dealers with us it's always it's a roller coaster yeah we're at the real bottom of our roller coaster a lot of them are out a lot of them have gone bad some big dealer groups it'll swing and they'll come back at us too going oh okay suddenly it's now the consumer Market again oh we need to be your friend okay we got some stuff to talk about right last three years so let's talk about this we're going to take a break in a few minutes but before we get there let's talk about what happens when a consumer can't resolve an issue with the business and so then I'm going online I'm making reviews and then I file a complaint with the BBB so because there's a specific protocol of what you do when I go on your website and file a complaint what is that process well I expect to hear back from you yes yes and I think by the way we should be the Second Step first step is unless somebody sounds stupid a business has a reasonable right to know there's a problem and especially with big companies 800 numbers you know call center hell some consumers just give up and go I'm just going right to the beer you still ought to try to reach the owner or if you can yeah but when that fails you come to us you file uh we're headquarters Centric so for many consumers your complaint really isn't our BBB it's going to be somewhere else and hope it's a BBB that takes it seriously if it comes to our office the complaint is reviewed we make sure is it a buyer seller issue it's not a review that should be over in another Silo you're seeking something you're seeing a resolution money whatever and when it's processed it's usually done by email if we have all those addresses if not we may go to snail but generally email and what we asked we don't tell the company you must do this we're not we're not we're not judges we want an answer can you talk to your customer we're trying to bridge that Gap yeah now if the firm is one of our accredited businesses what we call Members okay we're looking with a much heavier filter because they're held to a higher standard so we're looking at that and they could still be right but explain why you are so there's this give and take that goes back what are we looking for at the end of the day resolved right the consumer has said I'm happy the company's like yeah they're happy yeah a lot of our complaints Amy this is frustrating we'll process it the company comes back with uh we're going to take care we're going to fix it and we never hear back right and it's like well okay um that's kind of rude because you guys do follow up and say was this resolved yeah and sometimes we actually even try and we don't hear back yeah so that I would call that part of society they just you know they're not gonna they did their thing they got it fixed they're moving on yeah and but what is unfortunate for that is all of that information that is compiled with a Better Business Bureau is good is a good resource for for other consumers right so if the business comes back and says resolved one maybe it actually wasn't resolved to the customer satisfaction and if the customer doesn't tell you it just goes in the record as they resolved it they fixed it see Amy what you're doing right now is something that I wish all consumers could do but they don't think like you you're taking your reports and you're drilling down to every little facet of it that's really really good I don't know whether people don't have time or they or I don't know but they need to do that well it's like the headlines right the people who just read the headlines like most of us like we're skimming we read the headline we think we've got the whole story and we move on so I got to tell you the last person I've talked to who's done an analysis of complaints that is unusual okay a couple other things how long have they been in business I mean it's an issue how long have they been with us a member or non-member how long have we got a file yeah if you when people call us uh it was a contractor you guys had no report at all that ain't good right that means why that means you're either brand new or you've been off the radar for I mean how it's impossible yeah so that would make I would be very nervous about it coming later even if I one that's been in business five years has two resolved complaints you got history you know yeah I feel better with that one the one we have nothing on right you got to have some information okay when we come back we kind of want to explain the when you go on the BBB and checking out a business because you should do this before you do business with any major company and you're looking at those letter grades we're going to talk about what all that means when we come right back [Music] welcome back I'm joined today with Dan Parsons of the Better Business Bureau of Greater Houston and he's sort of giving us all the inside information everything you ever wanted to know about how it works when you file a complaint with the BBB but also I think a lot of people when we left off we were talking about people not getting the full story not going past just the headline of something so if I go to the Better Business Bureau website and I want to check out a company I see a letter grade I see some reviews I see complaints what should I be looking at all right if you want to do the cheap version and we're going against this but okay if you want to the cheap version the letter grade's important you want to see you I'll be honest you want to see not like School C's not are not good yeah even bees are like you want to see A's and a pluses okay and on the on the numeric grade for Ratings you want to see you know closer to five or four and a half you want that's what you want to see now there may be some reasons with certain companies that those especially the rating might be lower it may be a company that gets just they get a lot of negative reviews but they're in theory okay so that's when you have to start digging deeper what's the nature of the business how long have they been around read some of them especially if you haven't done business with them like don't forget a lot of the with the big companies people are going to look at the reports to validate what they've already run into it's like I got a problem check it first there it is I just saw it um um f rating I'm going to just say it right here what don't don't walk run right why would you see this run just run away right just don't try to sell yourself it's not good when you've got a combination of that and well in a low rating numerical rating you guys say more um I still think and you mentioned it uh earlier the more you look at the report and compare other things the better off your educator you see how long the company's been in business you see who the ownership is that the guy I'm talking about I'm talking to you know is this the address I'm walking into you know people do they have all these resources but they do a limited homework right so they need to dig a little bit deeper in some of this stuff okay so if I'm a member of the BBB do I get an automatic a probably let me explain why the the whole ratings thing is an algorithm and it's based on a number of things membership only accounts for a couple of points so you really have to be so we have like uh you have to be in business three years so we have members that have a minuses okay they're fine they're just still relatively new and by the way I'm editorially I don't like that I know many of these companies were created out of something else that has been around for years right and they're being artificially punished so I don't really agree with our stance on that but it's like it's here it's what we have to all do um sometimes you'll see an A flat a right what you don't want to see Amy is one of those ratings and it's based on complaint volume okay or problems even if it's a member that worries me okay because we already know something's developing and we've got to get on it and stop it so most members are going to get an A plus okay okay um you said something earlier I want to be be clear it's not just paying the dues okay the dues support the bureau as it's like a processing fee you're still going through all the standards and we have some a fair number of non-members who have a pluses okay they have filled out our annual questionnaire about their company they either don't they don't have complaint issues they don't have bad ratings issues they they meet the standards so then let's talk about that so um a BBB or somebody who um doesn't pay the dues to be a BBB member because some businesses say oh my gosh you know we can't afford that but you send companies questionnaires if they wish if they would yeah to fill out and if you're not a member of the BBB and you don't fill that out then obviously there's not much information to share about we'll have you on probably a no rated report unless well that's assuming you don't get complaints okay if you get complaints I mean there's there's really three things that that that bring you to a report accredited businesses complaint history or we're investigating something or we're looking at something if you're just sitting there doing your thing you don't have any any complaints we have an annual questionnaire which again a lot of companies they're not going to take time to fill it out but if they did they did all that they could in theory have an A plus okay now what I would tell consumers is when you're looking on our site a plus but you're not seeing that accredited logo so what's the story it's good I just can't back it as strong as I can back my member right okay chances are you're okay so I don't want to confuse it but it's like you have to make that decision okay so members have gone bad when businesses when businesses go bad when they're accredited they're part of the BBB I mean there's also a system we talked at the very beginning of them losing their membership so that Amy the last two three years have been a record for us we have revoked Monthly our membership committee has been meeting on a monthly basis okay two months ago we revoked rely on energy wow a 40-year member of the bureau uh and not really because of problems with their company problems with companies that their parent had bought that were part of them that had bad ratings now that said here a few months later with all the problems electric providers are getting guess what they're starting to walk into the the complaint trap now and I expect we'll see more of it but that was one of our we struggled with it because it was like at the moment we were looking at them you know guys you're doing door-to-door selling of Retail Energy which has it's just it's you're in Sam's Club people are shopping and you're standing there hustling electricity and it's confusing to Consumers and there's a whole lot of opportunities for things to go wrong or be miscommunicated I mean I keep joking to people if at nine o'clock at night somebody was knocking on my door excuse me pounding on my door and then said that I'm sorry I'm with your light company and that's that's going on around the United States and deregulated markets and we're seeing it come back to Texas yeah the auto people that was that was the beginning of the pandemic we removed them and it never got better right and it went downhill and continues to good now you've got a Texas AG suit so most of the ones we've revoked we feel kind of how to always say self-satisfied that guess what we were right there was something there and by the way some of them we've started the process we've had meetings with them we've tried to understand um and maybe we they've saved it they've got it fixed it around others we've met with them started the revocation let him in let her let him back and then six months later guess what it went South again it's a weird time yeah absolutely one thing that has stayed consistent that you guys have always done that I was sort of um thought was fascinating is that you guys it's it's not just consumers who file complaints and letting the consumer side and the business side taking it both in and making decisions you guys also meet monthly with law enforcement agencies I'll explain this and then I have to kill you we have a we have a coalition it's got a real real real not uh obscure name it's called the Greater Houston consumer protection group it's a it's a coalition of State local Federal Regulators it's the people that handle fraud from the DEA to the attorney general the U.S attorney the FBI the all these government and basically it's a Clearinghouse I mean I'll have the Attorney General sitting in the room going we're looking about filing a suit on so and so and suddenly the FBI goes we've heard of just arrested them yeah okay you guys ain't talking so good go talk and we eliminate duplication plus we we do a little bit of preaching like hey can somebody look at this area can we do something on this um and this group Amy has been meeting for 50 years wow it's not new we've been here for a long time it's fairly confidential but we get um we see action being done don't forget at the end of the day we're we're the original anti-regulators business self-regulation so government doesn't have to have to do it so this is where it's failed this is where it's gone beyond us beyond the media Beyond social media to okay the government's going to have to do something because nobody else will right and so I've asked to go to those meetings and never get invited I can't imagine what uh and you would have a field day but but what is interesting is so I can I could call Dan I could call the Better Business Bureau and say hey we're getting a lot of complaints about this you can tell me oh we've had this many complaints we've communicated with this business or we haven't and there have been times where you've said we're having our meeting coming up I'll bring this up and see what other agencies have heard about and In fairness some of the people in that group are ones you've interviewed they're the ones on your beat yeah for consumerism and so it's kind of good to know in the meaning that hey this state this this reporter investigative reporter is looking at this good you know they may want it on their terms but it's like there's another set of eyes and ears to move forward right so they're there I don't want to say they're all uh in love with the me media but they understand it's a partner to what we're doing yeah yeah no and certainly we appreciate that okay so we've gotten a lot of great information but before we go I just want to let people know about the ways that they can interact with use the Better Business Bureau because it's not just businesses you have a whole charity aspect of it that sort of only gets touted or brought up like one time a year usually when people are giving end of year giving is when you guys usually tell people that you grade rate a review of Charities Amy when people ask why do you do that isn't that the IRS and I'm like are you kidding me the IRS gives you a thing that says you're a charity go save the world we ask a lot of nosy questions we really do our biggest competitors charity Navigator and I'll be honest we're not real crazy about them they use they they want to see money in the bank lots of money in the bank okay and that's not a bad goal but the problem is Charities go through just like businesses up and downs we have 20 standards I'm going to tell you right now any legitimate charity that has due process uh well there's basically two things we're looking for we do want to see most of the money going to the mission yeah but we want to see governance we want to see oversight we want to see that there's a board there's a policy there's a privacy issue there's diversity you are governing your charity properly I'm not talking about the kid with the lemonade stand I'm not worried about that right I'm talking about the big organization that gets status from the Internal Revenue Service that none of us get and so we ask some pretty nosy stuff um and Charities I'm going to say this are businesses because if you're not running would like one you ain't gonna be around long and there's it's like a pie yeah do you have any triggers use the word cancer in their name or I use the word or or Pat or animal driven uh-huh dozens right and so the pie gets cut very thin so we're basically looking are you meeting those two things okay so when you give at the end of the year it's another great resource to say Hey you know with this agency how much are they paying their their employees how much is actually going to the mission it's a good place to check the other thing that's not really new but maybe new maybe a lot of people don't know about it is scam tracker scam tracker was created a few years ago and our national group I don't I don't applaud them on a lot of the things they come up with but this was a good one um it was literally a chance for people to come out and by the way it's very heavily edited we look at it closely and sometimes people go to the convenience store have a bad experience and go that's a scam no yeah it may not have been a good business actually that needs to go to our complaint center right but we're looking for just downright fraud we're looking for you know you're you're a crook and we vet it and we have little dots there's actually it takes a full-time employee yeah to monitor that across the country so it has become a big Avenue for spotting like we're where scams are appearing and who's behind them right very cool and then obviously people know about complaints they can file a complaint with the BBB if they're looking for your assistance in getting their complaint results you just said it beautifully there's complaints and reviews complaints are when you're seeking action I'm seeking money resolution uh I'm seeking something tangible reviews are I just want to give my opinion okay and we and they blend we look at them sometimes we're like that's really not a review you're seeking something you need to file it over here or we'll get a review that goes uh you know I need this well it's a complaint so we have to sometimes help them out to find the right Silo but you can read both of them when you go to the Better Business Bureau website I should read both because sometimes they're different things you know like like is there's an expression so the customer always right no one hell no um but they are the customer like Hospitality those ones that crack us up because your experience with food is your experience with food right and restaurants some of them are just super smooth and healthy and others ignore us they just ignorance yeah I could tell they tore up through the garbage and and what that does to the to the response rate I mean you got they're going to get dinged for that right yeah well an unanswered complaint on a business that we don't have any information on that's probably small would send them to an immediate d-minus yeah right and that's ridiculous because you just like them acknowledging the complaint here's what actually happened or we didn't know about this thanks for letting us know I I see the inbound complaints and I'm flagged certain ones that I want to see what the answer comes back because sometimes it's interesting it's like I'm well that was bad or if it's one of our members I get very worried and then I see it come back it's like okay well that wasn't what we heard right okay and when the consumer doesn't come back to argue it it's like well you didn't quite tell me the full story all right Dan I appreciate you coming in and sort of giving us all the background um we hope that the BBB has another 100 years in Houston I mean out of like 99 Better Business bureaus across nation and real quick I'm like oh we're done except I just wanted to say so if I file a complaint with the Houston Better Business Bureau but it turns out that that business is headquartered in another city you guys get it where it needs to be the zip code you put in for the company or if you don't do a weekend flight is what determines it okay so if your comp if you're complaining against like one of the biggest in the country uh United Airlines it's going to be Chicago yeah automatically you can send it to us but we're gonna we know that's where they're based if your complaint is on vroom and you're file in the Chicago BBB it's coming to us okay they know it's us okay all right thank you so much for coming in we hope that you guys learned a little bit today thanks so much for joining us for this episode of ask Amy
2022-10-29 03:17
