Better Business Bureau Aims For Ethical Market

Janet Robb completed the purchase form, tucking it and $28 in cash into a white envelope addressed to Space Pioneers of Rogers.

Scribbling on the form, though, was but one small step in the giant leap she took for mankind. Robb had just purchased an acre of the moon — for $28.

One year later, the story still amuses the president and CEO of the Arkansas Better Business Bureau as she relays the tale from her office on Kanis Road in Little Rock.

Robb reads from a printout of the Web site of the company, which has since disappeared.

“Space Pioneers is not driven by one man’s dream. It’s an all-out effort of the human race pulling together to secure our place in history. We intend to focus mankind on the new age of man’s exploration and colonization of space. Make a ripple in time. Become a space pioneer. Buy an acre of the moon from our official government claim,” she reads with verve.

As if that wasn’t enough, Robb’s acre, “as designated by the lunar tract records,” she quotes while nearly doubling over with laughter, was located in Stardust Hills.

Needless to say, the company had no official government claim to subdivisions on the moon.

Sniffing out scams like Space Pioneers, which Robb calls the most absurd scheme she has seen in her 15 years at the helm of the BBB, is but one facet of the nonprofit organization that aims to be the sheriff of an ethical Arkansas marketplace.

The BBB collects information on member and nonmember businesses and grades them A through F.

The BBB instituted that system toward the end of 2008, before which it merely tagged businesses with either a satisfactory or an unsatisfactory status.

The BBB gathers information from a variety of channels, including regulatory agencies and consumer complaints.

Robb said all complaints must be in writing.

“We want it to be in their words. We don’t want to misinterpret what their complaint is,” she said.

While many variables weigh on a company’s grade, one exists that can immediately knock a company to an F: not responding to a complaint.

“The worst thing a company can do is to fail to respond to a complaint,” Robb said.

Failing to respond to a complaint also makes the company eligible for expulsion from the BBB.

“It’s not bad to have a complaint. If you’re in business for any length of time and have any amount of success, you’re going to have a complaint. You can’t please everyone,” Robb said. “So the key is not that you get it. The key is what you do when you get it.”

The BBB operates on a three-year reporting period. After three years, companies get a clean slate, Robb said, even formerly expelled companies.

For example, Crain Automotive Holdings LLC is reapplying for BBB accreditation.

Back in 2006, Crain became entangled in an advertising controversy that resulted in fines imposed by the Arkansas Motor Vehicle Commission, the state’s regulation arm for auto dealers.

But Crain’s management didn’t realize that any sort of government action against a company results in expulsion from the BBB.

Crain didn’t battle the AMVC’s action. But if he had it to do over, Larry Crain Jr. might have proceeded differently.

“We didn’t because we were trying to be a good licensee and trying to work with the commission to accept their findings without making a bigger case out of it than we felt like at the time that it needed to be,” Crain said.

“In retrospect, if we had known the ramifications that it would cause with the Better Business Bureau, then certainly we would have appealed that decision,” he said.

Crain said the auto group is taking steps to become reaccredited, largely because of the public’s perception.

“I think it’s critical to auto dealers to be members because the public perceives the Better Business Bureau as a quasi-governmental [entity]. … And our failure to be a member is perceived negatively in a certain portion of the car-buying community.”

Crain isn’t the only car dealer to be kicked out of the bureau.

The BBB revoked the accreditation of the defunct McKay Hyundai of Pine Bluff in January 2007 and of Toyota of Northwest Arkansas of Rogers in May 2008. Ken Morrand, general manager of Toyota of Northwest Arkansas, said he did not know why the dealership’s accreditation had been revoked.

The company did stop paying fees to the BBB in 2008, he said. But he was wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the removal or not.

If a company that hasn’t been slapped with government action is eligible for expulsion, Robb said, the BBB gives it fair warning.

“We warn the company. There are no surprises here,” she said. “They always have the opportunity to cure the behavior that may be violating the standard.”

The BBB staff of 17 processes and deals with complaints and eventually makes a recommendation to the board if expulsion should be considered. The board is composed of members from a variety of industries, which helps guard against one board member getting a competitor kicked out of the BBB.

Removal of a company from the BBB requires a majority vote from the board, which currently consists of 26 Arkansas business executives who serve three-year terms, plus Robb and a lawyer who acts as legal counsel.

Current board members elect new board members by a majority vote. Anyone in a management position at an Arkansas business can apply to be on the board.

The Money
Robb recognized the potential conflict of interest than can result when deciding to expel a business, given that accreditation dollars fund the BBB.

Accreditation fees range from $300 to $4,000 depending on the size of the business. Revenue grew 10 percent to $991,000 in 2008. As of June 19, the BBB had generated $483,000 this year.

While accreditation dollars are critical, Robb said, keeping the money separate from the BBB’s duty to the public is even more important.

“All we have to sell is our objectivity and our trustworthiness,” she said.

As a rule, the BBB won’t accept an accreditation application from a company that has a pending complaint or has had a complaint in the last 30 days.

Robb said she had seen a slight dip in membership lately, which she attributed to the shuttering of many former member businesses.

The BBB hasn’t, however, seen a shortage of scams.

“The con artists are always out there. It doesn’t matter,” Robb said. “They’re there in a good economy. They’re there in a bad economy. They’re there when it rains. They’re there when the sun shines.

“The only thing that changes, ever, is the way they package their scheme to separate somebody from their money.”

The businesses that have survived the economic body blow, though, are sticking with the BBB, she said.

“The issue of trust is so important out there. Nobody really knows whether to believe their banker anymore, their mortgage agent, their 401(k) is in the tank. You think, ‘This is the company that’s been around since dirt was created,’ and now they’re in bankruptcy. We’re in a very strange business climate right now,” Robb said.

“Everybody’s a little bit gun-shy, a little bit spongy. So they’re really looking for something they can latch onto and trust. And so we have found that more and more people are coming to us looking for businesses.

“Businesses know that. They want to stay with us and stay accredited.” 

Arkansas BBB Board
Steven G. Booth, JPMS Cox PLLC

Terry Borreson, Arkansas Federal Credit Union

Elizabeth Bowles, Aristotle Inc.

Greg Chastine, GFC Computer Services

Charles Coleman, Wright Lindsey & Jennings LLP  (counsel and non-voting member)

Tom Compton, Roller Funeral Home

Sam Custer, Sir Speedy Printing

Mike Davidson, Parkway Automotive Service LLC

Charles Enderlin, Oak Forest Cleaners

Melinda Faubel, AT&T Arkansas

Glenn Gallas, Mr. Rooter of Central Arkansas

Kim Hanke, Hanke Brothers Siding & Windows

Gary Heathcott, Heathcott Associates Inc.

Wanda Jackson-Cohns, Consumer Credit Counseling Service

Becki Lewis, Riverfront Wyndham Hotel

Harry Light, Friday Eldredge & Clark

Maggie Milligan, Milligan Management Services Inc.

Janet J. Robb, Better Business Bureau (non-voting member)

John Rudd, JMR Insurance

Jimmy Russell, Sideco/Windco Inc.

Barry Simon, Datamax Office Systems

Laura Stanley, Stanley Jewelers Gemologists Inc.

Chad Tillery, Allen Tillery Chevrolet

Todd Turner, Arnold Batson Turner & Turner PA

Michael J. West, Arkansas Investigations Inc.

Doug White, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.

Michael J. Wilson, Comcast Cablevision of Arkansas

Steve Winchester, Time Plus Payroll