How many better business bureaus are there

Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. If you're looking for a new wireless service provider or a local plumber, for instance, you might check out the BBB profiles of businesses you're considering for an added degree of confidence.

Or, if there's a charity you'd like to support, you might do the same to make sure it's legitimate. But how trustworthy is the rating organization itself? Here's a closer look at how the BBB works—and what its limitations are.

The bureau also provides consumer education and offers several programs aimed at helping businesses adopt best practices. The BBB collects revenue through corporate memberships, which allows it to provide consumers access to its directory of business profiles at no cost. Through its website , individuals can look up specific businesses or browse providers in a particular industry. Each profile contains basic information about the company, including its address, phone number, and number of years in operation.

These ratings are based on a variety of factors, with some components being weighed more than others. Each business is awarded or deducted points for its performance in 13 distinct areas, with a total possible score of The most heavily weighted factors include the number of unresolved complaints and unanswered complaints for the business, the type of business, failure to honor mediation or arbitration, and the presence of any government actions against the company.

The numerical score is, in turn, converted to a letter grade. BBB recommends that consumers consider a business's BBB rating in addition to all other available information about the business. While these ratings are intended to help users make better consumer choices, the BBB does not actually recommend specific businesses. Another important role of the Better Business Bureau is to act as a facilitator for disputes between consumers and a given business.

Alternatively, they can write to their local BBB chapter with the relevant details of the case. Accredited businesses must respond to complaints in a satisfactory manner in order to maintain their designation. For nonaccredited entities, responding to complaints is voluntary.

However, doing so helps improve their BBB rating, which can be a powerful incentive in its own right. Once a consumer files a complaint, the business is expected to respond within 14 days. In cases where the business does not respond or is engaging in illegal acts, the Attorney General, as the chief law enforcement officer in the state, can step in and take legal action on the consumer's behalf.

The BBB cannot. Sometimes you can see that a company has an "A" rating with the BBB, and these scores are often tossed around in advertisements, but that doesn't mean the company is trustworthy. It simply means that the company has upheld its obligation to the BBB and followed their membership rules. Ratings come from a variety of factors from time in business to the number of complaints received, both answered and unanswered.

Please note that we are not discouraging consumers from using the BBB. While the BBB cannot force a company to do anything, the BBB does offer consumers valuable insight into companies and may be able to resolve issues through arbitration. In cases where a consumer decides to use BBB complaint resolution, the consumer should also explore other complaint avenues available at the same time. Reitter further cautions that a perfect BBB score and no complaints is not an indication of a perfect company.

Just like the North Carolina Consumers Council, the vast majority of BBB affiliates work with the communities in which they are based to educate consumers about the consumer marketplace. While there have been cases of local affiliates, such as the BBB of Southland that served the greater Los Angeles area, being expelled from the organization, the vast majority have dedicated staffs that genuinely want to help consumers and prevent problems before they occur.

Bold Staffing Solutions, a Texas sales firm, was given this failing grade by the Dallas BBB, which warned on its website that the public could be misled by the company's sales calls. Bold declined to comment, but has said online that it has more than a dozen BBB clients.

Aggressive sales tactics: A former senior manager on Bold Staffing's sales team, Mike Santorella, says the contractor deserved that F. The salesperson would start the call by telling the business owner that there had been a surge in people visiting that company's BBB page -- even though this wasn't the case. When the owner said they hadn't noticed any increase in sales recently, the Bold salesperson would tell them that they must be losing that business to competitors that boast the BBB's seal of approval by paying for membership.

Memberships had to be approved by the local BBB, but they got good at knowing which bureaus were more likely to "sweep it under the rug" and approve any company's membership.

As an organization that prides itself on keeping businesses honest, he said the BBB should be ashamed to be working with a company like this. Beyond membership: Membership dues are often just the first chunk of money the BBB gets from a business. Once a company signs up, local bureaus have a host of other services they offer -- for an added cost.

The Council of Better Business Bureaus, the umbrella organization for the independently run bureaus located across the country, even charges the federal government for access to some of its consumer complaint information. And because the IRS deems the organization a nonprofit, cash-flush bureaus benefit from year-end tax savings and the whole organization enjoys the favorable public perception that comes with the distinction of being a nonprofit, tax experts say.

Where the money goes: The BBB says that membership dues are used to fund the many services it provides to consumers and businesses -- like the ratings it gives millions of companies to help consumers make smart business decisions. But through its months-long investigation of the BBB, CNNMoney found that this rating system -- a key part of what the organization's reputation is built on -- is seriously flawed, with more than companies in hot water with government agencies receiving A ratings Read more here.