Arlington, VA

NIR News has looked over the complaints submitted to the FTC and has found since 07/2002 to 10/2015 there has been 429 complaints about the Better Business Bureau. And 24 of them are from military members.

Most of the complaints deal with deception and misrepresentation. Some of the complaints have been marked as TSR/other. I am not sure what that marking is. It is something the FTC uses.

The Better Business Bureau is supposed to be the champion for the consumer and stop bad companies from doing wrong. The question is if the BBB is doing this, then why do they have some many complaints?

Many complaints are from small business owners who either did not fill out the questionnaire they send out of they did not send it in time.

Other complaints deal with consumers complaining because the BBB sided with the accredited member even thou they had proof of wrongdoing.

A few complaints are from companies who have been asking to become accredited members. Some said when they refused their grade dropped. Others said when they did join their grade went up.

Granted some of these companies was before the 20/20 ABC story revealing that the BBB was selling memberships for grades. Even thou, the president of the BBB at the time, said it was an isolated issue. After reviewing the list of complaints, I would beg to differ.

Other facts show the issues are still happening. I think the BBB needs a complete overhaul of all policies and procedures.

What do you think needs to be done? Comment below and tell NIR News what you think.

The post The Ugly Truth About The Better Business Bureau Scandal appeared first on NIR News / National Investigative Report.

Last January, the operator of RipOffReport.com, which is the Xcentric Ventures, LLC filed a federal lawsuit in Iowa looking to block any further investigation of its activities by Sac Country, Iowa District Attorney Ben Smith. He had indicted one ROR operative, Darren Meade for witness tampering and other charges. In addition to this, RipOffReport sought an injunction blocking Attorney Ben Smith from further pursuing the investigation and last week a federal magistrate recommended granting the injunction in part.

Apart from this, the court rejected the claim of RipOffReport since “there is substantial evidence suggesting that the plaintiffs materially contributed to the alleged illegality of the information at issue. As noted above, there is an undisputed connection between Magedson and Meade concerning the Richer case, as they have participated in a “common cause” to free Richer. Xcentric made substantial payments to Meade while he was gathering information and posting complaints about the case. Including complaints with titles that associate certain state’s witnesses with illegal and embarrassing conduct.”

RipOffReport attempts to argue that, although it paid Meade substantial sums it didn’t have any advance involvement. And this is one of the reasons why the court rejected the claim, noting that it could not believe that RipOffReport was blissfully unaware of what Meade was planning to post. Meade has testified that RipOffReport founder Ed Magedson directed him to make posts about Bennet Kelley out of concern that he might represent one of their adversaries.

Despite the fact that the record indicated that RipOffReport had conspired with Meade. The magistrate recommended granting the injunction since it found Smith’s actions to be retaliatory for their posting negative content about him on each of RipOffReport pages.
The court explained, “there is substantial evidence that Smith’s actions have been motivated, in large part, by statements made about him on RipOffReport. Smith admits that he has worked over a thousand hours and has issued over one hundred subpoenas during his investigation into RipOffReport. Smith presented no evidence that in his role of Sac Country Attorney, he has devoted similar time and resources to other investigations of potential misdemeanor offenses.

The finder of fact could easily determine that Smith is treating this investigation differently, and indeed obsessively, because he is angry and embarrassed by RipOffReport posts that have criticized and ridiculed him. But this ignores the fact that Sac Country is a tiny country with only 10,350 people.

Most small counties like Sac Country are not normally targeted for abuse by large websites so that this investigation would take substantially more of Smith’s time than prior cases. The court recommended limiting the injunction only to Smith such that it would not prevent the Attorney General of Iowa or a special prosecutor from investigating potential criminal charges against plaintiffs. It means RipOffReport is by no means out of danger of indictment.

If you want to know the opinion of the Court, please feel free to visit this website for more information:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/275219321/Xcentric-Ventures-v-Ben-Smith-Injunction-Order

The post Magistrate Gives RipOffReport Split Decision To Where They Still Could Be Prosecuted appeared first on NIR News / National Investigative Report.