Credit: Carmen of charmandhappy.com

In 2010, Carmen of charmandhappy.com was featured on the news show 20/20 on ABC. The 20/20 show was about the Better Business Bureau was being accused by business owners of selling grades for money. The show showed a few business owners running a sting on the BBB where they made up companies and were given an A after paying a membership fee. Many business owners felt this was nothing but a shakedown racket.

Carmen’s company provides clowns for businesses. Charm and Happy Clowns was listed on the Better Business Bureau’s website with a C- because of a two-year old complaint which had already been resolved. Carmen was told by a BBB telemarketer she had to pay a membership fee to remove the C-. Carmen paid $395.00 and the very next day her grade was changed to an A+. Carmen’s concern was if she is paying for a grade then how is the consumer supposed to trust the BBB?

In June of 2015, I reached out to Carmen to see how things were in the past five years. I asked the following questions and here are the answers:

Q: When the BBB found out about what was going on. Did the BBB give you your money back?

Before the 20/20 news story aired.

A: The Better Business Bureau did not give me my money back. At the end of the year, the BBB asked if I wanted to rejoin and I astutely said, “No way.” The BBB ended up charging my card for the full year amount. I shockingly could not believe they would even dare do that since there dealing with me. But the BBB did reverse the charges for the new charge.

Q: What happened after the news story aired? What happened with the BBB and your grade?

A: Nothing, they made no contact. The grade stayed as an A+ for the year. Then the next year after they reversed the charges for the membership, I had no grade and was not listed at all even as a business listing of a nonmember.

Q: I know your grade was a C- before the news story aired and on the story you got your grade changed to an A+. Now in 2015 its listed as a “no rating”. Do you know why your listing says “no rating”?

A: Yes, because I did not want to be a paid member.

Q: Have you had any other interaction with the Better Business Bureau since the news story aired?

After Carmen paid for membership with BBB.

A: The only interaction was when the BBB wanted me to renew the membership and when I called upset that the BBB had charged my card in full after I already stated I did not wish to renew.
Q: Please tell me anything you can about issues or happenings with the Better Business Bureau.

A: Before the TV exposure, for years the BBB would try to solicit membership on the grounds that they claimed clients checked with them for trust issues. Being a member would help clients trust the business. I would tell them I have excellent references from celebrities, schools, high profile companies, parents, and churches.

As of today Charmed and Happy, Clowns is listed as “no rating” with no complaints within in the last three years. Wonder why?

How charmandhappy.com is listed today.

The Better Business Bureau has been well respected for many years. That was because the BBB was impartial. The Attorney General at the time Richard Blumenthal said: “the grading system is unworthy of consumer trust.” The Attorney General at the time Richard Blumenthal sent a demand letter to the BBB calling on them to stop using the nationwide grading system. The Attorney General at the time Richard Blumenthal said: “the grading system is harmful and misleading to consumers.”

Credit: blumenthal.senate.gov

The Better Business Bureau later did close down the Los Angeles BBB and vowed to make changes and use a new system. But has the BBB changed?

After looking through hundreds of companies who became paid members, it seems they have not. Almost all paid members have some sort of “A”. I understand the members must follow the BBB’s rules, but it is hard for one to believe all those members deserve an “A.”

Do you think the Better Business Bureau is stilling giving out good grades to paid members? Please tell NIR News in the comments below.

The post Is The Better Business Bureau Really Better? appeared first on NIR News / National Investigative Report.

Rip-off Report is characterized as a worldwide customer reporting publication and website to customers, by customers to file and report complaints with regards to individuals or companies. Whereas this site promotes and even necessitates authors to purely file honest and unbiased reports, Rip-off Report does not guarantee that all reports are accurate or authentic. Just because an individual or company is reported on Rip-off Report, this does not mean that customers should not make business with them.

As a suggestion to customers, they should read what they can and make the decision depending upon their assessment to all accessible data. As opposed to the Better Business Bureau, Ripoffreport does not conceal reports of satisfied complaints. Each and every complaint remains unedited and in public and so to make a working history on an individual or a company in a question.

Update on Latest ROR News

Credit: Facebook

To mind their own business, and;
It is not his fault that people are stupid enough to believe what they read on this site and online.

His main problem is about how corrupt and dumb the legal system in America is. For him, the judges who protect ROR are just absurd. Why would they do so if ROR is a total scam? He compares ROR to a pawnshop for they are the center for extortion and blackmail. He says that the practice of these two is just the same, except for the fact that a pawnshop:1) gets an ID; 2) get a signature; and 3) get a fingerprint of a customer.

Jerome wants to teach ROR, together with its partner, which is chiefly Google, a lesson. For him, ROR is pure grade school BS. It is so ridiculous that people are stupid enough to believe everything on the site. Google is the partner and enabler of ROR. The former have spent more than a million dollars fighting one of the people Jerome works with.

Jerome hopes that the ROR owners will go in prison and that Google will lose its business. He will definitely be the first among the many who will celebrate once Rip-off Report goes down and loses its business. If the site does not have mercy, Jerome is sure that soon enough, it will get its bad karma. Many businesses have closed because of ROR. Many businesses have lost great revenue too because of ROR. Moreover, many have lost their jobs because of the false postings in this site.

The post Jerome Almon’s Consumer News Report About Ripoffreport appeared first on NIR News / National Investigative Report.

A worldwide gathering of learned people, lawyers, and activists drove by Australian Dr. Janice Duffy, American Jerome Almon, and a few subjects of the European Union are calling for Congress, government powers, and web crawler titans Google, Yahoo, and Bing to close down the website because of claims contained in a criminal arraignment against one of the webpage’s essayists in the condition of Iowa. Extra affirmations including the staggering impact the site have had on the military and veterans that are posted on RipoffReport.

As indicated by the Australian daily paper The Sydney Morning Herald, Dr. Janice Duffy has documented a common dispute against the Ripoff Report, Google, Yahoo7 (Australia), and Bing. The gathering has reached the U.S. Branch of Justice, both the House and Senate Veteran’s Affairs Committees, and approached internet searcher boss and organizers Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Marissa Mayer, and Bill Gates to inspect the issue and to address it openly.

The gathering likewise takes note of that the new Net Neutrality leads as of late went by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) don’t address the significant issues contained in the Iowa arraignment extending from data fraud, hacking, to digital blackmail. The association further notes that the main 3 vengeance porn proprietors, who utilized Ripoff Report as their plan of action, were all as of late indicted various wrongdoings as indicated by Fox News, ABC news, CNN, and CBS news (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/04/california-revenge-porn-site-operator-sentenced-to-18-years/).

Mr. Almon and Ms. Duffy caution that the disappointment of lawmakers, internet searcher CEOs, and controllers to act has prompted the tremendous hacking embarrassments that have shaken Home Depot, Anthem, Target, JP Morgan, and the late billion dollar bank hacking episode found by Russian digital security firm Kaspersky Labs as per CNBC. The association cautions of a Bernie Madoff-like miss by powers. As indicated by a late CNN review, trust in web security has dropped to an untouched low because of such significant hacking episodes. The gathering notes that a large portion of the bank and corporate programs started as spammers and retribution porn site proprietors. As per various media reports going back to the 1980s, Bill Gates conjecture the peril that spammers spoke to the internet and security.

The post American, Australian, And European Group Calls For Shut Down Of Ripoff Report appeared first on NIR News / National Investigative Report.