Better Business Bureau Needs Oversight Following Charges of Pay-to-Rate

The Better Business Bureau could benefit from tighter government oversight following recent allegations that it has maintained a pay-to-rate scheme for years.

For decades, the Better Business Bureau has been the gold standard for the validation of solid business practices. We all rely on the BBB's ratings system to determine whether a company is worthy of our dollars or not. To learn now that the BBB might have been scamming us all this time is heartbreaking. If these charges are true, it is betrayal at the most basic level. If these charges are true, and I hope they are not, the Federal Trade Commission needs to take a long hard look at how to cure the damage that has been done to consumers.

The other problem here is that the Better Business Bureau manages several industry self-regulatory schemes. These include the very successful program guarding children's advertising to the newly-developed program to monitor the marketing of so-called junk foods by 16 of the top food and beverage manufacturers, and the monitoring of infomercials. While those programs are self-contained, the BBB's actions cast a very dark cloud over the practice of self-regulation altogether.

In the interest of consumer confidence, the FTC needs to take a much closer look at the BBB--a consumer icon that may have fallen on the wrong side of the ethical line.

(c) 2010. Adonis E. Hoffman