This is a personal editorial based upon my own negative experience with using the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to research the reputation of two businesses, Crystal Springs Water (aka DS Waters) and IPA_IGA (International Profit Associates).
It turns out you cannot rely on your local BBB to provide information on any business that is NOT headquartered in the same area... read this and understand
Recently I had two personal and negative consumer situations where I consulted the Orlando area BBB website about two separate firms, and found no negative information because BBB Orlando does NOT list complaints for out of area businesses, but you don’t know that. They don’t disclose it, and don’t list complaints even if the business has a branch office in the local area.
Then, as an experienced corporate auditor, I did further research and found the following about Crystal Springs Water (provides home delivery of bottled water) and International Profit Associates, a consulting firm that hires business consultants via the Orlando Sentinel Careercenter website:
1) Crystal Springs Water – aka DS Waters – I signed up for their service for home delivery of drinking water at an arts show in Mount Dora. Later, I terminated the agreement and found there was a $100 termination fee buried in the contract that I don’t remember seeing. I am convinced the salesman covered up the section listing the termination fee when I signed the agreement at the show. After four phone calls to Crystal Springs operations, which are all out of state, I found out they had charged me the termination fee even though I canceled after the 12 month active period for the termination fee. However, they had already turned my account over to a collection firm (again, out of state in California) which was invoicing me and implying they would damage my credit rating if I did not pay. Magically, the Crystal Springs collection agency added $132.12 MORE to the amount due, and their computerized invoice had a large math error. I found that Crystal Springs has an office in Orlando, and filed an Orlando BBB report on them, but the Orlando BBB refused to enter a complaint in the local system, sending me a note they had forwarded the complaint to the out of state BBB where the holding company DS waters was located. Their letter said “Better Business Bureaus do not handle complaints outside their local service area, which enables them to have more accurate information.” However, after that complaint was filed with the Atlanta area BBB, Crystal Springs did reverse the charge, and even sent me a $36 refund which was due me, because they had offset the credit due against that improper $100 termination fee. Even though I asked for an apology letter from the regional sales manager, they never provided anything.
So, I got my money back, but the lessons learned are to never get water delivery from Crystal Springs, AND that the BBB is no longer a reliable place to check out a company because the odds are that it is from out of state and you are looking at the wrong BBB. I assume BBB does it that way since they make revenues from charging local firms to join the BBB and to resolve issues. DS Waters owns Crystal Springs and several other firms, and you have to search on the internet. If you go to the Atlanta BBB website at www.atlanta.bbb.org and enter Crystal Springs, a list will popup listing FIVE DS Water / Crystal springs accounts. If you look at the headquarters, you won’t find any complaints. They also list FIVE DBA names, which means it is hard to know what name to search for consumer complaints. This leads me to believe that they have created straw man accounts to put complaints under, so you can’t find them listed under the HQ name. Even more confusing, Crystal Springs uses an invoice address in Texas, so they clearly are using multiple mailing addresses to make it very hard to find consumer information about them.
Finally, after scrolling down the Atlanta BBB at http://atlanta.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=39&bbb=0443&firm=2864 I found this entry:
“The BBB processed a total of 250 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total of 250 complaints closed in 36 months, 107 were closed in the last year.”
Thus this water company had 250 complaints filed with the Atlanta BBB (only by those who could track them to the Atlanta BBB), but any Orlando resident would not know that unless they went to the Atlanta BBB website.
2) International Profit Associates – aka IPA-IGA - This firm advertises in the Orlando Sentinel jobs website, Careerbuilder. Careerbuilder doesn’t review the quality of the job advertisers the way Ladders does, and this firm turned out to be very flaky. I almost went to work for them, and even paid for airfare to Chicago before further research found quite a bit of negative information. They look for accounting and auditing professionals to sell consulting services to small businesses. These positions require significant travel, and the new employee is required to pay initial travel and expenses upfront. Again, if you looked them up in the Orlando area BBB, you won’t find anything negative, because they don’t even have an office in the Orlando area. They are based in the Chicago area (where later I found over 400 complaints on the Chicago area BBB at http://chicago.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=46&bbb=0654&firm=54000004 ). However, if you do a web search on IPA-IGA you will find a few complaints with many details at www.ripoffreports.com BUT if you search on the long corporate name of International Profit Associates you will find MANY more detailed complaints, including ones from customers as well as employees. It is an eye opener. Further research on the internet found many complaints on the www.Inc-500.com website produced by the publisher of INC magazine, which wrote an expose on IPA_IGA (which also lists several different websites in their literature.) This firm has a constant pattern of using skilled professionals to enter small businesses, sell consulting packages up to $49,000 for large commissions, then sending in unskilled consultants that generate most of the complaints.
Read more at:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q5=international%20profit%20associates&q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit2=Search!&Search=Search
And here is an article from a new employee that took the type of position advertised in the Orlando Sentinel’s Careerbuilder website: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/325/RipOff0325274.htm
And, if you go to www.Inc.com and search on International Profit Associates, you will find about 40 blog complaints about them, plus reference to the initial article in INC magazine.
In conclusion, BBB is not a reliable source for researching businesses where their headquarters is out of the area. I much prefer www.ripoffreports.com as an alternative, because they show you all the text in complaints, and don’t remove them even if the company pays a fee to be a “member”. BBB does not show complaint details and is no longer relevant as a consumer search source except for small, local businesses (and then, I would use Angie’s list, which is completely independent).
Vance Jochim
