BBB of Toledo, Ohio rates Joe's employer "unsatisfactory"

[EmeraldCityGrl]

BBB Reliability Report for
Newell, A.W. Plumbing & Heating
BBB Rating Unsatisfactory
BBB issues Reliability Reports on all businesses, whether or not they are BBB accredited. If a business is a BBB Accredited Business, it is stated in this report


.
Name: Newell, A.W. Plumbing & Heating
Phone: [phone]
Address: 2638 Talmadge Rd.
Toledo, OH 43606
Original Business Start Date: March 1974
Principal: Mr. Alan Newell, President
Customer Contact: Mr. Alan Newell, President - [phone]
TOB Classification: Plumbing Contractors
BBB Accreditation: This company is not a BBB Accredited business.


http://toledo.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=101&bbb=0422&firm=7000258

[fishnfla]

1. Hey Sam offer 249, 999!!!

and advertise " under newd management"

[EmeraldCityGrl]

4. something tells me he'll be able to buy it for a song.

[speedoo]

2. Oh Joe, Joe.

See what you did. Now the world knows your company of employment is not BBB accredited.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

5. 15 minutes of fame will get you heartache every time.

[LiberalHeart]

14. On Daily Show: "The last 12 minutes are a rectal exam."

[yardwork]

18. It's not just not accredited - it's rated "unsatisfactory" because of unresolved complaints.

From the BBB website, it appears that being accredited or not has nothing to do with the rating. Accreditation is voluntary. The rating is a result of customer complaints:

"BBB issues Reliability Reports on all businesses, whether or not they are BBB accredited."

[LiberalHeart]

3. Ha. I was just about to post that. Wonder if that customer will be coming forward.

[TomInTib]

6. There is no way that you can make this stuff up.

This is hilarious.

KnR

[bertman]

7. Please don't jump to any conclusions about the company based on this.

Better Business Bureau accreditation is something a business PAYS FOR. Every year they solicit my company for membership but we decline because we have an outstanding reputation with our clientele and our business comes almost 100% from referrals. We choose not to pay $400 a year to join because we don't feel we need to and none of our clients have never mentioned it.

So, my understanding is that being accredited really means nothing about a business' performance. The ratings, as they state on the form on the link, are based on the response of the company to complaints that are lodged against the business. So, a company may get an unsatisfactory rating for simply not responding to a BBB inquiry about a complaint by an individual whether or not the company is at fault or the complaint is valid.

I bring this up in the name of fairness. I know nothing about Newell, A.W. Plumbing & Heating. I had not even heard of them until today.

[LiberalHeart]

8. Well, they responded to two of the complaints; ignored the third.

The third is what earned them the unsatisfactory rating.

[spooky3]

9. Accreditation is one thing; an "unsatisfactory" record is another

Most businesses don't choose to be a BBB member or "accredited."

If you look again at the OP, you'll see that Newell has an "unsatisfactory" record.

There is no charge to businesses regarding satisfactory/unsatisfactory record. VERY few companies get unsatisfactory ratings (go to the BBB site and check out 10 or 20 businesses you know about if you doubt it). Every single business with an "unsatisfactory" BBB rating that I have ever dealt with in my experience has deserved its unsatisfactory designation--including the only business we ever had to sue (and won).

If a company fails to respond to a BBB inquiry, then it is VERY fair to consider that an unsatisfactory business practice. There is no excuse for failing to respond to a BBB inquiry. When you are a customer of a company with a complaint and they fail to respond, in what way could that possibly be considered satisfactory? The same is true for BBB. The company can respond to the BBB by explaining what they did to satisfy the consumer and if the customer is being unreasonable, BBB can choose to consider the company's response satisfactory, even if the customer doesn't. The customer doesn't get to control what the BBB's report says. And the BBB has no motivation to favor the customer over the business if the facts don't warrant it.

If you have an outstanding reputation with your clientele, but some customer complains unfairly about you to the BBB, as long as you respond appropriately to the BBB, you have nothing to fear.

After the lawsuit experience, I learned NEVER to do business with a contractor (for anything important) unless it has a "satisfactory" BBB rating.

[bertman]

11. You're correct about the rating. I was not trying to say that they are NOT unsatifactory,

only that the BBB rating could be problematic and that not being BBB-accredited should not have a negative connotation.

In order to know if the rating is fair I would need more information: Did the business receive notice of the complaint? Did they respond and was the rating a result of the BBB determining that the work was still unsatisfactory? are two examples.

The other possibility that I consider because I am a small-business owner is that there may have been no response because the company owner was overwhelmed and either forgot to file a response or chose not to because there were other more pressing business matters to deal with at the time. Or maybe the owner just decided he didn't give a damn if he got an unsatisfactory rating because he had enough business. I really have no idea what the reason is so I'm just throwing out possibilities.

I believe you when you say you check the ratings of contractors. We do not. And have never checked them in 30 years of being in business, but that's just our style.

The one other possibility an owner may not deal with a complaint is that he/she is just sick and tired of dealing with any more stuff. Not a great reason for sure, but still it happens when the plate gets too full. For that reason I don't necessarily consider it an unsatisfactory business practice to to NOT respond to a BBB complaint. I know many small business owners who have almost no time for their families because of their workloads, so it would not be hard form me to imagine them saying "screw it, I don't care what BBB says" because they already have plenty of good clients.

One last point is that, no matter how good you are at what you do and how well you treat your clients/customers, you are going to eventually run into someone who is unhappy with you and does not want you to get a good rating. We call them the "client from hell". On average, out of 100-plus clients a year we run into one of those "types" about every third or fourth year. Some people you will never be able to make happy.

Okay, I've gone on about this too long. I was just trying to educate the laypeople that the BBB is not the Be-all and End-all. And I do appreciate your comments, spooky3.

[spooky3]

13. I sympathize with much of what you say, but please bear in mind

that a small business who doesn't have time to respond to a legitimate BBB inquiry would be even LESS likely to respond to a legitimate customer concern either.

I appreciate your comments as well, but I think you need to look at this situation from more than your perspective as a business owner. Think about your last legitimate dispute with your cable company, or a utility, or a business that blew you off. What system would be more fair to both sides, than what the BBB does to get a voluntary resolution? If there are no consequences for non-response, then that is essentially declaring the business the "winner", even if they are totally in the wrong in that particular situation. I'm sure you do an excellent business as do many others, but try to remember that many businesses are not run as competently and fairly as yours.

As for the amount of time - if you look at the BBB reports, unless the business is pretty large, what you will likely see is 1-3 complaints during the rating period, which I think is usually more than a year. Any business that can't respond to 1-3 complaints in a year or two really has no basis for complaining if the BBB then gives them an "unsatisfactory" rating. Often, it is the only leverage the BBB and the unfairly treated customer have, to get a problem resolved, other than filing suit, or making a scene at the business in front of other customers, or something else that is much more dysfunctional. Please bear in mind that customers are often really busy also, and it angers us to have to devote too much time to get a problem that a business created corrected. Many times customers just give up and don't take the time and risk to get the BBB or a government agency involved. But if the customer refused to pay for something, do you think most businesses would just say, "ok, no problem"? That's essentially the flip side of the non-response coin.

I'm in a profession rather than a business, and there is no way that it would be acceptable for me to refuse to respond to someone who took the trouble to file a formal complaint. That is not to say that I have to capitulate or that all complaints are valid -- they aren't -- but if I failed to respond, it would most certainly be treated as if I am admitting wrongdoing. I don't like taking the time to respond to invalid complaints or having someone second guess what I did, but it happens rarely, and it is part of "doing business."

If the owner chooses to get an unsatisfactory BBB rating because s/he has so much business it doesn't matter to him/her, then that is his or her choice. She could always choose instead to respond and see what happens. So I don't see harm done, and I certainly don't see a basis for the BBB not to give a rating of "unsatisfactory" due to unresponsiveness.

No business or rating system is perfect. I'm sure the BBB makes mistakes sometimes. But a B+ system is better than no system.

[bertman]

22. spooky, I think you're way off base in your first sentence of that reply.

First, you are in a relatively small group of people who consider the BBB to be their guiding light for hiring tradespeople. Most consumers hire based on word-of-mouth referrals from friends, associates, neighbors. So, the small business person who ignores BBB's complaint questionairre is MORE LIKELY to try to make his local, word-of-mouth references happy--not less likely.

Second, that word-of-mouth referral system is what keeps small businesses and tradespeople IN BUSINESS. Not the rating of the BBB. So, while you place all this importance on the omnipotent rating of the BBB, most small businesses and tradespeople don't care if the BBB gives them an "unsatisfactory" because it doesn't affect their business.

Third, as I have said before, most small business people and tradespeople are so busy just running their companies and doing the work that they more than likely don't waste time on the BBB. They'll just spend that time trying to do another job better and making that client happy, so he or she will tell their friends to use them to do their work.

As relates to businesses getting one to three complaints sent in to the BBB per year, now those folks are pretty bad actors. They are not the average business or tradesperson who depends on keeping the customer base happy just to keep the work coming in. In fact, they probably won't be in business for very long if they're generating that many complaints that are going to BBB. My guess is that MOST irate customers do NOT report anything to the BBB. Only someone who is SO PISSED that they can't see straight. Or perhaps someone like yourself who views the BBB as their major source of information for hiring small businesses and tradespeople--and I think they are a minority of the consumer population.

[JonLP24]

17. I'm not refuting you at all

I'm just making a wild guess that the business doesn't have a plumbing license in a county that requires to have a plumbing license might contribute to an unsatisfactory rating.

[yardwork]

19. It looks like the company has had three complaints. They responded to two, but not the third.

That's three "customers from hell" and not a single satisfied customer. I would not choose to do business with this company. If they're too overwhelmed to respond to a third complaint, then they're too overwhelmed to do a good job, imo.

[spooky3]

21. just to clarify

not sure what you mean by "not a single satisfied customer", but BBB only gets involved when someone writes in with a complaint. They don't do an overall assessment of whether customers in general are satisfied (with regard to satisfactory/unsatisfactory ratings - I don't know what they do on accreditation). It's a dispute resolution mechanism.

[The Magistrate]

10. What A Surprise, Ma'am....

[fascisthunter]

15. Joe Opened a Big Can-O-Worms

[Dark]

12. Mor guvmint red tape gettin in the way of Americun ingenewitee

[yardwork]

16. OMG! Could this get any worse for McFail?

Joe the Plumber turns out to be a complete loser in every possible way.

[bushmeister0]

20. Hey, just like his pick for Veep.

I see a pattern developing here.