BBB Complaints

Better Business Bureau (BBB) has been around for over 100 years, working to bridge the gap between businesses and the consumers they serve. Although some consumers may think of BBB as an enforcement arm for their complaints, that's not how we operate.

BBB strives to be impartial and unbiased. As a not-for-profit company, we offer many services, including dispute resolution (A.K.A. complaint handling), for free. When BBB takes a complaint, we strive to help the businesses and consumers in our community reach a fair outcome

Your local BBB has helped to resolve over 3,000 complaints for consumers and businesses every year since 2019.

Here's how it works:

BBB can help with many issues, but we can only take complaints between consumers and businesses arising from a marketplace interaction

That means we can't help with employer and employee issues, business collection issues, and complaints about issues not arising in the marketplace i e , personal issues against a business owner and/or its employees.

* If you are a business owner and you receive a complaint about issues falling outside of our purview, let us know, and we will review your case

Other issues that fall outside of BBB's purview include those involving criminal activity, discrimination allegations, complaints currently in litigation, malpractice, and buyer's remorse, among others.

The complaint is sent to the business by email or postal mail The business then has ten days to respond. At the same time, BBB also sends a notice to the complainant notifying them that we have processed the complaint and are awaiting the business's response

If the business does not respond within the first ten days, BBB will send a reminder providing the business with an extra ten days to respond.

If the business fails to respond to our reminder, the complaint will close as "No Response." Unanswered complaints affect a business's BBB Rating, causing that business to be ineligible for Accreditation

Once the business has provided a response, the complainant is notified of the response and given the opportunity to either accept or reject the response within seven calendar days.

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If the consumer accepts the response, the complaint will be "resolved "

Both parties may request follow-ups. BBB will review these responses and may decide to close the complaint at any point If BBB decides to close the complaint, it may do so in one of two ways:

Answered - In this case, BBB determined that the business made a good-faith effort to resolve the complainant's concerns, but the effort was not accepted.

Unresolved - BBB has determined that the business did not make a good-faith effort to resolve the complaint despite our efforts to ease communication. In this case, the unresolved complaint will affect the business's BBB rating. Unresolved complaints will also make a business ineligible for Accreditation

Once the complaint has closed, BBB redacts any personal information and publishes the complaint to the business's BBB profile.

If the consumer rejects the response, they must tell us why BBB will review the complainant's rejection. If it contains new relevant information, we will request that the business provide a follow-up to the complainant's rejection within ten days.

This is a good summary of the general complaint process, but each case is unique BBB will keep both the complainant and the business informed of the process every step of the way

To make the process go as smoothly as possible, BBB offers the following tips:

Document - if you have documentation supporting your side of the story, you can provide us with copies via a link in the complaint portal

Keep it professional - Both consumer and business responses will be published. How you respond is often just as important as what you say.

If you're a business, a professional response will often say more about your business ethics than the mere fact of receiving a complaint will.

If you're a customer, be aware that business owners and employees are human and subject to making mistakes

Even if we are unable to obtain a response or resolution to your complaint, we often investigate businesses that receive concerning complaints and may share information with government agencies when appropriate.

Together with our roster of over 6000 Accredited Businesses, who have agreed to abide by BBB's Eight Standards for Trust and support our Vision with yearly dues, we advance marketplace trust by holding unethical businesses accountable and celebrating marketplace role models on our website, BBB.org/sacramento.