(bright upbeat music) - And welcome to "Forum 360", our program with a global outlook and a local view.

I'm your host, Bill Steven Saus, and today our discussion topic will be consumer protection and the role of one of the best organizations, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping safeguard consumers and that is the Better Business Bureau shortened to BBB.

the Better Business Bureau has a motto, start with trust.

And it identifies businesses that are committed in the communities here in northeast Ohio and all around the country, businesses that maintain honesty and integrity.

And today we are so pleased to have the CEO and president of the Better Business Bureau of Akron, Shannon Siegferth.

Shannon, good to have you with us today.

- Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

- Tell us a little bit about your background.

I understand you were in the U.S. Coast Guard.

- I was.

- And served in the military there.

- I was, I did seven years active duty Coast Guard.

I served all over the U.S. from Cape Cod Massachusetts to Petaluma, California.

- And that's a, you know we think of the Coast Guard as protecting our coasts, protecting our borders, protecting us from crime on the seas and in the lakes and rivers.

And you kinda transition to civilian work, protecting the consumers, protecting citizens still in BBB.

How did you move from your military career as a veteran to BBB?

- You know, I think I was just destined to be here.

I truly feel like that when I go into work every single day, I absolutely love what I do.

After I completed my military obligation, I got out.

I was fortunate enough to complete my undergrad program at Robert Morris University in Coraopolis Pennsylvania.

- [Bill] Near Pittsburgh there.

- Yes, absolutely.

It's a beautiful area.

And then from there I came back to Northeast Ohio where I was born and raised and I completed my MBA program.

- Excellent.

Now let's talk about the Better Business Bureau.

People can actually look up, www.bbb.org and go to the website and no matter where you are in northeast Ohio, you can find the Better Business Bureau of Akron which is probably the largest in the northeast Ohio area.

Cleveland has a BBB too, correct?

- There are, there are actually eight BBBs in the state of Ohio.

The only other state with more BBBs is Texas.

- [Bill] A large state.

- There is over 90 different BBBs throughout the U.S. and Canada.

- And, you know, I've seen the BBB represented at home and garden shows, for instance at the Night Center.

And I see the programs always have trust, start with trust.

It says here in your publication, look inside for local business spotlights, community hot lights and more.

And oftentimes, my wife and I have called the BBB to get some background on companies.

And tell us what some of the programs are that you, the accreditation programs and where you start with a company.

- Absolutely, so at the backbone of anything BBB does, trust is where it's at.

Our mission is dedicated to furthering an ethical and transparent marketplace where buyers and sellers trust one another.

And so when we do that, when we accredit local organizations, we really just wanna make sure that they're trustworthy.

The 95, 96 BBBs throughout the U.S. make up just over 400,000 accredited businesses.

Here in Akron, we service just under 3,000 locally accredited businesses.

So those are organizations that have committed to our eight standards of trust, as well as gone through a background check, not only on the business but the principles as well.

We wanna make sure that when we give an organization the unlimited use of that BBB logo, that we in turn trust that organization so consumers can safely trust them as well.

- Thanks, Shannon.

Could you explain a little bit about the, you see the A plus rating down to an F rating perhaps?

- Absolutely.

- Tell me some of the parameters to establish those ratings.

What are some of the things that will detract from a rating, a high rating?

- So the letter grade rating is a lot like what you would see in school with the A plus being as high as you could go and then an F. Every now and then you'll see an NR which is a not rated, which simply means that we do not have enough information to auto calculate that rating.

So it doesn't necessarily mean anything bad, it just means that we do not feel comfortable to report on that organization.

- [Bill] Okay.

- As far as the letter grade rating itself, it's deemed on 13 different factors, some of which are time in business, licensing, complaint volume, all of those are built into that rating.

- Explain what the complaint process would be if I for instance or someone that I know says, we have a problem with a contractor, we have a problem, what should we do?

What would the complaint process be?

- So BBB without through the complaint process, we're really here just to help create that forum that a business and a consumer can connect about.

We want them to be open and honest and we wanna make sure that hopefully there's a resolution for it.

We're not here to decide who's right and who's wrong, we're just here to help facilitate that discussion.

If you were to file a complaint it, then it goes through our operations team and we like to see that complaint closed within 30 days.

Our Akron office has that at about 16 days, that I'm really proud to say.

And it's just, again, that conversation.

As an accredited business, all of our accredited businesses are asked to make sure that they do follow through and answer any complaint.

If an organization is not accredited, they're not upheld to anything to make sure that they answer.

- So we do see the ones that are involved, the people in the businesses, they do have that desire to look good in the public eye.

And for instance, in the Akron and Northeast Ohio area, we've seen quite a few op excellent businesses that refer to you, refer to the Better Business Bureau.

Consumer Reports is another national organization, a magazine that they often point to.

But as far as the history of the BBB, how long has BBB been involved in consumer protection?

- BBB has been around over 100 years.

And consumer protection is at our core right along with trust.

- Trust, what are some of the examples, Shannon, that you can cite of organizations that you normally get involved with or accredited, other than contractors, any other businesses that you you know, are involved- - Any type of business is able to be accredited as long as they have the proper licensing, they have a B or better rating, and at least they're six months time in business.

- So an insurance company or a law firm.

- Right, we have hospitals, we have doctors, we have dentists, there's contractors, there's- - [Bill] Professionals, yeah.

- Restaurants.

Absolutely, they're all accredited.

- We are looking for those organizations that are going against the scammers.

And I think as senior citizens, often we find people are trying to scam or take advantage of us.

So how does BBB try to help look at that area?

- BBB just released Scam Tracker 2.0, it's in partnership with Amazon and Capital One and it is a great, great resource to be able to go and report any scams in the local area.

Not only does it get housed there along with information and it would give that out to different consumers, in-house, we have a community outreach coordinator who goes out to local schools.

Last year he had done almost 100 different presentations to schools, really educating not only from the young about financial literacy and scam protection to our assisted living facilities as well and communicating those messages, talking about cryptocurrency or helping in any way that we can just to educate the public.

- With the advent of social media, we see a lot of people that are being taken advantage of.

Have you or the BBB on a national level been dealing with trying to keep the tech companies in a state of integrity?

- It absolutely, that really is part of our focus and I think everything is so much tech driven now at this point.

Even we've seen heightened scams for text messages which when some people are just getting comfortable with phones and texting and now all of a sudden they have this element to worry about as well.

Really just making sure that we get that information out, either teaching or with press releases, any forum.

- So if we go to www.bbb.org and we're in a different part of the country but we happen to be viewing "Forum 360", how can you locate the BBB from your website in that community?

- Absolutely, so it'll geotarget where you're at and you'll be able to see the closest BBB that's going to service your area.

- Okay.

Can I ask you if, without naming specifics, could you describe a couple of the outrageous cases that you've seen, that you've had to look at in your career with the BBB here in Akron area?

- You know, unfortunately, there are very, there are some bad characters or some bad organizations.

And really we're just here to help them.

For example, even something for an ad review.

You know we wanna make sure that the website is in compliance and that they're only making claims that are accurate.

And so instead of just getting in touch with the business and saying, you can no longer be accredited because you have this going on, we wanna help educate them.

We wanna bring them back into compliance.

And so we really believe in approaching an organization and helping redirect them, giving them tools that they can apply to their organization, be it their website, their customer interactions, their policies that they have in place, and really help just guiding them back.

- Now being a nonprofit organization, Better Business Bureau, oftentimes you'd have to refer them to, let's say, the office of the Attorney General or attorneys, lawyers to deal with the court system.

And does that often happen where you say, at this point we can't give you any further help, you'll have to turn to the government or turn to, let's say the Attorney General's office, something to that effect?

- It doesn't happen often but when it does, we are happy to give out that information.

If anything, if a complaint were to turn to something legal, BBB no longer touches it.

So it's something that we would have the consumer work with a legal department on.

As far as the Attorney General's office, we do work very closely with them and I'm proud to say that.

- Very good.

There are also the office of aging, different county and city that provide protection for the community.

I noticed, while looking at the accreditation information, you trying to advertise and be transparent, that's one of the concerns.

So you're trying to tell the owners of these businesses to stay with an A rating or A plus rating, here you need to be transparent.

What are some of the ways that you see businesses complying with that and agreeing with that.

- If you're offering a special or a discount, being as transparent as you can.

Exactly what do they need to meet in order to receive that?

When does it end?

Just making sure that you tell the whole story upfront.

- You know, when you see some of the commercials, even on television, you always see the fine print at the bottom.

Or they talk very, very fast when they discuss the fine print on some of the commercials in advertising.

The concept is to don't push that, push transparency then, push clarity?

- Exactly, those are important.

If you say it, if you write it, just making sure that you give any consumer, a potential consumer the education of it.

- And then you also say in the BBB accredited business standards that according to your publications, that you approach all business dealings and marketplace and transactions with integrity.

So you wanna make sure that the proper paperwork was done, that all the disclosures were done, correct?

- Absolutely.

And that's something that we do on the front end as well when we vet an organization, when a business applies to become accredited, it's put through that thorough vetting process to check the background, the principles, and the organization but from there we do our due diligence.

We take a look at contracts, we wanna look at all of their current advertising to make sure that we have a great understanding of the business as well.

- Thank you.

You are listening and watching "Forum 360", a program with a global outlook, a local view.

Today we are talking with the folks from Better Business Bureau.

We have the president and CEO, Shannon Siegferth, and she is with us from the BBB of Akron, Ohio, representing many communities here in northeast Ohio.

I'm your host, Bill Steven Saus and thanks for being a part of our "Forum 360", Shannon.

- Thank you for having me.

- Let's talk about the communities you serve in the Akron area.

You said that there are several in Ohio, BBBs, Better Business Bureaus.

The bureau in Akron, what communities are you focused on?

- So we have a six counties service area.

Our Northern three counties are Medina, Portage and Summit, and our Southern three year, Ashland, Richland, and Wayne.

- Which takes in most of our Western Reserve area here on PBS Western Reserve.

And so we know that the community is right here.

You have a mission statement saying you wanna focus on trust, start with trust.

Tell us about getting that motto, start with trust.

How do you identify with that motto?

- You know, I think any interaction, be it something that I have, something that the sales team has, a community outreach, someone in operations who's handling a complaint, we need to embody that as well, we need to be trustworthy.

So when someone comes to us and you know they could be very distraught because they lost money or they didn't have a contractor show up or the dentist they had difficulty with.

So really being that trustworthy person that they can rely on, that will help guide them in the right direction, you need to file a complaint, you can do this to become accredited.

Or I'm just a great year to listen to and then help with any process that I can.

- So, Shannon, if there's a business person out there that feels that they'd like their company, maybe a new starting startup company and they'd like to get involved, what is the process to get accredited?

What do you have to do?

How do you start that process?

- Well, in order to become accredited, the minimum is you need at least six months time in business, a B or better rating and no open complaints.

- [Bill] Hmm, okay.

- From there, you would be invited to apply for an accreditation.

Once you do, everything is done internally then for the vetting, our operations and admin team will take care of that.

It'll go through its due diligence and then it goes to our board for final approval.

- So in the due diligence process and vetting, do BBB folks go to court records, small claims cases, where do you find the advertisement errors that you see in newspapers?

Where do you start and what's your process for vetting?

- So it's many different aspects we do.

We wanna validate that you are an operating business.

And that you have a presence, a physical presence within our six county service area.

If you are an electrician, that you have the proper licensing that goes with that.

We wanna do the background check on the business and the principles to make sure that there's no recent felonies.

We also are gonna check the website to make sure advertising is in compliance.

All of that is put together.

- How strong do you think better Business Bureau is influencing some of these businesses out there?

When you go to these conferences and conventions or home shows out in the public, do you see good response from the people that are saying, "Hey, we're seeing a lot of better trained people, "we're seeing a lot of better people," and they attribute it to the BBB?

- Absolutely.

You know I was at the Akron Home and Garden Show recently and every time there is a home show like that, we always like to take the BBB logo and have our accredited businesses proudly display that.

And as I walked through the Akron Home and Garden Show recently, the amount of businesses that had that displayed was so overwhelming.

And the amount of organizations that already said, "Oh, I don't need that plaque, I already brought mine."

- Okay.

- I mean, it was just one of those moments that you kinda sat back and just said, you know- - [Bill] We appreciate that.

- Exactly, you value the BBB that much and it's just amazing to see, you know, we're here to help these organizations.

- Now, let's say there's a company from outside of Ohio that still works in Ohio and still, do you cooperate with other BBBs, let's say a California company that says, we're gonna use Ohio as a marketplace for a while or test market.

Do you work with, let's say, BBB in Los Angeles or San Francisco or to find out what things are like over there and how things are working?

- Absolutely.

So there's a couple different ways to look at it but the quick answer to that is, if a larger organization, we have one that's headquartered here in our six county service area, however, they have over 150 additional locations.

All of those are accredited.

However, in order for those to be accredited, the headquarters needs to make sure that it meets the B or better rating.

- Okay, so let's say you network with these other BBB groups and they find if there are any problems, it comes back.

- Absolutely, all forms are checked and you know, we work very closely with Cleveland and then Canton, Youngstown, Toledo.

We have great working relationships but that goes across the coast as well.

- I noticed when you talk about consumer protection in the most recent start with trust guide which is a great piece of literature that I've looked at, it's again, it talks about serving Ashland, Medina, Portage, Richland, Summit, and Wayne counties.

How can people get a copy of this and I understand you're gonna be in a publication, Akron Life, you've already had opportunities to share with other publications.

So if people want some literature and they haven't gone to a home and garden show to pick up anything, where can they pick up literature or can they come down to the office in Akron?

- So our trust guide is a new, previously this was a directory and it listed all accredited businesses.

We took a little bit of a different approach this year.

And while it does list or it does have advertisements for accredited businesses in it, this year, it really focuses on information for consumers and how can they trust organizations and what assets BBB has to provide.

This was distributed to about 160,000 local businesses and consumers.

It went out direct mailing.

And then this year for something new, we also partnered with Akron Life, we weren't in there February edition.

- That's a nice, more recent, the Akron Life also has a website, akronlife.com.

And this is the February 2023 edition.

So some time ago.

You were in here and there was some articles on what you do and that's good and that's why we're here on "Forum 360", to bring information out about consumer protection.

And it's good to see BBB getting back out, after 100-some years, it's good to see it's still going strong.

- Absolutely and you know, these are still circulating.

If anybody would like a copy, please call the office.

We're always happy to mail those out.

They're at the local libraries.

Anytime that we go to a speaking engagement, to a networking function, we always bring 'em.

So they'll be distributed throughout the year.

- I'm definitely impressed by the articles that are written, not only by your staff but by some of the accredited business owners.

Because for instance, they talk about car repair, auto repair and that is always a concern for people especially in a state where we have so many highways and ours is probably one of the most widely traveled.

So tell us a bit about the auto industry, and the auto repair industry.

Is that one of the big concerns for BBB in this area?

- You know, thankfully it is not.

We have some great reputable businesses in the community who really adhere to our standards of trust in making sure that they represent themselves in that manner.

We have some longtime accredited businesses like we have featured within our trust guide.

We really try to get a great scope, so not only will you see the auto industry covered, you'll see anything from, there's a coffee roaster in there, it's a family owned business.

There's a funeral home, family owned business.

The contractor, so we really wanted to cover everything or try to.

- And I even some of the nonprofits you have, for instance, Haven of Rest Ministries, the Humane Society, the Keep America Beautiful organization, the YMCA, YWCAs, Battered Women shelters, all these are involved in trying to be trustworthy charities too.

So talk about the charities because oftentimes we are inundated by people asking for money for charities.

- Right and that's so important, the charities, so we have over 30 local charities who are accredited with us.

We call them BBB accredited charities.

And their standards are a little bit different.

They go through 20 different standards and we really wanna make sure that the money that is going into that organization is being used in the manner that it would be for the mission of that.

- It says in your publication, charities that meet all Better Business Bureau standards are automatically deemed BBB accredited at at no cost.

- Right, it's absolutely no cost for a charity to become accredited.

- What about the cost for a business that, under capitalism, we obviously have businesses that are here to make profits.

So the profit, what are the fees and so forth to be accredited?

- The dues are dictated by the size of the business.

Our dues start at just about $400 and then they go up from there based on the number of employees that an organization has.

- I'm going to, if you don't mind, give off the Akron BBB's phone number.

It is 333-253-4590.

Again, that's 333-253-4590, where you can call.

Now let's say someone does call in, what would your staff normally ask questions and say, here's what we can do?

Or do you specifically need a particular question before you can respond?

- No, you can call, you can ask, what's going on?

What kind of scams are we seeing?

Anything about complaints you can call and we're happy to help out in any way that we can.

You can start to file a complaint that way as well.

Or if you do not have access to a computer and you want us to read a profile to you, let you know what an organization, what their rating is, what their complaint is.

You know we always say that an organization is likely to get a complaint and that's not the issue.

It's how they respond to that.

Do they respond to it?

What do they say?

Those are important things to consider.

- Right, so if a caller happens to call that number, 333-253-4590 and say, we need to know about XYZ business in the Akron area, does the your staff immediately discuss that or do they suggest you refer to the website and look for further information?

- No, we're happy to give it right offline and we'll read directly from the profile.

Again, we have a lot of consumers who do not have access to the computer.

Or just are not very user friendly with that, so we'll relay that information.

If you also go to bbb.org, we do have a live chat function.

So it's manned during business hours, you can go on if you wanna find out about a profile or ask any questions, we do talk through that as well.

- Well, thank you Shannon Siegferth, the President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Akron for being with us on "Forum 360" and talking about trust and integrity.

I appreciate, thanks for coming on "Forum 360".

- [Narrator] "Forum 360" is brought to you by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Akron Community Foundation, Hudson Community Television, the Rubber City Radio Group, Shaw Jewish Community Center of Akron, Blue Green, Electric Impulse Communications and Forum 360 supporters.