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Show HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS Get to know your Better Business Bureau By Erma Jean Lee "Unknown itinerany peddlers and home improvement 'experts' blossom in the springtime." BBB Briefs, March-April 1980. "Experience is the worst teacher," said Vernon Law. "It gives the test before presenting the lesson." Much business-consumer grief could be prevented if individuals would call the Better Business Bureau before hiring unfamiliar repairmen, buying from door-to-door salesmen or using business no one knows. Ask all strangers trying to sell bargains at your door if you can think about it. If you can't, chances are something is fishy. Before you buy, at least call your nearest Better Business Bureau. The Better Business Bureau of Greater Salt Lake, located at 1588 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah, telephone 487-4656, is nearest. It's the only one in Utah but it's for our use, and a quick long distance call may save hundreds of dollars, more or less. Do people in the basin need the Bureau's help? Lorna Mockly, assistant manager of BBB says: "We do have a lot of calls from Vernal, so we know some of your citizens are aware of the Bureau. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know." , According to Gerald B. McAllister's report of Bureau activities in Lorna's letter, "The staff received and processed approxmiately 40,000 inquiries, complaints and requests for service during 1979. Consumers are becoming more involved in business transactions and becoming mote demanding for quality service and treatment. The Bureau has spent manv hours in - providing -educational materials to the community through personal contacts, informal presentations presen-tations and special reports on television, radio and newspapers." Lorna sent two pamphlets, "What is a Better Business Bureau?" and "Four reasons why you should be part of the BBB system," which has a BBB directory. "We have also included a copy of a press release that will give you the kinds of complaints and statistics showing the most common ones. ..Mail order is always number 1. Homework schemes for the past few months have generated the most inquiries in our Bureau, (envelope stuffing)". The essence or quotes of information from this CBBB press release: 1. Mail order complaints are higher than ever, and some of these cases where national mail order firms have gone bankrupt. Others are for non-delivery or delay of magazines ordered. 2. Some auto repairs are unsatisfactory un-satisfactory both from franchised auto dealers and independent auto repair shops. Perhaps because of inflation there are more complaines on 'business opportunities' or 'get-rich-quick' schemes, expecially some "work-at-home offers such as envelope stuffing, requiring advance fees and promising profits which seldom materialize." 3. "While complaints are low in volume, increases are beginning to show up in complaints about freezer food plan companies which often promise unrealistic savings on food costs with a combined purchase of frozen foods and a freezer.. .also up are complaints about some bulk meat companies which advertise low per pound prices, generally for sides or quarters of beef. According to CBBB, consumers sometimes learn that after cutting and trimming waste, the price was no bargain. Complaints are not all the BBBs handle. They "also provide consumers with reliability reports on specific companies and charitable organizations." Most requests were for these reports or "for publications and telephone advice about how to make wise spending decisions." "The Council of Better Business Bureaus and the 144 local BBBs are sponsored by businesses in the interest of better business-consumer relations. As a self -regulatory system, these nonprofit non-profit Bureaus also monitor advertising claims to assure truth and accuracy and operate programs of consumer education throughout the United States." end of press release comments. com-ments. How can you get to know the Bureau better? Write for the (free) pamphlets mentioned, and ask for current BBB briefs which gives both news and schemes to look out for now, such as "Door-to-door trouble." "Wise men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by their own." said H.G. Bonn. Don't you be fooled. Get to know your BBB and learn from other peoples complaints. |