In the current issue of Trust Talk, a newsletter sent to our Accredited Businesses, we warned them about an Austin-based company called Summit Office Supply.  The company engages in dishonest sales practices by impersonating the business' existing toner supplier.  The business is overcharged for the toner cartridges and sales representatives continue to call even after they are asked to stop.  Originally in the investigation, we had stated that almost all the complaints had been from businesses in the State of California, however, in the past month our BBB has received complaints from Georgia and Arizona as well.

Summit Office Supply is an "F" rated company with BBB and has refused to address their pattern of complaints with us.  Their physical address given to BBB is a mailbox inside a UPS Store so it is unclear if they have an actual office inside the Austin area.  BBB would like to once again business owners to keep records if you get a suspicious phone call from a telemarketer and get on their "do-not-call" list immediately if you do not wish to be contacted again.  If you get a package into your office that you didn't order, don't open it up and call the company who shipped it.  It's OK to be suspicious and BBB is here to help if you have an issue.

The press release we sent out yesterday involving the phony "BBB Purchase Protection Program" found on certain Craigslist postings has received a decent amount of attention in the past 24 hours.  I was able to track down what one of those guarantee forms looks like so I figured it would be a good visual example of how it is easy to get fooled by one of these scams.

As you can see, the scammer has gone through a lot of trouble to make this seem completely legitimate and has even included a BBB branded color and trademark.  I even have an example of an actual ad from Craigslist, but unfortunately it won't scan over properly so you'll have to take me on my word that the BBB seal and fake reliability report that is attached with clicking on the seal is very similar to the real thing.  Where the scammer gets tripped up is in the e-mail they send out because the address is bbb-support-center@bbb.com.  The ending is what gives it away as a fake even you if are tempted to think there is a BBB Purchase Protection Program.

I'm actually very happy to say that 2 of the Web sites that were linking from Craigslist have been shut down due to efforts by BBB, but I have seen a seller on a few different auction Web sites by the name of "overstocksales" that was opperating one of these fraudulant opperations.  My advice is to be cautious when you see this seller name and when you're on Craigslist or eBay or any classified-style Web site, really look at all the language because that can be the difference between getting what you want and losing some hard-earned cash.

About a week and a half ago, the FTC mailed out over 400,000 checks worth about $12 million to consumers who were victims of J.K. Publications' credit card billing scam.  The company and a few other participants made unauthorized charges for internet services on consumers' credit and debit cards and the checks issued by the FTC are the end result of a lawsuit filed back in 1999.  The reason it has taken about 10 years to get this money back is that J.K. Publications and their partners moved a lot of this fraudulant money overseas so it has taken the FTC awhile to track it all down.  You can check out the official FTC press release here.

The reason for this notification is that BBB is receiving inquiries as to the legitimacy of these FTC checks.  This is flattering because it means consumers are being more cautious when they receive things they are not expecting and they are turning to BBB for help.  The way you can tell if the checks are real is to look and see that there is no notice to make a payment in order to cash the check and you don't have to provide any additional information for the check to be valid.

Some of you in San Antonio may have seen our BBB's commercial played on your favorite network station.  Well it's close to starting up again!  If you haven't seen the commercial, just check it out here...

The cool thing about this is that 1) WE'RE ON TV! and 2) Businesses have the opportunity to buy the ad space to have their BBB Reliability Report on our commercial.  You can just call our office and request to speak with one of our representatives and they will get you set up.  But hurry because we only have a few weeks that this commercial will run and space will fill up quickly.  It's a great way to get your business out to a large TV audience and re-affirm your accreditation with BBB.  Of course, if your business isn't BBB Accredited, you can call our office and we can certainly work with you to achieve that status and have you stand out amongst your peers. 

 
I'm amazed that scammers don't pay attention to who they are spamming.  I got an e-mail in my business inbox today telling me that I could get 50 dollars sent to me if I just called this telephone number and did a survey about searching for a new home.  WOW.  That easy right?  Obviously it's a scam just to try and get personal information out of you so I didn't call but the person did include a company name so I did some background research and found the company is local in Austin and claims to be a marketing agency.  Of what, I'm not really sure but they like to reference Twitter quite a bit which doesn't impress me that much.

The point of this is to point out that scam artists will try just about anything in order to get you hooked into contacting them.  Even though an easy telephone call to get $50 sounds harmless, the point of a survey is to get your name, phone number, address and other personal information aka steal your identity.  Also remember that if a company wants to do a survey, most times the good ones will have it posted on their Web site for visitors to take instead of sending out random spam mail.  If you get something like this, don't be afraid to send it to us at our BBB Office to look at.

I had a great idea to write a blog this morning about a slew of phone calls we received in the office this week about a business who was claiming to be BBB Accredited and wasn't.  That made a bunch of consumers angry when they got ripped off by this company.  Given the nature of the severe weather that hit the Austin area last night, I figured I could mold both ideas together.  Last week, I posted a blog talking about false BBB Online logos on a company's Web site so this week I'm saying watch out for companies claiming to be BBB accredited if you were unlucky enough to sustain damage during the storm last night and need to have someone fix your property.

Without a doubt, we'll see contractors from all over the place coming into the area just like in March and some will probably tell consumers they are BBB Accredited and may even show them a seal.  DO NOT TAKE THEM FOR THEIR WORD!  BBB's Web site is 100% FREE to use for looking up a company's Reliability Report and consumers should do so before even thinking about signing a contract.  We're the only source that can, without a doubt, tell you if a company is BBB accredited or not.  So don't rush into your repairs.  These contractors will be around for awhile so do your homework first and then make plans to get your life back to normal so it doesn't cost you more in the longrun.

After a stroll around the office this afternoon, I poked my head into our Non-Member Complaints representative's office to ask what sort of crazy calls had been coming through the public lines today.  Usually there is something off the wall that makes me laugh and brightens the rest of my afternoon.  Today though, I was told 5 calls had come in regarding mystery shopper scams based out of Canada.  These are nothing new because we see them all the time, but 5 calls to 1 representative in a single day was pretty high.

The thing to remember about the "mystery shopper" scam is that the person who wants to hire you will almost always send you a bogus check and ask that you deposit it in your bank account and then wire the money back.  The reason why a lot of these scams recently are from Canada is that they are harder to track down across the border...also why you have to wire the money.  Just remember that a legit mystery shopping company will make you qualify and train before they hire you and they won't charge you a fee to complete an application.  BBB is here to help too so ask for the company's name and check them out with us just to be on the safe side.

Being that today is Friday, I feel like it is good taste to do a positive blog post and take you into that TGIF attitude.  One of the great things BBB does is advertising review on our BBB Accredited Businesses to make sure they are following our standards of advertising.  Their Web site can also be part of BBB Online which certifies that the advertising on the site meets our standards and they get a cool logo which they can proudly display to tell consumers they can trust their content.

Sometimes a business needs a reminder that we've upgraded and they need to as well.  Case in point, I was doing a little research during my lunch break trying to find new basketball shoes (yes, I play and I'm good).  I came across a great Web site and saw the following logo.

This logo is out of date as we have moved to a different design.  I got curious and looked the company up and found them to be a 10 year BBB Accredited Business with an A+ rating.  We see instances in our office quite frequently of fraudulant businesses using logos like this and they are a beacon for our staff to seek out.  Obviously even BBB Accredited Businesses can just forget to contact us to get new logos to show themselves off so we like to just give them a reminder if something like this comes up.  If your business has a logo like the one above and is accredited, just call or e-mail our office and we will be more than happy to get you current with the new BBB Online logo.

Our San Antonio branch office got an interesting delivery from a consumer on Monday.  A check for $4,775!  Must be her lucky day!  Not so much.  Attached was a "sweepstakes" winning notification saying she won a contest in Nevada at the end of March.  Of course like any other prize winner, she was instructed to pay taxes on her winnings of $2,950.  A pretty high cut (62%) considering most taxes on sweepstakes winnings over $5,000 are usually only about 25% of the total value and this woman's cash prize was below that mark.

She obviously knew this was a scam given the tax payment and the other 2 clues listed in the notice.  First, the letter stated she was not allowed to cash the check until she paid the taxes by, YOU GUESSED IT, money wire to a place that someone over the phone would give her.  Secondly, the letter contained the BBB seal, but not how it should look to an Accredited Business who receives access to the seal.

We see scams like this all the time for various sweepstakes but just remember that if you see something that looks too good to be true, it probably is.  Also, look at the notification that comes with these offers because there will be clues as to why they are a scam.