Here's the catch: Clean Dry USA offers carpet cleaning at low, attractive prices, with satisfaction guaranteed, then ups the ante. Customers find the work quality low, the prices high, and satisfaction nonexistent. In the end, they feel truly “taken to the cleaners.”

Clean Dry USA, of Woodland Hills, runs ads in advertising circulars, offering to clean three rooms for $49.95 and five rooms for $89.95. The fine print on the coupon you are to clip qualifies those prices by limiting the square feet to 350 for the three rooms and 550 for the five. Coupons are for first-time customers and for a limited time (although how limited is not specified).

“Beware,” in the biggest print of the ad, tells you how steam cleaning can damage your carpet, but the ad claims that Clean Dry's dry-tech method, which does not use liquid or chemicals, will leave your carpet “[b]arely damp,” and ...Click to view full post

With business profits elusive in the present economy, at least one debt collector may have become a bit more creative in his pursuit of them. And one woman, a debtor, who probably perceives the debt collector as more miscreant than creative, is fighting back.

But like a mystery with subplots unfolding, there's more here than meets the eye. As reported by the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the defendant, a Temple City resident who allegedly owed $25,000 in credit card debt, received a letter back in 2006 from an attorney on behalf of the collection agency L&J Assets, of Century City. Presumably the letter threatened to sue, and the attorney made good on the threat.

The only problem (at that point, at least) was that, as the debtor's attorney later learned, the collector's attorney's name had been used by the collector, L...Click to view full post

Front page placement on internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo is rapidly replacing heavy paper phone books for people looking for local businesses they can trust. To help our members take advantage of this burgeoning trend, the Better Business Bureau will soon be deploying search engine marketing campaigns so that anyone seeking a particular category of local business (Plumbers in the Inland Empire, for example) will reach a directory of member businesses in their local area. Here's an example:

Sponsored Links

Inland Empire Roofers

BBB Accredited Businesses

Find a Roofer You Can Trust

www.la.bbb.org/roofers

Participating Accredited Businesses will be able to leverage the BBB's instant credibility at a far lower cost than by going alone or hiring your own Search Engine Marketing contractor.

This program will get...Click to view full post

When folks mention that the holidays are just around the corner, they often comment that it seems like only a short time since they were last here.

If your business has felt the effects of the recession, we hope the past year has gone by quickly for you. And if what we're told about the already improving, less blustery, economic climate is true, we can all look forward to a better year in 2010.

We're constantly working to make your business life better, and our only New Year's resolution is to continue to do that to the very best of our ability.

Our wish for all of our members is to celebrate the upcoming holidays, whatever yours may be, and for all of us, to celebrate anticipation of a healthy, profitable new year.

If there's one truism about people falling upon hard times, it's that there are other people ready and willing to make their times even harder in order to reap a profit for themselves.

Take the case of payday borrowers, who have to be in pretty dire straits to resort to a payday loan in the first place. Though payday lenders in general tend to generate complaints to the Bureau, many (at least 80 to date, most since early May) payday borrowers are complaining about Crime Monitoring Division (CMD) and the several other names it uses in particular. The company has offices in Anaheim and Los Angeles. Complainants from all over the country report that they receive phone calls from them, often at work or on their cell phone, telling them they owe money for a payday loan they made previously but never repaid.

Some complainants admit that they owe a payday loan debt, others d...Click to view full post

Here's the catch: Dream Scholars Foundation (DSF), of Temecula, telemarkets SAT/ACT/PSAT preparation software for a $155 “donation.” Those who buy the software encounter problems more difficult to solve than any on the tests themselves, and both their pocketbooks and tempers come out sorely tested in the process. They undoubtedly give DSF an “F” grade, as we do.

Dream Scholars Foundation, known until early this year as Scholarship Fund America (SFA), telemarkets parents of students soon to take college prep exams to market their products. Their usual pitch is to say that the person's son or daughter indicated an interest in their materials, and the parent agrees to order and pay for them.

For $225, according to their website, they will throw in additional software such as Language Arts and advanced math programs, 30 days' access to their “award-winning” interactive on-...Click to view full post

You probably know the census drill by now: you fill out and mail back the form or someone calls on you at your home (at least if you repeatedly ignore requests for written information) to ask you questions about yourself and your family. But do you know where to draw the line in answering their questions?

It's important that you do, because scam artists aren't going to miss an opportunity to enrich themselves at your expense.

So if you're asked such questions as your name, age, gender, race, ethnic origin, marital status, whether you have a second home, for example, it's okay to give them that information. In fact, you must do it.

A certain number of people will also be asked for more detailed information. But if you're asked for personal information such as your Social Security, bank account, or credit card number, beware. Also don't accept any request for or ...Click to view full post

During these challenging economic times, consumers are spending their money with care and relying more than ever on the Bureau's Reliability Reports to help them decide where to spend their money. Companies are also looking for effective and economical ways in which to advertise. Our improved Reliability Reports are filling the needs of both businesses and consumers alike.

Now when a consumer checks out your business it will be easier for them to find out more about your company because:

• The business description has been enhanced and is now linkable from TrustLink.
• The rating is now more prominently displayed
• You can list your store hours
• There is a lot more space for promotional information, allowing you to post items such as money-saving coupons, in the advertisement section
• The pictures of your company, logo, and produc...Click to view full post

Did June's skyrocket catch your eye, as it did ours? We're talking about the 575,700 reliability reports we gave out during June – a record 73-plus percent increase over May!

Why? Possibly because consumers look even more to the Bureau's reliability reports when the economy is stagnant and mon proven to be true in past economic downturns.

Or possibly because scams continue to proliferate according to what's happening in the marketplace and how consumers can best be taken advantage of. That's also true, but not new, either.

More likely, we think, is that TrustLink deserves a lot of the credit. All you have to do is take a look at our newly-designed reliability reports to see that TrustLink is right there, front and center, to take you beyond what the report contains.

You're likely getting your fair share of the increased consumer inquiries, and maybe you...Click to view full post

Here's the catch: 200cash.com's loans may seem like a godsend to those who have no other source of a few dollars to smooth out the road to payday. But that bumpy road becomes a high-speed feeway for borrowers who anticipate loan proceeds and instead get stung with application fees, other unexpected fees, and bank charges for overdrafts. What they never get are loan proceeds or communication from the company.

For the company, reaping fees from their customers, every day is payday. 200cash.com’s website, from where they market their payday loans, promises “$200 cash overnight” (although elsewhere they do offer loans of $100 to $300). “Virtually anyone can qualify,” they say, “even with no credit, bad credit or bankruptcy.”

The company, located in Wilmington, Delaware, says it will deposit your loan proceeds into your bank account the day after they receive your a...Click to view full post