A SL Better Business Bureau?

But you wouldnt know Stroker, we wouldnt say Hey mand did you treat so and so badly?

You wouldnt be LISTED as a bad business if it was just a snotty emark or you had a bad day and didnt kiss a customers ass, we are talking business' that repeatedly scam or give bad customer service.

Yeah, it's important to understand that the BBB is purely to serve the needs of the businesses.

This is something people tend to forget. The idea is to generate a culture of trust so that businesses can sell more.

It is not meant as a tool for customers to rant about their problems.

Well Stroker don't get me wrong. I don't want this to be looked at as a bad thing. I want there to be PROS and cons. I mean heck the minute this goes up I'd put up one or two things up about you and they are all good.

Well, I prefer sensual's approach. In order for it to be credible, the statements have to be verified.

Are you going to make it so someone has to verify the positive things as well?

Good idea

Of course!

To be clear, nothing would be listed w/o being verified, and if for some reason the volunteers are unable to verify a claim to be probable good or bad, then it will not be listed.

That seems hard to do. I also think that it may take awhile for it to work out.

I suggest this:

People can 'buy' a negative feedback rating, which is 10% of the cost of the item they are complaing about.

Once you get to a certain amount of negative feedbacks, you send an IM to the person you're complaining about and put them on notice that you're going to send in a 'secret shopper'.

You let that go on for awhile and if more negative feedbacks continue to come in, then you go and buy one of the products complained about and do a check list of tests.

a - did it match the description of the product
b - when it failed to match the description of the product did the vendor respond to queries?
c - were the queries satisifed?
d - was a refund issued?

And then after a three months you should probably wipe out the negative report.

The M2 will start a new feature next week, called Consumer Alert. The feature will disclose customer's complaints against a business and allow the business to reply. The M2 will not editorialize in any way; it will be up to each reader to decide if the complaint has merit. We will also be careful to ensure that this feature is not used as a way for one person to seek revenge on another.
To submit your complaints, e-mail [email=consumer.alert@metaversemessenger.com]consumer.alert@metaversemessenger.com[/email]
Please be as detailed as possible.

WEll, don't make yourself liable for libel. If you harm a real business, I could see them wanting to sue for real damages.

When real newspapers and media do this, they research the facts carefully and have a legal team to back them up.

"When real newspapers..." Blaze, we are a real newspaper. Just because we only cover news and events in a virtual world doesn't mean we are a bunch of idiots.

I do know a few things about newspapers.

ok sorry sorry

When other newspapers do this..

I was a founding member of RATE. My last meeting with the group was when it was decided that we wouldn't actually research anyone we gave the seal of approval to, or any complaint.

I just didn't see the point in being on the board of a company that didn't give a shit about its own goals.

I believe the success of an SL based BBB will hinge largely on the reputation of those who run it. The fewer examples of personal vendettas, unbalanced attacks, and general meanness in the history of those who run the BBB, the more impervious they will be to accusations of biased reporting.

It sounds like a nice idea and I hope it can be implemented.

What ever did happen to this project? I stumbled across this and wish I would have been more active in the forums and noticed the group when it first came around...

Edit> Jonquille apparently answered my question above as I decided what to write here. And possibly Amy, too, I'll have to look more at the RATE forum when I have time tomorrow...

Can you get any more thinly veiled? No wonder I have you on ignore.

That's tellin' her, champ! We love to see you seethe! It's very impressive when you spit your little words!

Always spitting your little words! Don't you ever quit.

How do you know what she said if you have her on ignore?

You people are all insane.

I just read the majority of this thread and most of you have no idea what a BBB does even. It's not about complaints, its not a tool of business, and I dont see why it would be against the TOS in any way. The only complaint the BBB would ever make in RL about a business is a *factual* one that could be backed up.

The original poster was right, its a needed service, but "peoples complaints" have nothing to do with it at all really. It's suposed to be an *objective* service that deals with the *facts* about businesses, not a customer complaint bureau. That is not against the TOS at all, and I think, given the purpose of the operation, the Lindens would certainly give them a bit of slack or at least the benefit of the doubt when "Mr. SL Scam" artist complains about the reports.

and blaze...

eBay? EBAY?
you have got to be joking.

Ebays (all positive only) feedback system is the worst, most useless design in all creation. It is the classic example of how *not* to design a feedback system. At least from the *buyers* point of view. It is literaly impossible to compain about a seller, unless the seller also agrees not to compain about you. How does that work? (it doesn't!)

I am betting that perhaps you are a big eBay *seller*??

A BBB's reports come from consumer complaints and are investigated from there. BBB members don't go around town buying everything available and using every possible service. They investigate consumer reports, and report the facts from there.

I'm a huge ebay seller.

And I can tell you, of *all* the venues I sell in, my eBay customers get the best damn service I've ever done.

And it's all because I can't risk some impatient jerk giving me a negative feedback rating.

I dunno, champ, I think you give us some pretty splendid service! Always giving us all those words.

So many words!

Well, I will give you that.



Without getting into semantics, sure I don't know much about how the bbb works in the real world, but I see it like you do as a needed service in world. And I think that if people can develop a fair and objective land co-op, people might be capable of developing a fair and objective method to deal with these sort of issues.

As I said the last half dozen times this came up - I wouldn't trust some of the loudest proponents and self appointed leaders of this kind of initiative as far as I could throw them (though I'd like to throw them far). As far as I'm concerned, they all have their own little agendas and a stack of conflict of interest.

And I should then lose business when my stuff is every bit as reputable and innocent as their members purely because I don't want to join their ranks of the perceivedly reputable?

I'd rather just leave it up to the customer, thanks. It ain't me they need protecting from. It's these so called do-gooders with their little agendas you want to be worried about.

I was talking to a prominent member of the business community at a Chamber of Commerce meeting several years back, and he was telling me about some new organization starting up locally to "rate" businesses and basically be an alternative to the BBB for people who wanted assurance about a company they were dealing with.

I asked him why he felt the BBB needed competition, and he said something quite interesting which made sense. He said:

"The Better Business Bureau is only useful to companies that get a lot of complaints. It does nothing for the good companies out there."

In essence, until people contact the BBB about a company, its profile is brief and boring. Only when people start complaining does the profile grow with figures of complaints received and proportion successfully resolved.

It's like the Second Life rating system, but with negative ratings only, and a record of ratings removed later.