You didn't need to be a chess grandmaster to see how this will play out.
Yeah, it will all blow over in a week or two because Fee Fighters is relatively small. A few more people will find out how sleazy the BBB is, but not enough to actually impact the BBB.
I think Thomas and I are thinking less "Probability that this will kill the BBB" and more "How many tens of thousands of dollars of PR firm time would produce demonstrably less press hits than this event will."
It's that and the "let's punch ourselves in the face" aspect of taking a story that you want to minimize, and deciding months later when it has completely blown over to send it aloft in a gigantic fusillade of skyrockets and roman candles. "PLEASE, ENTIRE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, PLEASE REVIVE THIS ABSOLUTELY TOXIC STORY. And if you could, could you maybe mix in a David vs. Goliath element to it this time?"
Having been in the room with PR people during (supposed) crises in the past: every single one of them would tell you not to do what BBB just did here.
I think the BBB has already sustained the fatal wound, it will just take a time-frame of decades for it to play out. Their service means nothing to most of the generation that grew up on the internet. Those people tend to utilize several key data points (trusted blogger, Amazon Review, a forum, Yelp, Urbanspoon) to make decisions about businesses and products.
Where those that are rapidly becoming elderly, grew up in a generation that had to rely on these data aggregation and trust business entities. As those people become less and less of a consumer force via attrition, entities like the BBB in their current form will cease to exist. I think they sense it and are selling that last thing that they had (their credibility) in the death throws. All efforts to adapt their model has thus-far failed.
You have no idea how much I would love to! It's a tough problem to solve, but the internet as a whole is getting there with crowdsourced review sites.
I think Google is actually the most poised to solve this problem at the moment, and I'm interested/excited to see how the Trusted Stores thing they announced today http://www.google.com/trustedstores/ plays out. Certainly a step in the right direction.
Given that I can't even get them to update the street address on a client's (successfully claimed) Google Places listing, I have my doubts.
To the extent it allows Google users to interact directly, perhaps. To the extent it demands any (non-development) support from Google staff, "forgetaboutit".
(To clarify, I can sign in and update the listing all I want. It shows correctly on that page. Access the Places listing while not signed in, however, and they are, months later, STILL listed as being at their old address.)
I think roles such as these (i.e. 3rd party ratings) are best left to non-profit entities. Not that there isn't any potential for conflict of interest simply because the org is non-profit, but it seems to minimize the possibility. Also, because non-profits are dependent on donations, there is more interest in transparency and honesty. I'm thinking about something like Charity Navigator.
Yeah, it will all blow over in a week or two because Fee Fighters is relatively small. A few more people will find out how sleazy the BBB is, but not enough to actually impact the BBB.