Be sure to do research before signing contract

Yes, even the BBB gets complaints about how we handle our business. Recently, I dealt with a call from an unhappy member business.

The company’s owner first contacted me by e-mail to express how dissatisfied he was about a complaint he filed with the BBB of Denver against a Denver company.

The member business, FirstTel.com, of Coeur d’Alene, offers telephone service and is moving into Web development. Its president, Mike Marquardt, was trying to learn how to better market on the Internet when he was contacted by a Denver company called ProSavvy.

ProSavvy’s sales rep promised FirstTel.com direct contacts to Fortune 100 companies, preferential placement on search engines and qualified leads that would generate 20 bids for Web development work. All contact between the two parties was via e-mail and telephone. ProSavvy’s Web site promised FirstTel.com a way to get business off the ground.

Marquardt was cautious. Like many of us, he hesitated signing up with a company he only knew via e-mail and phone calls. But the sales rep for ProSavvy reassured him the leads would be qualified and real. So, Marquardt signed the contract and paid the $6,000. And that’s when the problems began.

The sales rep who signed up FirstTel.com left the company, and phone calls to others there were not returned. Marquardt was determined to follow up on the leads sent to him, but when he tried to contact the leads, phone numbers were disconnected, prospects turned out to have no intention of Web development, and in some cases the budget numbers were fictitious.

“One of the projects showed a budget of $10,000,” said Marquardt. “But when we got down to the end, after hours and hours of development work, the prospect stated, ‘Boy, you guys have really put a lot into this. I only want to spend about $500.’ ” Marquardt got angry.

He called American Express to protest ProSavvy’s charges on his credit card, but was told that since he signed the contract, there was little they could do.

He then sent a complaint to us, and we promptly forwarded it to the Denver/Boulder BBB for processing. ProSavvy responded, telling Mike the verbal promises of “bid opportunities, chances to send actual proposals and pre-screened and pre-qualified leads” translated in writing to “project responses,” whatever that means.

FirstTel.com did get one job from ProSavvy, a small, problematic project. However, the promises of information on nationwide projects never materialized, and in fact, when Marquardt logged into the purported database of national jobs, there were none listed.

Marquardt works around the country but chooses to live in North Idaho, and ProSavvy was supposedly offering him a way to continue that living arrangment. That guarantee made him sign.

When Marquardt contacted me in anger over the BBB system’s failure to get his money back, my first question was (and always is), “Did you check for a BBB reliability report on the company before you signed the contract?” The answer was no, he did not.

Too bad. Had FirstTel.com visited BBB’s national Web site, it would have found the ProSavvy report, and could have been empowered to make a much more informed decision before signing up. The BBB report would have told them that ProSavvy has an unsatisfactory record due to a pattern of complaints, and the company’s failure to address the pattern. (See the full report at www.denver.bbb.org).

Sometimes there is a misconception that the BBB system has the power to make companies respond to complaints in a certain way, but that’s not the case. We don’t have someone on staff who acts as “the Enforcer.” We aren’t a surefire way to get your money back. And we don’t have the power to shut a business down.

If a company is a BBB member, they have signed a contract and committed to live up to a higher standard when resolving complaints. But when you’re dealing with an unknown, non-member company, you need to do your homework first.

Checking out a company with your local BBB is fast and easy. We’d much rather have you know all you can about a company you’re looking to do business before you sign on the dotted line than receive your angry calls and letters after you’ve gotten sideways with a company .

The power to make good buying decisions is in your hands, and that’s why the BBB offers reliability reports to the general public 8,000 to 12,000 times a month, 24/7.