photo by Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph A letter from a Rusk resident dated July 27, 1985 states that the resident sent five dollars for the establishment of a Better Business Bureau in Tyler.

Michael Bosworth is proud he helped form the Better Business Bureau Serving Central East Texas – an organization he believes was greatly needed – 30 years ago.

“The BBB brought some accountability to businesses that wasn’t in Tyler before,” he said. “I had seen the importance of the BBB and felt Tyler really needed one.”

The local BBB officially opened in Tyler in 1985 after years of organizing by community leaders.

The national BBB started in 1912 to stop “advertising vigilantes” — to stop false advertising for lotions, potions and other cure-alls, Mechele Agbayani Mills, BBB president and chief executive officer, said. A man from Coca Cola heard people say everyone expects advertising to be misleading and wanted to change that, she said. Business owners banded together to form “Vigilance Committees,” which challenged unethical companies and made their findings public.

“For more than 100 years (more than 30 years in East Texas), BBB has helped people find and recommend businesses, brands and charities they can trust, Mrs. Mills said. “With today’s online, global, economy, people more than ever, need to know who they can trust. 

The Tyler-based BBB was formed with support from the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce and 97 East Texas businesses, which became charter members and which are all still in business today.

Bosworth, president of Bosworth & Associates, served on the membership committee and said it was important for them to put together a nucleus of members to help get the BBB started. The committee worked for a couple of years to establish it and it was a big challenge to make sure they had the right people, he added.

Bosworth believes the BBB is important for customers to be able to ask questions about businesses.

“It’s just a great organization,” he said. “I’m proud to be a charter member of it.”

The late Kay Robinson joined the BBB as executive director in May 1985. She served as the organization’s first president until she retired in 2009, when Mrs. Mills became president and CEO.

Each BBB is an independent, local nonprofit corporation governed by a board of directors that is made up of local business leaders. The BBBs work with chambers of commerce, attorney generals, law enforcement and others to promote ethical businesses and to protect consumers from unethical ones, Mrs. Mills said.

“The strength of BBB is that we are governed by standards that are set at the international level, but services are provided at the local level,” she said.  

 

GETTING STARTED

Organizers had to raise $60,000 for a one-year operating budget before the local BBB could be formed. By July 1985, they had also compiled a membership list totaling more than 200, meaning it could begin to operate independently from the Dallas BBB headquarters, according to earlier reports.

Its first offices were in the Olde English Village retail center and it began serving five counties. In her first few months in the BBB office, Mrs. Robinson reported that the most frequent inquiries and complaints she received related to disputes over rental properties, home improvement and car repairs, according to news articles.

After 400 members were solidified by October 1985, Mrs. Robinson said, “We must now work toward consumer confidence in businesses and be a real force in the community. We can do this through self regulation. We hope to create a healthy business climate where legitimate businesses can best service its customers.”

Henry Bell III, chief operating officer for the Tyler Chamber, was volunteering for the chamber and working with his dad, the late Henry Bell Jr. at a bank during the time the BBB was formed. Bell said his father, who served on the BBB’s executive board, was one of the people instrumental in getting the organization off the ground.

At the time, there needed to be some institution or entity to handle complaints of fraud or bad business practices, Bell said. Before the BBB, there was a Regional Merchants Association that worked to collect hot checks passed to retailers. But there was nowhere for consumers to make complaints or file reports that could be made public, he said.

“I think it is as important, probably even more today, than it was then,” Bell said.

Linda Bailey, 65, consumer relations specialist, is BBB’s longest employee. She started out as a trade practice consultant in 1991, just after the BBB moved to its current offices on Old Bullard Road. When she started, they had just begun inputting all of their records into computers, she said, adding that technology has been the biggest change she has seen in the organization over the years.

Technology has made the need for the BBB that much greater.

Mrs. Bailey believes the biggest service the BBB provides the community is keeping people from falling for scams, most of which, are done online.

“I’ve never seen so many. … We didn’t have that many back then,” she said.

 

GROWING BUSINESS

In 2014, more than 400 businesses applied and became accredited businesses. Now, with nearly 2,700 accredited businesses, BBB Serving Central East Texas is the seventh most saturated BBB region in the U.S. and Canada, Mrs. Mills said.

BBB’s territory has grown over the years. The Tyler-based organization has a Longview office and provides service to 19 counties through the support of local businesses and charities who have met BBB Accreditation Standards. BBB services are free to the public and are also available for nonaccredited businesses.

Mrs. Bailey said in 1991, there was one full-time and one part-time worker taking calls for inquiries and complaints and now there are three full-time employees handling those calls. They’ve gone from receiving 30 to 40 complaints a month when she started to averaging 120 per month, she said.

Taking a look back at the last 10 years, there were 60,000 inquiries received by the local BBB in 2004, compared to more than 766,000 in 2014. However, the same amount of complaints – about 1,700 — about businesses were received during those periods, Mrs. Mills said.

“What this tells me is that the ratio of complaints to inquiries has decreased dramatically because people come to us more to make educated decisions before they purchase or donate,” she said. “This is a good thing.” 

The BBB still does advertising reviews, but also investigates questionable companies and charities that come into the area. When complaints by consumers are made and can’t be resolved with the business on their own, the BBB acts as an unbiased, third-party to foster good communication between them. The majority of the complaints are resolved that way and very few have to go to arbitration, Mrs. Mills said.

At the BBB office, Mrs. Bailey answers the phone, makes sure arbitrations and mediations run smoothly and does a little bit of everything. Her favorite part of the job is stopping someone from giving their life savings to crooks and sitting down with a business and customer having issues to find a settlement good for both of them.

“I just love all the 23 years I’ve been here,” she said. “It’s something different every day.”