1998 Annual Inquiry and Complaint Summary for U.S. Better Business Bureaus

Arlington, VA February 1, 2000 - In 1998 consumers and businesses contacted Better Business Bureaus (BBBs) in the United States and Puerto Rico more than 25 million times, to get information or to file a complaint.

"This total represents a 25% increase over the 20 million instances of service our BBB system provided in 1997," said Ken Hunter, president and CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. "The demand and need for BBB services has never been greater."

Most requests to the nation's 132 BBBs are for information about a specific company or charity, usually pre-purchase or pre-donation. Almost 14 million consumers and businesses contacted the BBB in 1998 to request reliability reports on businesses, an increase of more than 48% over the 9.4 million report requests received in 1997.

Customers of businesses across the country also rely on the BBB more than ever before for assistance in resolving disputes. In 1998 BBBs assisted with 2,761,929 complaints - a 35% increase over 1997's 2,044,048 complaints. BBB AUTO LINE, a special complaint handling program for the automobile industry, assisted 36,672 consumers in 1998, up from 35,200 in 1997.

Other contacts to the BBB were for counseling or general information on how to make wise purchasing, investment, or charity donation decisions. General information requests totaled close to 1.9 million in 1998.

Information and assistance was also provided to roughly 6.5 million visitors to the BBB system's central web sites (www.bbb.org and www.bbbonline.org) in 1998.

"These central sites provide easy hyperlinks to local BBB sites, with information specific to businesses and charities in their service areas. Every BBB has an informative web site, and more than a third of our BBBs have their report databases online now, further bolstering our system's efforts to promote an ethical marketplace through consumer and business education," Hunter said.

Following are rankings of the types of businesses that generate the most inquiries and complaints to Better Business Bureaus.

1998 RANKING OF TYPES OF BUSINESS BY BBB REPORT REQUESTS

1998 RANKING OF TYPES OF BUSINESS BY COMPLAINTS PROCESSED

The CBBB 1998 Annual Inquiry and Complaint Summary offers data on 960 types of business, which are ranked by number of report requests and complaints to BBBs.

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