June, 2025

My name is Meghan Conradt and I'm the Director of Foundation for Better Business Bureau. I couldn't be more excited to share this journey with you as I've worked over the past couple years to rejuvenate and reinvent our BBB Foundation, the charitable entity of Better Business Bureau. When our Board and Executive Team decided to revive our charitable arm and asked me to lead the charge, I came to the table with a background in Marketing, six years of BBB experience, and unbridled enthusiasm for the chance to effect change in our community.

Through this role as a nonprofit leader, I've been privileged to sit at the helm of developing a new program that allows us to provide tangible help to consumers who come to us for assistance. Here's how it started: because I've also led the BBB Torch and Spark Awards programs for years, I knew there's a wealth of Accredited Businesses in our community that are dedicated to giving back and helping people around them. On the other hand, I also knew BBB receives lots of reports from consumers who are targeted by scams or have poor experiences with businesses - sometimes resulting in money loss or even worse (keep reading). I had a lightbulb moment one day: what if we could find a way to connect these two groups and work to solve some of the issues we're seeing with fraud in our community? Why not help consumers who need to recover find resources and solutions in our Accredited Businesses who are already engaging in outreach work? Thus, the BBB Foundation Restoring Trust program was born with a purpose to help people recover from fraud by connecting them with businesses that want to give back.

Through this program, we’ve helped families recover from shady contractors, scammy car sales, and more. And now, I want to introduce you to our next project — one that deeply moved me from the beginning.

Emily is a mother of three and a small business owner who submitted a troubling complaint to BBB in April 2025. She detailed how in March of 2024, she and her husband hired a mobile mechanic referred from a neighborhood app to work on two of their vehicles — her Ford Fusion and her husband’s Ford F-350 work truck. The mechanic's name is Justin Ford, and he operated under the business name R & J Specialties.

Emily and her husband paid him more than $22,000 for supposed labor and parts over the course of a year, trusting that he’d complete the repairs as promised. Instead, after texts and calls that went on for months from Justin full of false promises and statements that he was “almost done” repairing their cars, both vehicles were returned a year later in even worse condition. The Fusion had body damage, wouldn’t start and still had a broken brake pedal, while the truck was leaking fluids and missing the key, preventing Emily and her husband from even opening it. Justin refused to give her his new shop address, stopped replying to texts, and eventually blocked both Emily and her husband. No repairs. No refunds. Just two broken vehicles, tens of thousands of dollars gone, and a family left scrambling.

When Emily and I spoke on the phone, she told me how difficult it is for her to talk about this and how she feels sick to her stomach every time she rehashes it. She and her husband had just bought a new house before all this happened, and the $22,000 they paid was all of their available savings. Her husband began using his personal truck for their fencing business and they had to buy another car so they could get their kids to school, therapy and medical appointments — two of Emily’s sons are autistic and need transportation to many places on a consistent basis. The Ford Fusion was originally meant to be her oldest son’s when he turned 16 and he hasn’t been able to take a job without transportation.

But despite everything, Emily is focused on moving forward. She told me she doesn’t want pity — she just wants to be heard, and she wants to stop this mechanic from doing this to someone else.

After reviewing her application and proposal, our Restoring Trust Committee voted to move her project forward to see if we can help. And not long after that, I got in touch with Maverick Car Company, a local dealership and service center.

They didn’t hesitate. In fact, they said “We can’t not want to help. What does teaming up with BBB look like?”

Maverick is home to the JumpStart Program — a powerful initiative that takes trade-in vehicles destined for auction, restores them to safe condition, and provides them on a free lease to struggling families who lack transportation. But it doesn’t stop there. JumpStart also includes financial education, mentorship, and support that empowers participants to gain self-reliance and take back control of their lives. The Restoring Trust program shares similar values and although we achieve our nonprofit missions in different ways, we knew there was synergy between our two programs. 

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be working alongside Maverick to see how we can help ease Emily’s family’s financial burden and help them reclaim the sense of security they lost. And we’ll be sharing every step of the journey with you right here on the blog.

If you or someone you know has been the victim of fraud or a bad business experience, and it’s left you stranded — financially or otherwise — we may be able to help. Visit our Restoring Trust webpage to learn more or apply.

This program is powered by the belief that our marketplace can be better and that good businesses really can help right the wrongs caused by bad ones.

Yours in trust,
Meghan Conradt, Director of BBB Foundation