Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
How Better Business Bureau Tools Can Help Boards Make Safer Hiring
Hiring a contractor shouldn’t feel like a risky gamble—especially when you’re spending association funds and hoping for a great result for your repair or renovation project. On this week’s episode of Take It To The Board, host Donna DiMaggio Berger talks to Cinthya Lavin, VP of Communications and Community Engagement at the Better Business Bureau, to uncover practical and attainable ways Condominium, Cooperative and HOA boards can hire smarter, avoid scams, and build a reliable vendor bench without slowing projects to a crawl.
Cinthya breaks down how BBB’s e-quote tool helps boards get three accredited bids—often within a day—so you can meet competitive bidding requirements and keep momentum on key repairs and capital projects. Donna and Cinthya dig into what “accredited” really means, how BBB verifies licenses and insurance, and how the ratings algorithm weighs responsiveness, scale, complaint patterns, and government actions. You’ll learn why a vendor’s willingness to answer complaints often predicts how they’ll handle issues on your job, and why communication should be a top selection criterion alongside price and scope.
They also explore the evolving threat landscape. BBB’s Scam Tracker offers a community-wide alert system for fraud attempts, and Cinthya shares simple safeguards for boards. This episode also includes a comparison of BBB with platforms like Yelp; discusses AI’s role in business education and reviews, and highlights programs such as the Torch Awards which celebrate companies with strong character, culture, customer care, and community impact.
If you want to make faster, safer hiring decisions and elevate trust in your community, this conversation delivers the playbook.
Conversation Highlights:
- Why a 100+-year-old organization is still relevant in today’s fast-moving business landscape
- How the BBB evaluates businesses and what really separates an A+ rating from a lower grade
- How boards and managers can use the BBB to vet contractors and comply with competitive bidding requirements
- How to identify complaint trends and spot vendors with recurring unresolved issues.
- Listed vs. accredited: The key differences between businesses that appear on the BBB and those that earn accreditation.
- Warning signs on a BBB profile, from licensing issues to unresolved disputes and suspicious business details.
- How the BBB can help confirm insurance, licensing, and other critical qualifications.
- What the BBB is seeing in post-storm reconstruction—and the rise of scams and fraudulent contractors.
- One simple step boards can take today to reduce vendor risk and protect their communities
Related Links:
Hi everyone, I'm Attorney Donna DiMaggio Berger, and this is Take It to the Board, where we speak condo and HOA. My guest today is Cynthia Lavin, Vice President of Communications and Community Engagement with the Better Business Bureau. Founded in 1912, the Better Business Bureau began as a coalition of advertising industry leaders who wanted to promote honest and truthful business practices in advertising. Over time, it evolved into a nationwide nonprofit network focused on marketplace trust, consumer protection, and business self-regulation. Today there are more than 90 independent Better Business Bureau across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, all coordinated by the International Association of Better Business Bureaus, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Whether it's hiring a contractor to replace your roof, a management company to run your community, or a pool service to keep things sparkling, association boards and managers are often making big decisions on behalf of hundreds of residents. The Better Business Bureau offers tools, ratings, and resources that can help protect associations from costly mistakes and help ethical businesses stand out in a crowded marketplace. Today, Cynthia joins us to explain how volunteer boards, managers, and even individual residents can use the Better Business Bureau to make better, more informed hiring decisions and to talk about how the Bureau itself is evolving to meet the challenges of modern consumer protection. So with that, Cynthia, welcome to take it to the board.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00:So I mentioned in the introduction, your organization is over a century old. So for those people who may think of it as something from a bygone era, can you explain how the Better Business Bureau works today and why it's still relevant in 2025?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And this is one of my favorite things to explain. There's a lot of misconceptions about what the Better Business Bureau does and what we don't do. But yes, as you mentioned before, the independent business bureaus, they they each BBB has their own programs here in the South Florida BBB. We have amazing programs that not only help consumers, but we also help businesses. We have education initiatives. We have partnerships with local municipalities to take the business education to a lot of the small and medium-sized businesses in the area. We have partnerships with some of the larger businesses in the area to promote ethics and trust. One of the partnerships that we're most proud of recently is with the Ferlando United Women's Soccer Group. And really, we're there just promoting trust. We're promoting minority business owners and really just fun in the community for businesses to come together and share the passion of soccer and just have just a place to connect, to have things to do. So that's one of the things that we do. But really in our our BBB, we also integrate a lot of use of um technology and AI. So we have an app that really helps businesses obtain reviews. Uh, we have really AI helping shape what BBB is going to be in the future and how BBB appears in those searches for Ask Engines. So we have a little bit of everything. Our scam tracker is another thing that we're proud of. So any person that's exposed to a scam can go on bbb.org slash scam tracker and really post a scam there, even if they haven't lost any money, but it helps the community know what scams are out there and what to look out for. So that's one thing that we're proud of as well. And our e-quote system is another one. So anybody can go online and submit for a quote. If they have a specific business, they can ask that business for a quote. Or if they don't know what business they want to go with for a specific project, they can do so as well through our e-quote system.
SPEAKER_00:That's a lot to unpack. So you gave us a lot of information. Thank you. Let's start with the e-quote. So if I have an association, because so many of them right now, Cynthia, are undertaking major repair and renovation projects. So maybe they're looking for a roofer or a painter. Are you saying they can go to equate, upload like even an RFP, and BBB will give them a list of potential contractors? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So you can go on bbb.org and you could just find or request a quote button and you can put what type of vendor you're looking for, and you can put your zip code, and then BBB will send you three different uh reputable companies that are willing to give you a quote. We just stick to three because that's what we recommend. And the first three companies that claim this quote because we don't want to bomb our client, then they're the ones to work with you, and then you go with whatever whichever one you you find best. But they're all accredited businesses by the BBB.
SPEAKER_00:No, Cynthia, I think we could just stop now because that's the best, that's the best piece of information I don't think many associations and even some management professionals know about, because a lot of them are required either by the applicable statute or their governing documents to get competitive bids. And that can often slow down the process. So if they put it in, how how long would it take for BBB to get them uh competitive bids, these three quotes?
SPEAKER_01:It's really by depends on the business, but our average turnaround time is just one day. So really the businesses who claim it first and really are able to they look at the dates, you can submit pictures, as much information as possible, and then they'll call you and say this is the pricing, or if they require more information, they'll work with you. But that's really one of the things that we're very proud of here at BBB, and not a lot of people know, and it's free of charge to the consumer.
SPEAKER_00:That is unbelievable information, and I want to make sure we get that out. Maybe we'll we can put a link in the show notes to your your equote platform. Um if I'm hearing you correctly, Cynthia, it would be in a in a small, well, any size business, but particularly if you're just starting out, for a company to reach out to BBB and get listed, if I'm hearing you correctly.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. It would really benefit the company to even get listed at BBB. There's no cost to get listed. Now there's a difference between getting listed and getting accredited. But yeah, we always recommend businesses when they're starting out to get involved with the BBB and not just the BBB, but the chambers, as long as they're good chambers and just any organization in the community, because that shows your willingness to be at the forefront of any issues that come up, right? Businesses that tend to hide really kind of give us that weird feeling because you don't know if there's, you know, there's an issue, then they may have just run away from any accountability.
SPEAKER_00:I hate to admit this, but I always thought of Better Business Bureau for the most part as a place where I would go to see if anybody's complained about a business. Okay. I I looked at it from the more negative angle is let me look and see if somebody's issued a complaint against this particular company. But alternatively, you can actually look and I want to ask you in a few minutes about the difference between being listed and being accredited. You're really opening my eyes to the to the different roles that BBB can play, both from the company's standpoint and the consumer's standpoint. Um, can somebody who's had a bad experience with a company contact BBB and say, I want you to list this company? Let's say the company did not reach out and list themselves. Is that one way that a company can get on BBB's radar?
SPEAKER_01:Well, the way it works is that the person, the consumer that has an issue with the company will have to reach out and file a complaint against the company. And that's how it works, if it's not in our system already, then we do open up a traffic file to be able to list that complaint under the company. And we do send the company information and let them know that someone has filed a complaint. We try to reach out several times and ask them to please fill out as much information as possible. Some companies comply, others don't. So we try to gather as much information as we can.
SPEAKER_00:Let's say a company, Cynthia, is the subject of a complaint, a significant one. They walked off mid-job, they took the deposit, never delivered goods, and they don't respond. Is that the extent of the due diligence? Then that complaint does go up and is listed on your site?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So if if the company doesn't respond, yes, we do list the complaint on our site. If if ultimately we do not get any response, there's there's really no ability for us to mediate. It does go on our site. If we do see a pattern of complaint, then we start working with uh local authorities and maybe the attorney general. Depends on how how bad the complaint pattern becomes, etc.
SPEAKER_00:How long does the comp how long does a negative review stay on your site? Is there some sort of it gets peeled off after a certain amount of time?
SPEAKER_01:We maintain records up to three years. So after three years, things fall off. If it's something that's government actions, they tend to last a little bit longer. But the majority of complaints and reviews last on our site for three years.
SPEAKER_00:Does BBB accept anonymous complaints or does it always have to have a person that you can read or a company you can reach out to?
SPEAKER_01:We always have to have the information that it could be reached out to, no anonymous complaints, because then you never know if there's an issue there with competitors filing uh fake complaints or fake reviews. Also, there are some companies that even though it's not illegal, we do find unethical to hire uh firms outside of the US or maybe in the US to submit reviews, positive reviews that don't necessarily show um any sort of transaction with the business and a consumer. You're just paying someone to leave reviews for you. So I know.
SPEAKER_00:I I was gonna ask you as I'm sitting, as we're talking, I want to ask you about chatbots. Is BBB using artificial intelligence at all to help you compile the this data? And how are you addressing the use by perhaps consumers or other companies using AI?
SPEAKER_01:So, really at an internal level, we're getting educated ourselves. With AI, we do have a chat box that we use. So it's called live chat, and anyone can go on there and ask questions. If they have a complaint that they file, they can get information and updates on their complaint by putting their complaint number. If they just have simple questions, the chat will direct you to where on the site you can find this information. But we're getting educated ourselves as well so that we can really educate the businesses as to the proper uses of AI. We had a guest speaker at our Torch Awards earlier this year discussing how you can use AI for your small business. But really, we always tell the businesses to be very careful with uploading personal information or client information to any of these ask engines because that's information that still has to be protected. BBB at a national level still wants to develop uh a code of ethics around AI, and that's one of the things that we're working on currently.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I imagine it's it's it's gonna be evolving too.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So, how do you compare with a with like Yelp? Okay, so if somebody's trying to to to vet, because one of the things I wanted to ask you about is all our boards and managers, they're trying to vet all these different types of companies. This they're trying to make the most informed uh consumer decisions possible. How does BBB compare to like just going on Yelp and seeing what people are saying or on Reddit to see what people are saying about a particular company?
SPEAKER_01:Well, the difference between BBB and other platforms is BBB has a dedicated compliance team. All BBBs do that check out the business from the moment they apply to become accredited, or even if there's a business that starts popping up in the in the community because there's an issue. We have a team that starts looking at the business from the moment they apply. They look at the owners of the business, they look at previous history, uh, they look at financials, they look at the privacy statement on the website, they look at the advertising to make sure it's not making any outrageous claims. They look at the types of products that are being sold, and then that team passes on the application to our board. We are regulated by a board of local businesses, our board comprises of 13 uh different business leaders, and then we have the board look at it, and our CEO looks at this businesses, and then they get approved for accreditation. So we have human eyes behind it, it's not just anyone that can just go up and put a review or or or anything. We have a team that dedicates themselves looking at licensing, looking at different aspects of the business.
SPEAKER_00:So, Cynthia, can you kind of walk us through the process for evaluating a business and assigning a BBB rating? Like what factors go into like an A versus a lower grade?
SPEAKER_01:So, yes, BBB has a proprietary algorithm that assigns the rating. So, really, the more information that businesses feed onto their BBB profile, the likelihood you have to get a better rating. So there's a misconception that uh businesses that become accredited pay and then they get a better rating. It's really because the business that becomes accredited is obliged to provide all that information and they want to be accredited, so they do give us all of the information that we require of them, as opposed to a business that's not accredited, that really doesn't fill out all the forms that we give them or doesn't go online and take care of their profile. So some of the things that the algorithm takes into account is how long the businesses has been open. So really when it was established, how big the business is in terms of financial, so the revenue, and really the type of business, and if the business has any complaints that are uh unresolved or unanswered. Businesses that are accredited by BBB have signed an agreement to always answer their complaints, even if they're not resolved to the satisfaction every time, at least they're answering and they're not ghosting the consumer. So those are the things that make the the the rating be uh A, a plus or B or C. Really, the plus becomes when the business doesn't have any complaints or and it has been around for quite a while, or it has a large revenue that can take a number of complaints. So we have some large businesses in the area that, of course, the bigger you are, the more revenue that you make, you take are gonna take on a lot of complaints. So that that tends to happen, and people question themselves well, how can this business uh have an A plus rating but have this many complaints? Well, because you have a lot of clients, right? So think of your bigger companies that that provide those consumer services that are not necessarily business to business, there's always gonna be a level of dissatisfaction there, and we take on all sorts of complaints. So as long as the business is answering to those complaints, and that's that's what the algorithm takes into account.
SPEAKER_00:Is responsive. Does the algorithm, when it's searching for complaints, Cynthia, is it just complaints that have been lodged with BBB, or does it also search civil court dockets to see if there's been litigation involving this particular company? Does it look for just general online complaints or criticism leveled at that company? What what in terms of complaints, how does the algorithm file those complaints? I guess that's my question.
SPEAKER_01:It's really the complaints that are filed with BBB, but we also do have within our compliance team a director of investigations that logs on any government action that the business uh goes through. So if there's any sort of government actions, they do are they are logged into the system. And that that really also affects the rating as well.
SPEAKER_00:I always wonder when you're looking at complaints because we're such a review-driven society. Are we not? I mean, I know when I'm looking to go to a restaurant or I'm looking to book a trip, I'm looking for a hotel, what do most of us do? We log on and we go to the ratings, right? If you're booking and see what other people have to say. But I can tell even when I'm reading the ratings, you know, something you can filter it most critical, most complimentary. I always look at it with a little bit of healthy skepticism. Sometimes the criticisms are really, really specific. And I'm thinking, that's really not such a problem. Do you does your algorithm also take into account maybe particular sensitivities? Do you get some complaints that you find are completely frivolous and you just dismiss them out of hand?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we we do take some complaints that that come through the BBB platform. We don't take if it's something having to do with uh an employer, or maybe something having to do with a matter of opinion, or if it's just a letter of experience, we log it as a letter of experience, but not a complaint. So it doesn't affect the rating of the business.
SPEAKER_00:Can BBB help verify insurance licensing, other credentials for companies?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. When companies are accredited, we do look at the the licensing and the insurance as well and make sure that uh the business provides all that documentation to us. If the business is not accredited, we don't, we're not able to take that information, but for accredited businesses, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so now you've mentioned accredited a couple of times. Let's talk about accredited. What does it mean? Obviously, it's a higher level of credibility for a company, but what exactly is the process? Are there costs?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So there are costs involved with being accredited, and the cost varies on how big the business is, so the number of employees that a business has. But the accreditation really uh it helps fund us as a nonprofit. It helps fund the educational programs that we have and really helps the compliance team go through all of the information that we ask of them. When a business comes and just gets listed on BBB, they get very basic information and they're not able to access our programs, our events, our educational platform. But when a business becomes accredited, they get a lot of different benefits to them as a business. And then it helps it helps BBB keep running because, as a lot of people don't know, we are a nonprofit and we do process over 50,000 complaints. So you're just in the South Florida area.
SPEAKER_00:What 50,000 complaints a year in the South Florida area alone, and you're a nonprofit. So your funding comes through accreditation. Do you get any funding through local government or state government?
SPEAKER_01:No, we do not get any funding through local or state government. We are just funded by the business uh marketplace. So really businesses that believe in our mission and get accredited.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. And you mentioned education a few minutes ago. That uh how do you get younger generations to know? Younger, but you know, we're seeing some incredible entrepreneurs coming about younger and younger ages. How do you let them know about BBB and what you do?
SPEAKER_01:Well, we work with SBDC. So all the SBDCs in the area of South Florida, there's exactly three. There's one up in the Trussher Coast, there's another one in Broward, and another one in Miami. So it's the Small Business Development Center. And it's really a great, great tool for small businesses and for entrepreneurs to learn a little bit about how to manage their business. They can go from inception to, you know, to just scaling. So we work very closely with them and collaborating and doing events and just letting them know that we're here. We work with different uh 40 under 40 groups, and we have great uh ambassadors of BBB that go to different events and talk to different groups, whether it's women's groups, whether it's youth groups that are just starting out as business owners. And just those partnerships. We really believe that partnerships are important. This is why, again, we partner with the Fer Lauderdale Football Club, but we have other partnerships with local chambers, with local municipalities, and we're just always out there preaching about BBB, not so much about needing to be accredited, but about the importance of being a good business.
SPEAKER_00:What about colleges, universities, trade schools? Do you do any anything in the educational space?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we do do some expos in trade schools and help businesses just find that that good talent in South Florida, which can be a little bit hard to find and manage. And we also want to always educate the business on how to keep good talent as well. And then we we've worked with FAU before, we've worked with FIU, uh, we work with Nova Southeastern University. So we Have an actual satellite office at the Levant Center for Innovation, which is right out of Nova, and we try to promote as many events as they do as possible. Their innovation day, their tech days. So we believe that it's important to start there. They have a great program in the School of Business, and they do uh business pop-up. So we visit the businesses and see what they're all about and promote them on our social media, do little video profiles of them. So we always try to look to the the next generation of business owners.
SPEAKER_00:And there's a lot of these chapters around the country, right? How many?
SPEAKER_01:We have 96 uh BBBs and they cover they cover all of the the US area and we have some in Canada. Mexico, uh Mexico's really recently closed, but we have Canada and all of the US.
SPEAKER_00:So you mentioned Torch Awards. What's the Torch Award? And is that national or is that like a local program?
SPEAKER_01:So it really depends by BBB. A lot of BBBs do it. We're one of the BBBs that do the Torch Awards. So the Torch Awards are really anyone can apply. They don't have to be accredited. And we have the criteria of the four C's, which is character, culture, customers, and community. So um it the uh the applications open usually in January and we celebrate them around June. And anyone can submit an entry, and really they just get recognized as a good ethical business that's going above and beyond. We are not the judges, we manage the criteria, we manage the program, we put on the event, but we have judges that are outside of our BBB. So we have local media personalities, we have uh people from other better business bureaus, we have professors in the School of Business and Ethics. So different people judge it. This year we had a four-star general Mike Linninton be one of the judges. So that was that was a great honor for us. And then we pick businesses in three categories: small, medium, and large. And a lot of people really show interest and then they fill out their application, they submit as much supporting documents as possible. And it's really great to see some of the businesses that are going above and beyond in the community. Some have great community programs, they give back a lot. One of our most distinguished businesses that has won before was City Furniture, and they even went to win the international awards because they do a lot for the community, which is really great. They give funding to education and different costs. So that's important. And and really seeing the internal process of what makes a business a good business. And then we use these businesses as examples for the small businesses and medium businesses that want to scale and what you're supposed to do to uh uh achieve that status.
SPEAKER_00:I was at a trade show at the Broward County Convention Center. It was for condos and HOAs. It was packed. I actually had to park on the roof. I mean, I think I got one of the last five slots. And I was teaching the class. You know what was there? Dozens and dozens of businesses, you know, whether it's roofers, project managers, electricians, um, video camera companies, just so many companies that serves a space for the community association industry. I don't know if I saw a better business bureau there, but does BBB ever take a booth at any of these trade shows?
SPEAKER_01:We have a lot of trade shows that we attend, and we have a small community engagement team. So besides myself, I have two other people, and we have to cover uh 11 counties that we service. So we're from Vero Beach all the way down to Monroe. Um, we're gonna be in in Monroe County in January. So we try to do the tour as much as possible, but it really depends on the shows that we do and who puts on what. Uh we're part of different coalitions with with different municipalities that that do great things for for businesses. So, yes, we take on booths and we we try to be at events as much as possible.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think your organization will be a great fit at one of these condo and hoa trade shows because again, you're helping these volunteer boards and their managers become better consumers. Not to say that they're not great to start with, but you're just that additional resource. I don't know of a single board I've ever worked with that has said, we've got enough resources, don't give us any more help. They're always interested in getting more help because, again, it's a volunteer position. Due to all the changes in the legislation over the years, it's become more and more difficult to serve on a condominium or a cooperative or a homeowners association board. So, I mean, just what you've been talking us, uh telling us about throughout the course of this episode could be so helpful to so many of those boards and managers.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I think it's important for these volunteers to just really educate themselves so they can serve their community better.
SPEAKER_00:So you mentioned your scam tracker. Uh, have you seen any trends, Cynthia, at BBB where it's getting worse? Are there more scammers now, or is it about the same over the last couple of years?
SPEAKER_01:I would say I have been with BBB almost 10 years. I would say the scams are pretty much the same goal. Scammers are looking for two things personal information and money, right? Finances. So, and really the personal information to be able to access your finances or to be able to sell it on the dark web. So it's really always the same goal. What changes is the approach that the scammer is using. So when I started out 10 years ago, a lot of it was government imposters, just saying that the IRS is calling. And it's really evolved, but it's really the same scam. It's evolved with AI just using voices, using spoofing, using numbers that look familiar to you, um, and just just using that vulnerability, right? A lot of people think that seniors are the ones that tend to fall the most and lose the most. But actually, millennials and Gen Z fall for scams a lot because they're they're on they're on their phone all of the time and and it's information always coming through. And maybe they don't report as much because they're embarrassed. They don't lose as much money, but they do fall more often because they're exposed to different things. So things like online courses or different uh wannabe influencers or retailers.
SPEAKER_00:So how about free Starbucks? That we we had that in our firm where again we get a lot of this training. So it's mandatory here. Whenever you have uh specifically for law firms, because we handle sensitive information, but we have very sophisticated training. And still, you know, we do we do our own internal where we're trying to catch people. I think the millennials got caught up in the Starbucks one. Um, you know, click here for your free Frappuccino. But I often say, how do other people, how do volunteer boards? How do if they're not having this training and some of them are retired, so they're not in a corporate environment where they're being kept up to date on all the different iterations these scams can take? You're right. Now there's deep fakes, there's you know, you can get a phone call, you can get an email, you can get a text, you can do text saying, Cynthia, hi, you know, whatever your boss's name is, could you, you know, could you run and get me something? Uh I've gotten that myself from a partner. I'm like, that's odd. Why is that partner contacting me? But I've had the training. Does BBB do the training for scam prevention? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So we are always available if there's any volunteer boards. We we've come out before. I mean, we don't get the requests often, but we're able to come out and and train people and give talks on what to look out for. We are always open to doing so uh because it's very important. And unfortunately, the scams are never gonna go away. You just have to become more savvy and more prepared and a little bit apprehensive. I always tell people no one is going to safeguard the information and the money that belongs to you as much as you. So be really, really wary of who calls you, who solicits, even if it looks good, just hang up and call a number that you actually do know in the back of your card on your checkbook. Just make sure because these scammers are really copying these numbers and saying, Oh, I need to verify. No, be very careful with whoever calls you. You call back and say, Hey, is the bank trying to contact me? Especially for volunteer boards that are in charge of other people's well-being and money. So you have to be very careful with the information that comes in. Don't click on anything that looks suspicious. I've been seeing a lot of things that have been coming through of uh please sign this document and you're not sure who it is. Make sure you, you know, if you're going through the process of signing contracts, make sure you call the number and verify that you did receive that communication. Always call and talk to someone and verify. Unfortunately, other uh firms do get hacked, and and it's their responsibility to notify the clients. They don't do so all of the time, but let them know. Sometimes they don't even know that their systems got hacked and these emails are going out. So it's important to always just pick up the phone and have that line of communication going in. That's why it's important to have a list of trusted vendors.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's great advice. And I think in, you know, for a community association board, they need to know amongst themselves because you could have a seven-member board, you don't know which director may be targeted by a scam. So we do a lot of board member codes of conduct, and you've given me an idea to actually maybe put some of that information for scam prevention into that code because I think that there needs to be more communication amongst the individual board members because you don't know who's gonna be targeted at any given time. So it it is really great advice. And I wanted to ask you, Cynthia, because we're I I've been you've been so gracious with your time and then we're gonna wrap up. What's one simple step that a border manager could take today to make their community less vulnerable to vendor problems? And it doesn't have to be a scam, it could just be a problem with a vendor, you know, who you know may not be up to the task of the job for which they're hiring him or her.
SPEAKER_01:Just make sure that the vendor is communicative. One one pattern I of I see between businesses that are very successful and have great reviews and and people rave about is the level of communication, that thoroughness. If if you don't, if you have a business that is really not explaining to you what type of job you're getting done, how how long is it gonna be expected to take, really the permits, because the permits is not up to the the business. They they have to be transparent and manage expectations. If you don't have someone that's communicative or that gets back to you, that's really a bit of a red flag, especially not just for me on the side of BBB, but as a consumer. And I really have noticed that trend. Businesses that don't communicate with you often and don't tell you what's going on and the process that you're in can really tend to be the ones that are um that that lack of communication carries through when there is a problem, right? So you want businesses communicating with you from the beginning and letting you know, hey, this is we're gonna send this out to you, you're gonna get this. And and if they're prompt, right? If they want your business, they're gonna be prompt, they're gonna be communicative, they're gonna go through the steps. So be really sit there and analyze how that business communicates with you and how transparent they are, because that really makes a difference between being able to resolve an issue that comes up and then having a nightmare on your hands.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And sometimes some communities they put the blinders on because they're evaluating it based on price only. But I will tell you, and I agree with you, Cynthia, if there's a lack of responsiveness and communication in the honeymoon period, which is when you're first vetting this vendor, and this is when they should be on their best behavior. If that's not great, it's only downhill from there throughout the process. So, how do people find you, Cynthia? All your resources.
SPEAKER_01:BBB.org, you can find all the resources there. You can find news, consumer news, sign up for our consumer newsletter there, see the events there. We have some events open to the community. We have a BBB Finance Day coming up in Miami, and it's not just for businesses, but also for consumers. That information is on our website, the equal, the scam tracker. Everything is there at BBB.org.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much, Cynthia.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having me.
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