The chicago one in particular takes the cake. The entity often referred to as the bbb has absolutely no desire to hold companies accountable for ethics. You get the run around with them. They act as the only responsibility of a company is to the customers who walk off the street but the world is much more complex now. We no longer use typewriters, rolladexes, stage coaches to our next business trip.
These days everything is digital and connected through instant communication(cellphones, digital phones, skype, email)the bottom line is things are done differently these days. The old brick and mortar days are over.
As the internet has grown and business has evolved into a virtual reality the human element has pretty much been eliminated. Companies are free to stab customers(provided they don't sell on ebay or amazon)in the back as well as business partners who are nothing more than glorified customers/shoppers.
The latter are rarely engaged physically. There is rarely a connection between yours and mine. It's a cold blooded relationship running a parallel course with customers who hit a button and wait instead of reaching out there hand to take their bag and exchanging some pleasantries.
Take one company called skeletonstore aka anatomical worldwide aka skeleton-factory and other aliases. They've only been in the Halloween trade since 2008 yet almost instantly they began competing against their so called resellers who they supposedly sell wholesale to. They told me in an email and on the phone they used to sell on ebay but stopped because too many "resellers" complained. It's funny when I started to sell for them in 2009 I had the impression they never stopped. This past season after a falling out I noticed they were clearly selling on ebay in direct competition with their resellers.
I take it sales were down. Well that's what happens when you stab your best sellers in the back such as myself. Basically you take the best hitter out of the line up and run production goes down.
The thing is before you even engaged in such a filthy practice of hiding behind various aliases you were developing a system to eliminate competition on ebay by manipulating their feedback system. Ebay was changing rapidly and most of the benefits were going to the big companies. Almost ever reseller you had relied on you as a drop shipper so to tame their market place all you had to do was delay shipping their customer's orders.
That very thing happened to my this past July. I watched as new orders went out the door yet old orders were forgotten about. Now you can make what you want out of that the bottom line is the actions of skeleton store who had a history of competing against their dealers hurt my ebay standings. Had they not a history one would never suspect they did things intentionally but when they openly admitted to me and I pieced together some of their aliases it became painfully apparent, anything and everything was possible with them.
Right before I stopped selling for them they promised to give me a discount. I was selling close to the bone on purpose with discount in mind. The Chicago BBB said they would get me my money. I don't see it.
I also don't see the rest of the money they owe me in damages. During the previous year skeletonstore's managing director thomas stelter had a website out of the same facility as skeletonstore called skeleton-factory. Btw he is their managing director and or 2nd in command. However one of their employees a liz huff told me he was just another reseller like me and they had no idea his prices were so low(especially when you consider and factor in shipping cost). Skeletonstore also told me and put it in writing they did not charge a handling fee or charge up on s&h. This was put in writing. On average skeletonstore would charge me twice as much or more than skeleton-factory would. Sometimes it was really egregious such as a small item that could be shipped 1st class for a few bucks would result in me being charged $12-$15. Good luck trying to sell a $3 item with those prices.
The fact is skeletonstore's business model has always been to cheat, lie and defraud. I'm not the 1st one they did this to. There have been others. Despite a mountain of evidence the chicago bbb grants then an "A" rating. Despite the fact that for 4 years they misrepresented their accreditation at the bbb with a seal on their websites they get an "A" rating. Despite the fact that up until I complained to the clueless chicago bbb that they were operating under many guises to defraud the public and businesses alike the chicago bbb doesn't seem to care much about that. Basically the better business bureau is a sham and an oxy moron.
The bbb will argue I was a third party business partner or the alike but they never take into account that not only was I hurt by skeletonstore's outrageous lies and business structure especially in regard to shipping but the customers I accumulated were also hurt by it because they had to pay those shipping costs. Now go on ebay and look at skeletonstore's ebay store anatomical worldwide and you will see they charge basically nothing for shipping and undercut all their resellers. I'm even inclined to think their resellers have absolutely no idea who anatomical world wide is.
The chicago better business bureau could step up to the plate and boot skeleton store. Had they any shred of decency they would but they don't. They live in the era previously spoken of. They could care less about the new fangled games being played. They're just as unethical as skeletonstore/anatomical worldwide/skeleton-factory.
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