My experiences are similar ... for companies that rely on local "good-will", the BBB is simply a more civilized form of a mafia shake-down. Interesting that this comes up today as there was a previous news item about Japan's work to rid itself of the Yakuza - <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3064633" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3064633</a>.