[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 120 (Monday, September 10, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1454-E1455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SUPPORT OF THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES P. MORAN

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 10, 2012

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the nation's 
Better Business Bureaus (``BBB''; originally known as Advertising 
Vigilance Committees).
  The BBBs came into being at the annual meeting of the Associated 
Advertising Clubs of America in May, 1912, following an editorial in 
Printer's Ink magazine challenging false and misleading advertising. 
The first such Vigilance Committee was organized later that year by a 
group of industry leaders in the fight for truth in advertising and 
selling.
  BBBs are private, non-profit organizations collectively constituting 
the United States' oldest and largest grassroots business self-
regulatory organizations and pre-date the creation of the U.S. 
government's Federal Trade Commission by two years. Today, they consist 
of 116 independent BBB offices serving every market area in the United 
States, an additional 10 international offices serving Canada, and a 
national coordinating office located in Arlington, Virginia.
  Over the past 100 years, BBB's have sought to foster an ethical 
marketplace where buyers and sellers can trust each other--advancing 
marketplace trust by creating communities of trustworthy businesses, 
setting standards, encouraging and supporting best practices, 
celebrating marketplace role models, and denouncing substandard 
marketplace behavior.
  Throughout the 1920s--at a time when pernicious investment frauds and 
schemes threatened to undermine public trust in securities markets--
BBBs across the country served the nation as a de facto securities 
regulator until the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission 
in 1934. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the nation's BBBs 
were nearly alone in their fight to promote ``Truth in Advertising'' 
and protect the public from the myriad frauds and schemes that preyed 
on the nation's beleaguered consumers. During the 1940s, BBBs conducted 
a relentless effort to educate and protect families on the home front 
from a number of war-related schemes and provided major technical 
assistance to the U.S. Government's efforts to coordinate war relief. 
As U.S. and Canadian soldiers returned from the war, and throughout the 
dramatic economic expansion of the 1950s, BBBs helped educate veterans 
and their families on a wide variety of marketplace trust issues--
significantly expanding ``truth in advertising'' review, consumer 
complaint handling and the availability of consumer information--all at 
no cost to North American taxpayers.
  The BBB system responded to the challenges of the consumer revolution 
of the late-1960s by merging activities of its National BBB and its 
Association of BBBs--under the leadership of businessmen Henry Ford II 
and Elisha (``Bud'') Gray II--into a single, international 
organization--the Council of Better Business Bureaus. In the period 
following the creation of that new coordinating body, the BBB system:
  Launched its National Advertising Division and National Advertising 
Review Board (in a

[[Page E1455]]

partnership with leading advertising industry associations) and created 
a special Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) to evaluate child-
directed advertising and promotional material in all media against its 
own standards and relevant laws;
  Created a National Consumer Arbitration Program to provide consumers 
and businesses with a fast, fair and free method of resolving disputes 
without resorting to overburdened courts;
  Consolidated BBB's long-standing role--reviewing publicly-soliciting 
charitable organizations against a set of standards--into a single 
Philanthropic Advisory Service (now the BBB Wise Giving Allilance);
  Served as the organizing body to create the Society of Consumer 
Affairs Professionals in Business (SOCAP) to ``. . . provide for and 
promote the exchange of ideas, expertise and opinions relevant to 
consumer affairs'' and ``to aid business in anticipating, recognizing 
and responding to consumer needs, desires and expectations''; and
  Began the process of utilizing emerging computer technology to better 
understand consumer dissatisfaction with the marketplace and provide 
timely, fact-based data for business, consumer groups, regulators and 
the public.
  The BBB system accepted a major challenge in 1983, when the Federal 
Trade Commission (FTC) and General Motors Corporation (GM) signed a 
consent order, agreeing to use BBB AUTO LINE'--a consumer 
mediation and arbitration program--to resolve disputes arising out of 
certain specified component parts of GM vehicles. In 1991 (when the 
consent order was to expire), the FTC noted that more than 233,000 
consumers received in excess of $68 million from GM through BBB 
arbitration and millions of other owners received settlements from GM 
through BBB conciliation and/or mediation. A similar consent order was 
signed by Volkswagen of America in 1988, also providing for arbitration 
through the BBB. Today, 28 manufacturers continue to participate in BBB 
AUTO LINE' nationally, with others participating on a state-
by-state basis.
  In 1997, the BBB system launched BBBOnLine' at a briefing 
at the U.S. Capitol for legislators and regulators with business and 
consumer leaders. This BBB program was designed to take advantage of 
Internet technology to provide timely information to the millions of 
people who were becoming ``wired'' through emerging Internet 
technologies. In 2004, the BBB system launched BBB Military Line to 
provide free, specialized resources to support military communities in 
the areas of financial literacy and consumer protection through 
education, outreach to service members and their families, information, 
data collection and BBB complaint-handling and dispute resolution.
  100 years after the first BBB launched in Minneapolis, BBBs will 
likely have responded to over 100 million requests from consumers for 
BBB assistance, will accept, process and attempt to resolve roughly one 
million consumer complaints and will be supported in that effort by 
over 400,000 BBB Accredited Businesses and national partners 
representing many of the world's largest advertisers. In addition, BBB 
will very often be the ``first responder'' to Wed the public to new and 
fast-moving frauds and schemes that increasingly use high technology to 
prey on victims.
  This fall, from September 30--October 3, 2012, BBBs from the United 
States and Canada will gather to celebrate their centennial anniversary 
in Washington, D.C., highlighting an extraordinary century of service 
to business and consumers with events in both the District of Columbia 
and at Mt. Vernon, the home of America's first President. I urge my 
colleagues to join me in recognizing the BBB, and that this Congress:
  (1) Recognizes the 100th anniversary of the advertising industry's 
``fight for truth in advertising'' that culminated in the founding of 
the Better Business Bureau; and
  (2) Honors and praises the Better Business Bureau system on the 
occasion of its anniversary for its work to advance marketplace trust 
on behalf of businesses and consumers, in cooperation with government 
and the local, state and federal level, through a transparent process 
of voluntary self-regulation, public education and marketplace conflict 
resolution.

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