Mercari's BBB rating just jumped to A-Plus+
Just like magix, Mercari's F Rating on the Better Business Bureau website jumped up 4 levels to it's new A+ Rating on the San Jose BBB Website.
For years, as a marketplace reviewer, SellerThink has listened, mostly to scammers and people kicked off Mercari for repeat violations, ignoring policies, selling fake things and just being outright jerks; brag and point to the F Rating Mercari had on the BBB website.
Reading thoroughly through the complaints and reviews, the BBB rating notes, etc. several times over the past two years revealed that the problem was not that Mercari lacked BBB accreditation as a member, but Mercari simply didn't previously give a rats-ass enough to assign anyone from its teams to address consumer complaints.
The quickest way for an accredited or non-accredited BBB member to get an F rating is to simply not respond to any complaints.
The business doesn't have to resolve all of the complaints to the consumers satisfaction, only respond quickly within the context of that businesses well defined Terms of Service and published policies. Doing these two things will kick you business rating into the A rating on the BBB.
That is what Mercari has done. Good for you Mercari! But why did it take you so long. It was often perplexing to see Mercari not responding in a timely manner to consumer complaints and not being concerned about their rating, when this marketplace, places such great emphasis on their own internal rating system, and requiring a response from buyer and seller within three says of product delivery.
Though the BBB is NOT a government agency, many people over the years have come to see it as such. The BBB is a business. It makes money from paid memberships for "accreditation". It makes its money from its influence and pressure by publishing consumer complaints. How many times does anyone go to the BBB to read positive reviews about a business? Probably never! No, you go to the BBB to see what rating they gave that business, based on the business responding to any complaints it has received. Then you browse through the complaints to see if they are concerning enough for you to avoid doing business with that company.
The BBB is the original "Feedback Rating System", prior to the internet or personal computers.
A negative rating on the BBB website can have a detrimental impact on a business or marketplace, drive down consumer confidence and give asshole scammers who got justly kicked off a marketplace an opportunity to take revenge on a companies reputation. It's a dirty deal, but its a profitable deal for the BBB.
Reading through the complaints and new responses from Mercari; most of the responses by Mercari pretty much stick to Mercari responding based on its policies and terms of service.
SellerThink in many of our YouTube videos about selling online and selling on Mercari, often remind new sellers, to read Mercari's Prohibited Seller Conduct policies, Prohibited Items policies and it's Terms of Service as part of their pre-selling research. Mercari's Term's or Service, contain many details about how it suspends an account, what happens when an account is suspended, etc. Fortunately, more recently, Mercari has pulled much of those previously hidden policies and details out of the only being in the TOS, and has placed them in their Help Section.
Either way, congratulations is due to Mercari USA for finally getting off its ass and becoming more proactive in responding to complaints and concerns on the BBB and other consumer reporting websites.