An organization I really love is the BBB. They are like a stick of dynamite with a short fuse. Or at least that is how most companies treat them. Being a normal, healthy American I like to protect my money and there have been several times when various companies have opposed me in this pursuit. Most companies trade you some service or product for your money; however, some are not so upright.

That is where the BBB comes in. When some junk yard didn’t want to return my money for the products I returned, I called the BBB. On my own, the mephitic junk yard strung me along for over 6 months. After I submitted to the BBB, I got a call the next day from the junk yard and the problem was fixed. Just like that, no 4-6 weeks for the credit to be posted, nothing.

Second story, was when my xBox needed to be repaired. Microsoft wanted to charge me $160 bucks to fix it because it was “out of warranty”. The thing was I had had it less than a year, the contest I won it from (Bioware’s yay our online community reached 2 million give-a-way) had it for a few months before they sent it to me. So the guy said he’d lower the price to $80, but since I didn’t put any money into it, I wasn’t going to pay for its repair.

I asked the nice man to forward me to their legal department. I explained the situation, and that I was going to file a complaint through the BBB. They politely took note and that was that. The next day, I get a call from Microsoft apologizing for the mix up and assuring me that I was still covered under warranty and that they would be fixing the problem free of charge.