A long time ago, two months to be exact, I did a little bitty about the Better Business Bureau. When I wrote up the article, I wanted to put an emphasis on the points that the bureau does not have authority over businesses, despite how the name may sound. More importantly, as I noted, the BBB is very lenient with the scores that it offers businesses, due in part to the company’s response to complaints sent to the BBB, and then forwarded to the company, that matters. Not responding will put you in a hole, and quite a few people take the BBB for its word.
I did run quite a few developer names before posting my list, and something I did not expect happened: The article was passed around by a few websites, and through each discussion ultimately Cryptic Studios became the center of attention in each instance. Cryptic, noted punching bag for MMO Fallout, was rated an F by the BBB, who noted:
“We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices.”
So either Cryptic is not responding to complaints, or they are fraudster identity thieves who might just kill you if you talk bad about them. One or the other, your guess is probably best. Yes, it is a cut and paste for each company, but I can’t read that without risking severe damage due to my eyes rolling back into my head.
Well, if anyone paid attention to that old article, apparently Cryptic was one of them. Forgoing the past 36 months, a recent view of Cryptic’s BBB page shows that they have been bumped: To a C+. Not the best, but that does put them above NCsoft. Why have they bumped up? Because they, wait for it, actually responded and worked out complaints! Of the 61 complaints, 43 have been resolved according to agreements, 2 are fully refunded, and only three are “refused.” The final 16 are still unanswered, but we can always hope.
Now I obviously can’t claim all (read: any) of the credit, due to the likes of people (read: anyone) who are far higher up on the MMO spectrum who either reported similar stories or re-posted my own. I can, however, make a bet: If this worked on Cryptic in just two months, let’s start harping on NCsoft for being the new bottom of the barrel. Perhaps we can get that C- raised to a C?
More on businesses and which are better, as it appears.
MMO Fallout 