Golden Gate BBB Military Line® Program
The Program:
A few years ago, The Council of Better Business Bureau teamed up with the military to provide service members and their families with consumer education and advocacy. This program, called BBB Military Line, makes your BBB’s resources accessible to military personnel and their families, who have often been the target of unscrupulous and predatory business practices. With so many military based operations in the county, your Golden Gate BBB has brought this program to the local level.
The Core Program Activities:
Smart Consumer Workshops-
To make the workshops fun and educational BBB staff brings prizes, candy and take home information for everyone attending. Your BBB wants to make sure the workshop attendee has fun at the workshop while learning invaluable information.
The Adult Military Smart Consumer curriculum focuses on topics such as: basic concepts of budgeting, sound purchasing and credit practices, and how to avoid being victimized by identity theft. These potentially dry topics are enlivened by using a highly interactive format built around a short competitive quiz and a drawing for an Apple iPod. The training is carried out by Golden Gate BBB staff, who travel to the military institutions.
The Teen Smart Consumer curriculum was developed using many of the same techniques as the adult curriculum, since the subjects covered and the innovative way they are presented works just as well with teens and young service members and their families. The presentation also includes cell phone basics and safe online shopping.
Accomplishments:
The Military Line program fills a critical gap for military personnel. When they move to a new community and are looking for a business they can trust, BBB Military Line can assist them with business reliability reports. If they have consumer complaints, the BBBs can mediate for them anywhere in the United States. The reality for military consumers is that they can easily become the targets of unscrupulous operators. Recently, the BBB system helped to uncover a scam to sell Iraqi Dinars to military personnel and others. We then alerted the public to ensure the scam received the exposure required to help prevent more people from being victimized. Other scams include work-at-home offers, dubious insurance plans and the like. By teaching military personnel and their families that good information and assistance is available through the BBB system, we are helping to preserve the financial resources of our soldiers and their families.
If you would like to schedule a Military Line Consumer Workshop, or if you have any questions, please contact Allison Foley at 510-844-2003 or allison@bbbemail.org.