The Better Business Bureau is deeply grateful to the men and women of the armed forces.  While members of the military serve overseas protecting Americans, the BBB works on the home front to protect them against unsavory con artists.  Too often, military families fall victim to unethical businesses seeking to take advantage of their steady paycheck, the absence of a family member serving overseas or their unfamiliarity with a new community.

To better assist military families with a variety of consumer related issues, the BBB system has launched BBB MILITARY LINE.  Bureaus are partnering with the U.S. military to encourage service members and their families to use the programs and materials of the BBB system.  A special Web site at www.military.bbb.org  provides ready access to BBB services and scam alerts for all four major branches of the military.

By visiting the site, service members and their families can view information specially tailored to support their needs.  They can sign up for MILITARY LINE alerts and newsletters, access a special BBB credit education program, check BBB reports on more than two million businesses and charity organizations, and request help in resolving a dispute with a merchant. 

The BBB’s mission is to ensure that local businesses act with integrity and ethics and to report on companies that do not abide by BBB standards.  Service members and their families are advised to be particularly careful of the following offers:

• Advertisements for “guaranteed” loans that require a fee in advance. Such loan scams are illegal.  Legitimate lenders never guarantee you will get a loan before you apply.
• “Work at home” schemes, such as stuffing envelopes, medical billing or check processing. These companies entice you with promises of lucrative jobs, and then take your money.  As a “check processing agent,” you may end up paying for thousands of dollars in bad checks.
• Payday loans.  Payday lenders charge extraordinarily high interest rates.  Military families should check out lower-cost borrowing sources.
• Identity theft has become a huge problem. Do not give out any personal information, such as your social security number or credit card numbers, unless it is a company you know and trust.
• Enticing sweepstakes notices or prize offers. If you respond to the “you have won!” notice, you will invariably be asked to pay a fee of some sort and/or provide personal information or bank account numbers.  Some so-called sweepstakes send out counterfeit cashier’s checks.  The “winners” do not find out the checks are bogus until weeks later.

 Service families who need assistance in the marketplace are encouraged to contact their local BBB or visit www.military.bbb.org

Information provided by Tri-Parish Better Business Bureau. For more inforamtion on the Tri-parish BBB, please visit them online at www.houma.bbb.org.