Comment by electromagnetic

I have serious doubts they even read complaints or responses. Last complaint I made was about my landlord delaying our notice of termination of tenancy (my wife works in legal and had a lawyer make sure it was to the letter of ontario law) and they refused claiming, we had to pay $100 fee - which is illegal under ontario law.

We first wrote the BBB, who resolved the matter when the head office of my landlord responded to us that "we had misunderstood the situation". Regardless of their wording, they require a $100 fee to terminate tenancy.

We decided that letting our tenancy lapse and have the extra 30 days to move. We moved out on the 18th, planned to clean on the next friday like the 26th. We found our landlord had entered our property without permission and allowed contractors in (who trashed the carpet by pouring a gallon of solvent out) and told us they intended to charge us for the damages.

We contacted the BBB again, whilst taking the matter past the local office to the companies legal department. The BBB never even registered our second complaint, stating the matter was already resolved. We got the issue resolved by dealing with their legal department and threatening to haul them in front of small claims court and the landlord and tenancy board (and we had not only an admission of illegal entry on their part, but also photographic evidence over a week of illegal entries), and then one of their lawyers apparently drove down to the local office to yell at the staff.

My impression of the BBB is not good. Here in ontario the threat of the BBB is a lot weaker than threatening the consumer protection act.