Are Consumers Disadvantaged or Vulnerable? An Examination of Consumer Complaints to the Better Business Bureau

Questions have emerged recently about the appropriateness of defining disadvantaged consumers based on their membership in certain demographic categories, such as income, age, education, and race. This study assessed whether these traditional classifications are useful for understanding consumer complaining behavior with the Better Business Bureau. Results of analysis of more than 24,000 consumer complaints filed with a local BBB office during a 13-year period do not provide consistent support for this disadvantaged consumer perspective. Instead, the emerging vulnerable consumer perspective may provide a more promising basis for future research. ********** The Better Business Bureau is the third-party complaint agency most commonly used by dissatisfied consumers who are unable to obtain redress from companies (Best and Andreasen 1977; Duhaime and Ash 1979; Lee and Soberon-Ferrer 1996). In theory, the BBB may be a helpful ally of consumers, particularly those who are most disadvantaged in our society, as they struggle to resolve their complaints with businesses (Fisher et al. 1999). However, many studies over the years have investigated consumer usage of third-party complaint agencies and concluded that these agencies are primarily not used by disadvantaged consumers in our society. Instead, prior research claims to show that younger, nonminority consumers with relatively high incomes and educational levels are more likely to take advantage of services from third-party agencies, like the BBB. The research of this report takes a new look at the conceptual and methodological challenges involved in analyzing disadvantaged consumer usage of complaint services available through the BBB. Regarding conceptual issues, considerable debate has emerged in recent years regarding the appropriate definition of disadvantaged consumers. Most of the prior research in this area has focused on certain categories of consumers as being disadvantaged due to their age, income, education, or racial/ethnic membership (e.g., Barnhill 1972; Andreasen 1975, 1976, 1993; Stein 1980; Bernhardt 1981; Singh 1989). In sharp contrast, Baker, Gentry, and Rittenburg (2005) have argued strongly that this approach is inappropriate because it suggests that all members in these categories are always at risk as consumers. Instead, they suggest that research should focus on the concept of vulnerable consumers rather than disadvantaged consumers. They assert that any individual consumer, regardless of membership in any particular class, may at various times experience vulnerability in the marketplace. However, Commuri and Ekici (2008) have recently countered that researchers should still recognize the value of focusing on some categories of consumers as being more likely to be vulnerable than some other categories. They suggest that the traditional disadvantaged consumer conceptualization based on demographic categories may indeed be useful and should not be abandoned. Therefore, this study hopes to shed light on which of these two approaches, disadvantaged consumers or vulnerable consumers, may provide a stronger conceptual foundation for future research. Beyond these conceptual issues, most research studies in this area have asked consumers to complete mail surveys in which they were instructed to recall a prior unsatisfactory purchase experience and then describe what they did in response to this single episode. This method has potentially serious limitations and leading researchers have long argued that alternative research methods should be used (Andreasen 1988; Singh 1989). To address these conceptual and methodological issues, this study takes a fresh look at consumer usage of BBB complaint services. Rather than relying on consumers' self-reports of complaint behavior, this study analyzes consumer complaints from a local BBB office and matches the complainants' zip codes with U.S. Census Bureau data regarding the characteristics of consumers in these zip code areas. …