Staff report

NORTHWEST NORTH CAROLINA —Better Business Bureau (BBB) of Northwest North Carolina has announced its annual list of businesses with the most complaints left unanswered throughout the year.

Since January, consumers have filed more than 1,700 complaints against companies located within the Winston-Salem-based BBB’s 14-county territory.

Of the complaints closed in 2017, 250 received no response from the businesses they were filed against. According to BBB President Brian Wright, the organization urges consumers not to penalize companies strictly based on the number of complaints, but to be critical of those companies that left complaints unanswered.

“While nearly one thousand businesses in our service area received consumer complaints through BBB in 2017, many companies view this as an opportunity for a second chance with a customer, a chance to prove their trustworthiness,” Wright said. “Unfortunately, we also encounter businesses who, even after multiple attempts to convey the customers concerns to them, choose not to work with BBB to resolve those complaints. These are the companies that we feel a responsibility to name in hopes that consumers will think twice before working with them.”

Several businesses are “repeat offenders” who have made the Naughty Nine list in previous years. This is the third year in a row for Antiquities Vending.

Advantage Wholesale Transmissions and Bassett Gutters both appeared on 2016’s list and T-N-T Carports appeared on 2015’s list.

The 2017 Naughty Nine in Business:

1. Mount Pilot Waste Disposal, Pilot Mountain

Unanswered Complaints: 5

2. Pro Edge Outfitters, Lexington

Unanswered Complaints: 5

3. Box Alarm Apparel, Winston-Salem

Unanswered Complaints: 5

4. Advantage Wholesale Transmission Services, Salisbury

Unanswered Complaints: 4

5. T-N-T Carports, Mount Airy

Unanswered Complaints: 4

6. Diamond Outdoor of the Carolinas, Denton

Unanswered Complaints: 3

7. Bassett Gutters and More, Winston-Salem

Unanswered Complaints: 3

8. Antiquities Vending Company[ii], Granite Falls

Unanswered Complaints: 3

9. Grace and Mercy Bail Bonds, Winston Salem

Unanswered Complaints: 3

Historically, BBB has received the most unanswered complaints against businesses in the carport and garage building industries — three of which made the 2015 Naughty Nine list.

This failure to address complaints prompted a Pattern of Complaints Investigation against T-N-T Carports in Dec. 2015. Further investigation into the industry in 2016 resulted in greater communication and transparency between many of the companies and BBB, thus reducing the number of unanswered complaints across the industry. However, T-N-T Carports has continued to be unresponsive to the BBB’s communications.

 The Naughty Nine list is based solely on unanswered complaints that were closed within the last 12 months. This list does not represent the total number of complaints a company may have against them. The region represented by this list includes the following counties: Alleghany, Alexander, Ashe, Caldwell, Davie, Forsyth, Wilkes, Watauga, Surry, Stokes and Yadkin.

Davidson, Rowan and Iredell counties are also partially represented.