Debunked: Triton Artificial Gills (Indigogo Campaign)

Today, user Kalidor on IGG posted a link to a thread about Triton at Eevblog.com. There is some interesting information too. For example there is a link to a document showing what can happen when untrained people are let handling liquid oxygen containers: Liquid Oxygen Cylinder Explosion. Below just two photos from the document, there are many more in it. The photos show a pickup truck that transported a unapproved LOX cylinder with plugged vents.




Evaporating LOX in a fully filled container could build up pressure over 800 bar, which is really extreme. That's why canisters must have ventilation openings (at low pressure tanks), or pressure relief valves (at high pressure tanks - but the 'high pressure' typically means only something between 15 - 25 bar). The ventilation must be frequently verified and tested, and the state of the tanks must be regularly revised too. I can't imagine the safety measures that would have to be put in place at a LOX cylinder designed for underwater use - the valves could very easily get stuffed by salt, dirt, or frost. Sea water could get inside. And since Triton, unlike most LOX devices, can easily be handled upside down, there would have to be vents on multiple places, and they would still risk being flooded by LOX and plugged by frost.

Besides it, it is not only the container alone that must be well ventilated, but it also must not be stocked or transported in any enclosed space. Hence it is unimaginable that you could travel with the cartridges in your luggage. As mentioned earlier, no airline would accept them on board, and you would run a risk even when transporting a few cartridges in your car, or stocked them home.

The Eevblog thread shows also another funny hoax, joking Triton must be using it: Stabilized Liquid Oxygen sold on Amazon (in ordinary glass bottles):

I would love if Triton claimed they use in fact this kind of "Stabilized Liquid Oxygen", because when you look on the back-side photo, you can read:



It means it is nothing else than ordinary water with a slightly higher concentration of dissolved oxygen than found in nature (something between 9 and 40 mg of O₂ per liter, 40 mg being the maximum at normal pressure). Absolutely useless (both as health supplement, as well as for storing oxygen) - there is still 10 times less oxygen per volume of the "liquid oxygen", than you breathe in the same volume of air (300 mg of O₂ per liter), hence is is a complete bunk, of course. Amazing rip-off - list price $39.97, production cost ~$0.10 (mostly for the bottle and the etiquette).

When I tried to comment on the IndieGoGo Triton Campaign page I get the message " Unknown error has occurred" It also happens when I try to post on my Laptop. So it means that it is assigned to my login credentials within the IndieGoGo system. Are indieGoGo trying to block comments from many people who are trying to warn contributors that the technology is not possible? From what I understand, IndieGoGo will make around $20,000 commission. It is their 30 pieces of silver for betraying 1,000 people.

Did not you withdraw your donation to the campaign, or been refunded by Triton? Can you still post comments under the old handle in the anti-campaign, where you previously already commented too, or is it blocked there too?

The anti-campaign is also blocked. My donation was just one euro.

Well, in that case, since you can post with your other handle, it is indeed probable IGG has banned you. The campaign owner can only remove individual comments, or refund a backer, but he cannot ban users.

Yes that is what I concluded. I only received an error message so they can claim that it is a technical problem. I posted a request on a group that I manage with about 3,000 attorneys for suggestions regarding Triton. Maybe one will take up the case.

@rob curedale - I noticed one thing: in both IGG campaigns, the amount of your donation is marked as "PRIVATE", which is the case only at very few backers. Perhaps it can be related to the error when posting a comment. If you made the donation amount hidden, try changing it through your user control panel, and see whether you can then post comments.

@txt29 That hypothesis cannot be correct. The problem was with the old handle where the contribution was public. The new handle has a private contribution.

rob curedale said:

That hypothesis cannot be correct. The problem was with the old handle where the contribution was public. The new handle has a private contribution.

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Not really. You donated anonymously at Triton, and openly in the anti-campaign, and your new handle is indeed hidden in the backers' list at Triton, while visible in the ant-campaign. Yet, in both campaigns the amount at Robert is PRIVATE, while at Kobert it is $1. Strangely, the amount is PRIVATE only at your old handle and then at "Thinking Bob" (another critics of Triton), so I do not know whether you can hide the amount yourself, or whether it is just a marker for banned users.

New update from Saeed! What do we get?! More 3d renders!

Also, Immediately after the update he was deleting a lot o $1 donations. When I refreshed the page after 2 minutes it went down from $397202, 994 contributors to $397197, 989 contributors. Exactly $5 and 5 contributors less. OMG NEW BOT IDEA! tweets every time they refund a $1 backer Maybe tomorrow.

Hi Saeed,

You've got a typo in "wildlife".



Hope this helps,

Triton published another update with a video showing the composition of the device, including the LOX canister. This is greatly helpful for the debunking, because it allows us to better estimate the dimension of the alleged Dewar flask for holding the liquid oxygen.

This is the video:


Using a frame from the video with the LOX canister visible, and the known outer dimensions, I measured and calculated the dimensions of the canister, its outer volume, and also estimated the inner volume. At the inner volume I calculated with the thickness of the double vacuumed wall of a Dewar, of only 5 mm, which is more than three times less than at a comparable 100 ml laboratory Dewar with the evaporation rate of 0.3 L/day. At the 5 mm thickness, the insulation would be rather inefficient, but even if we count with just slightly worse evaporation rate of 0.5 L/min, the holding time would be maximally one hour before 20 ml of LOX would entirely evaporate.

I almost missed an interesting comment posted by Saeed Khademi on IGG today:

Ok I see what you mean :) Yes because of this the canister will be much bigger of course and right now we can tell you that it will work for 3 X 45 minutes, but it is not final we are working to improved it, we want to release the news as soon as possible to our backers, so when the final is done we will release the exact time for it, we are working to 4 X 45 minutes per canister, I hope this answered your question well, have a great day

(bold emphasis added by me)

If there were 20 ml of LOX, it could cover between 2% of the ventilation needs at rest on surface (6 L/min), to 0.5% of ventilation needs at 5m depth (surface rate 25 L/min » 37.5 L/min at 5m). Still, the canister (and the necessary cryogenic technology) take around 50% of the volume of the device. It means the gills must be capable of delivering the remaining 98-99.5 % of the gas necessary for the ventilation. It would be a good question, why bothering with LOX at all, in such case, and not keeping the device as pure "artificial gills respirator" as it was supposed to be at the beginning.

txt29 said:

I almost missed an interesting comment posted by Saeed Khademi on IGG today:

Ok I see what you mean :) Yes because of this the canister will be much bigger of course and right now we can tell you that it will work for 3 X 45 minutes, but it is not final we are working to improved it, we want to release the news as soon as possible to our backers, so when the final is done we will release the exact time for it, we are working to 4 X 45 minutes per canister, I hope this answered your question well, have a great day

(bold emphasis added by me)

If there were 20 ml of LOX, it could cover between 2% of the ventilation needs at rest on surface (6 L/min), to 0.5% of ventilation needs at 5m depth (surface rate 25 L/min » 37.5 L/min at 5m). Still, the canister (and the necessary cryogenic technology) take around 50% of the volume of the device. It means the gills must be capable of delivering the remaining 98-99.5 % of the gas necessary for the ventilation. It would be a good question, why bothering with LOX at all, in such case, and not keeping the device as pure "artificial gills respirator" as it was supposed to be at the beginning.

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To me, it just looks like a version of a gish gallop: just keep posting
--with ever new, evolving, creative explanations of how this amazing tech will supposedly work--
until you run out the clock on May 1st...and you collect your money.

Doesn't really matter if any of the "science" actually checks out...if you can just keep the conversation going to May 1.

If the oxygen filtration technology is as efficient as Triton claim why is there a need to add an oxygen cannister? If the oxygen canister is better why not replace the oxygen filtration system with two oxygen canisters or one much larger tank mounted on the diver's back like Jaques Cousteau? What would be the benefit of a hybrid system to Triton in Wonderland?

rob curedale said:

What would be the benefit of a hybrid system to Triton in Wonderland?

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Higher probability of failure, higher cost, higher maintenance

The most important question is when Triton have the half million dollars and do not deliver what plan do they have? Is this money intended for some purpose apart from Triton?

rob curedale said:

The most important question is when Triton have the half million dollars and do not deliver what plan do they have? Is this money intended for some purpose apart from Triton?

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My bet is that we'll see a painful, drawn-out process of half-ass "we're-working-on-it" posts that drag on for a year or more. You can see this on many of the "scampaigns" as reported on the Pando site. Such a shame that this is becoming a modus operandi for shady campaign owners.

rob curedale said:

If the oxygen filtration technology is as efficient as Triton claim why is there a need to add an oxygen cannister? If the oxygen canister is better why not replace the oxygen filtration system with two oxygen canisters or one much larger tank mounted on the diver's back like Jaques Cousteau? What would be the benefit of a hybrid system to Triton in Wonderland?

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When they got caught with the impossibility of the filtration system they had to come up with something else and then could NOT disavow the filtration because of all the representations already made. More pragmatically, the whole core of visuals they had were based on Yeon's "magic filtration" student project so they would have had to gut most of the eye candy if they abandoned the micro-porous membrane sham.

rob curedale said:

What would be the benefit of a hybrid system to Triton in Wonderland?

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The main benefit is that it enabled them to restart the campaign and so dodge the mounting wave of negative viral publicity they were receiving the first time around.

The viral publicity cycle went "hey here are these cool looking things" - "hey experts say these cool looking things can't work" - "hey the people behind cool looking things change their story about how they really work" - and then the attention span of the media cycle had been completely exhausted and they lost all interest in any explanation that it was still utter nonsense.

The poor people who stand to lose money on this need another viral wave of negative publicity now - but despite the great efforts of many I'm afraid the mass media won't care until the backers realise they have already been conned, if ever.

huwp said:

The poor people who stand to lose money on this need another viral wave of negative publicity now - but despite the great efforts of many I'm afraid the mass media won't care until the backers realise they have already been conned, if ever.

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I'm doing some legwork on the media front.

I cannot actually believe the campaign is still going on. I was one of the people they just refunded the $1. I guess they didn't want to answer my questions. The whole thing is such a joke and their responses are pitiful. I just find it unbelievable that it's still allowed to go on. Indiegogo is in for big problems if they let this happen and steal everyone's money. I'm thinking that once it's a proven scam, someone needs to take this to a major media source and blow Indiegogo away. It's one thing to be a scam artist and another for this company to reap the rewards of an obvious scam. I sincerely hope they are waiting until the final day to see if Triton comes up with anything, before shutting down the campaign.

MBL said:

I'm thinking that once it's a proven scam, someone needs to take this to a major media source and blow Indiegogo away. It's one thing to be a scam artist and another for this company to reap the rewards of an obvious scam.

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This is nothing new on IGG. There's a history stretching back for some time now of people being taken by scams on the site, some of them are on this one for reference.

John Lewis said:

This is nothing new on IGG. There's a history stretching back for some time now of people being taken by scams on the site, some of them are on this one for reference.

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So I've read. I've backed good campaigns on IGG, but for them to perpetuate what looks like an obvious scam, is just wrong. I get the model, make $ off of every successful campaign, but they need to be honest in the process. If they let this go to term and payout, the world should know. Until this campaign, I had not heard about the other scams and would have been as naive as the others who are currently backing the campaign. Not that I'm going to be the one to bring it to the mainstream, but someone should, so backers of any campaign are more aware.

I think crowdfunding will likely destroy itself if it continues down this path. I mean, if a campaign this blatantly and incompetently dishonest and with this much foreknowledge of its deception goes to term because it isn't (currently) technically illegal - however unethical and immoral it may be - then what next?

I personally wonder how the staff at indiegogo rationalise all of this - I mean, sociopaths gonna do what sociopaths gonna do, but do the staff really console themselves with the knowledge that all of those backers have clicked a little button that acknowledges they are not buying a product? They know the backers believe they have at least some chance of getting something real out of this. They have to be aware they are aiding and abetting fraud; this isn't some idealistic dreamer over promising, there has never been any intention at all to deliver.

I can certainly say that having witnessed all of this and seeing with my own eyes the complete lack of any kind of oversight I would never give a penny to a crowdfunding campaign, and continuing down this path will place crowdfunding on a level with letters from Nigerian princes - the kind of thing you have to warn granny about.

Don't underestimate how powerful rationalization for self-interest can be. I'm sure many staff members fervently believe that they are simply providing a "venue" (as their Terms of Use call it) that furthers the greater good of innovation while they convince themselves that they simply place the responsibility of investigating campaigns on the contributors. In this view its like the owner of property where a flea-market operates (if you want to go to the shady fortune-teller or buy the fake Rolex, well, that's your right and don't look at the property owner to protect you). ... You can see this attitude if you look at some of the statements their PR guy has offered to Pando Daily and other on-line publications.

The problem, of course, is that this instance involves provable fraud being perpetrated for the express purpose of stealing funds from an unsophisticated public. Indiegogo becomes complicit when they solicit people to use the site by trumpeting that they have a "Fraud Detection Algorithm" and an "in-house team of experts" that will take "appropriate action to protect the integrity of our platform." Moreover, their Terms of Use expressly prohibit any Campaign that "claims to do the impossible or it's just plain phony."

It's critical that users believe Indiegogo is reputable. Nevertheless, they've done an exceptional job of drafting their agreement to bar any legal responsibility. If they let the campaign continue it remains to be seen whether their limitations of liability can be enforced. Nevertheless, I am pleased to be able to report that wheels are already turning in Sacramento with a prominent member of the California Legislative Assembly. I'll continue to hope that Indiegogo will blink and suspend the campaign ... but, if not, this sordid story is definitely going to have some more chapters.

huwp said:

I think crowdfunding will likely destroy itself if it continues down this path.

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IGG maybe, but Kickstarter has stricter requirements that Triton hasn't begun to meet (even if the Kickstarter admins decide that the video is convincing enough to meet their prototype requirement, you need to disclose production and distribution plans, not just pinky-swear you've made deals).

Honestly in the long term I still think video games are the bigger threat to crowdfunding in general. Not just failures to deliver and dishonest campaigns, of which there are plenty, but abuse of the very spirit of the concept from games that actually got made out of campaigns that were honest about the product, like Masuerada, Broken Age, and Star Citizen.

This device represents a serious threat to public health. It is purpose built to induce oxygen toxicity.

"The result of breathing increased partial pressures of oxygen is hyperoxia, an excess of oxygen in body tissues. The body is affected in different ways depending on the type of exposure. Central nervous system toxicity is caused by short exposure to high partial pressures of oxygen at greater than atmospheric pressure. Pulmonary and ocular toxicity result from longer exposure to increased oxygen levels at normal pressure. Symptoms may include disorientation, breathing problems, and vision changes such asmyopia. Prolonged exposure to above-normal oxygen partial pressures, or shorter exposures to very high partial pressures, can cause oxidative damageto cell membranes, collapse of the alveoli in the lungs, retinal detachment, andseizures."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

Oxygen toxicity was already discussed in this thread earlier, and would not be an issue at a 45 minutes dive at 5m depth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_operating_depth#Safe_limit_of_partial_pressure_of_oxygen

The maximum single exposure limits recommended in the NOAA Diving Manual are 45 minutes at 1.6 bar, 120 minutes at 1.5 bar, 150 minutes at 1.4 bar, 180 minutes at 1.3 bar and 210 minutes at 1.2 bar.

So, although any oxygen breathing apparatus would require expensive testing and homologation, and users would need rebreather or Nitrox diving certificates, the 45 minute dives to max 5m with Triton are technically possible without the risk of intoxication. You could even do 3 consecutive dives (assuming you will not stay 100% of the time at 5m), or even more of them, if there was some resting surface time between them.

John Lewis wrote a great essay that is posted on LinkedIn, which points out Indiegogo's culpability. As a business site, it will hopefully reach some people who both care and have influence: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/danger-crowdfunding-john-lewis?published=t

Different people's threshold to oxygen toxicity are not the same. Oxygen siezures can occur through breathing pure oxygen for shorther periods on the surface in some people. There have been cases recorded in oxygen bars. The US Food and Drug Administration has warned those suffering from problems such as heart or lung disease not to use oxygen bars.

Sure, there are individual differences and risks, but there are also comparable risks with regular scuba devices. Breathing pure oxygen for tens of minutes is very common for example for desaturation of nitrogen after deep or long dives. It it being done daily by numerous divers, and the above mentioned safe limits from NOAA can be considered as such, although vigilance is always necessary. It is similar as at DCS (decompression sickness) - there are official safe limits, but some individuals may be (under conditions) more sensitive, and need to take it in account in their dive planning.

That's exactly why any use of similar breathing devices is subject of manufacturer homologation and user certification, and certainly any unauthorized diving equipment could be seized by the authorities (Customs, Coast Guard, Police, ...), as it happens with other unauthorized diving devices. From this point of view it would be interesting to know from Triton what norms and certifications they already have or are in process of fulfilling for their apparatus.

There is not a 45 minute limit on use because someone will just change the tank. I know from experience in diving that untrained divers will dive to much greater depth than 5 meters even if the device vibrates as they are unaware of the dangers. They will resurface too quickly and some will experience embolisms and lose consciousness in the water. As it is proposed this device could be distributed to any unsupervised child for use anywhere in the world. Diving happens in remote global locations without medical facilities.

If you wanted to focus on unadvertised dangers that a 'Triton' would pose, then you could just focus on the claim than no training is necessary. They obviously claim this to make it seem as accessible and unthreatening as possible, and to differentiate from conventional SCUBA with it's accompanying certification requirements. However they completely fail to grasp that a whole lot of basic SCUBA training is actually just teaching people about the consequences of increased pressure on their bodies, all of which would totally still apply if using something like a 'Triton' that was actually real.

Training for using a 'Triton''would need to be at least as extensive as SCUBA training - you strictly wouldn't need to cover decompression limits since breathing pure O2 would mean deco never becoming an issue, but you absolutely would need to cover oxygen toxicity (CNS and pulmonary), plus all of the other physiological stuff - and you know, plus all of the training to become a certified LOx handler...

(As I wrote before, worrying about the chance of someone actually being hurt from a theoretical risk of an imaginary device is pointless - the biggest risk a 'Triton' user would face is drowning when they try to take their first breath from it since it can't work.)

I checked the EU regulations for diving equipment. All breathing and diving apparatuses are classified under the category personal protective equipment (PPE), and are subject of the CE Marking directive 89/686/EEC. This directive is available in a all European languages at the following address:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31989L0686

There is also some interesting information in the document Diving Standards by the European Diving Technology Committee, Besides others, for example this:

THE DESIGN, TESTING, EXAMINATION, CERTIFICATION AND MAINTENANCE OF DIVING EQUIPMENT
QUALITY ASSURANCE

Companies (i.e. corporate entities, institutions, bodies or even individuals) who are involved in the design, testing, examination, certification, use or maintenance of diving systems and/or equipment should conduct their work in accordance with relevant standards for quality assurance, e.g. EN 29000 series of quality assurance standards equivalent to the ISO 9000 series of standards.

The red and red bold emphasis was added by myself, to show that Triton (or even Jeabyun Yeon alone) should be EN29000/ISO9000-certified already for the design part, not only for the manufacture.

Now more to the 89/686/EECn directive. It is in a bit better readable abbreviated version available for example also here: http://www.ce-marking.org/directive-89686eec-PPE.html

Unlike common consumer electronics or other CE labeled products, the products belonging under the PPE category cannot be labeled by self-issued CE certificates. The interesting part starts in the Article 8:

Article 8
1. Before placing a PPE model on the market, the manufacturer or his authorized representative established in the Community shall assemble the technical documentation referred to in Annex III so that this can, if necessary, be submitted to the competent authorities.

2. Prior to the series production of PPE other than those referred to in paragraph 3, the manufacturer or his authorized representative established in the Community shall submit a model for EC type-examination as referred to in Article 10.
...
Article 10
...
(b) Examination of the model
- When examining the model, the inspection body shall verify that it has been produced in accordance with the manufacturer's technical file and can be used in complete safety for its intended purpose.
- It shall conduct the necessary examinations and tests to establish the conformity of the model with the harmonized standards.
- Where a manufacturer has not applied or has only partly applied the harmonized standards or where there are no such standards the body of which notification has been given shall conduct the necessary examinations and tests to establish the conformity of the model with the technical specifications used by the manufacturer, subject to their being suitable with respect to these basic requirements.
...
ANNEX III
TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION SUPPLIED BY THE MANUFACTURER

The documentation referred to in Article 8 (1) must comprise all relevant data on the means used by the manufacturer to ensure that a PPE complies with the basic requirements relating to it.

In the case of PPE models referred to in Article 8 (2), the documentation must comprise in particular:

1. the manufacturer's technical file consisting of:

(a) overall and detailed plans of the PPE accompanied, where appropriate, by calculation notes and the results of prototype tests in so far as necessary for the verification of compliance with the basic requirements;

(b) an exhaustive list of the basic safety requirements and of the harmonized standards or other technical specifications referred to in Articles 3 and 5, taken into account in the design of the model;

2. a description of the control and test facilities to be used in the manufacturer's plant to check compliance of production PPE with the harmonized standards or other technical specifications and to maintain quality level;
...

Asking friends in diving industry who manufacture products, I know that the process necessary for obtaining the conformity test results and certificates can be several months long at simple equipment, and up to several years at complicated equipment using new technologies.

So Triton should not only be EN29000/ISO9000-certified, but they should have a very detailed documentation ready for the certifying authorities. If they want to start shipping the products to customers in December, they certainly already minimally initiated the certificate process several months ago, and hence also should be able to name the organisation doing the testing and certification.

Besides the EU certification, they will need also equivalent authorization for exports to the USA, Australia, and other countries not automatically recognizing foreign homologations for this kind of equipment.

rob curedale said:

This device represents a serious threat to public health. It is purpose built to induce oxygen toxicity.

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I disagree. It is purpose built to induce drowning.

Should someone actually get this device and take it underwater, it will kill them. Not via O2 toxicity, but plain old flooding the lungs with water.

txt29 said:

Asking friends in diving industry who manufacture products, I know that the process necessary for obtaining the conformity test results and certificates can be several months long at simple equipment, and up to several years at complicated equipment using new technologies.

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Don't I know it. While working for a dive computer manufacturer, we had sent our top-of-the-line product in for CE testing. Some years later when I left, they were still waiting for the results.

What's annoying is that IndieGoGo is doing NOTHING about this. Their Terms of Service explicitly states "No scams." This product has been debunked. Their claims about what this device can do is outrageous. The fact that they closed their first campaign and now are running a second one with different claims about what it does is highly suspicious. First they claimed that it was purely a "gill" that filters oxygen from the water, now they're claiming that it is a gill on one side and has a small tank of liquid oxygen on the other. Anybody with a little common sense will look at this and realize they're running a scam. Liquid oxygen is unstable and has to be stored in a very controlled way to prevent it from heating up (it's freezing point is −361.82 °F and boiling point is −297.33 °F). There's absolutely no way it could casually be stored in a small cartridge for the purpose of breathing in directly while underwater.

Numerous people have reported this to IGG. I actually reported it twice from two separate email accounts and IGG has still done NOTHING.

Considering their inaction on this, and their notorious record of inaction for other scams, I think it's safe to say that IGG actively participates in scams because they profit from it. There is no government oversight. It is totally legal for them to just sit back and watch people get ripped off. They are complicit in fraud. Certainly this calls for a government investigation and a potential shutting down on their website since they don't implement their TOF and just rake in cash from scampaigns like Triton.

I plan to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau if they do not shut down Triton before the campaign closes in 4-5 days. It pisses me off that [they] are going to walk away with nearly half a million dollars that 1,000 gullible suckers gave them. They are going to be laughing all the way to the bank.

steve_b_NYC said:

I plan to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau if they do not shut down Triton before the campaign closes in 4-5 days.

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Waste of time. The BBB is an organization with no teeth, that few if any respond to. When was there ever a time when you heard of the BBB doing anything other than writing a letter, or threatening to lower a rating no one believes in anymore?

As a business owner, I've dealt with the BBB. I had a drunk actually back his car into my building and take out the door and several windows.

The way it worked, he filed his complaint claiming I owed him for the car's damage, I gave a response (complete with the police report that really didn't look good for him), and then he got to say whether he was satisfied with my response, which he wasn't, because I didn't buy him a new car.

I got a packet back saying my rating was down to a C because he wasn't satisfied with my response (couldn't tell you want it was before). However, if I paid the fee for accreditation, then I could appeal his satisfaction response and an actual human would review if the complaint was reasonable and if my response was sufficient, and that this would bump my rating right on up to an A (A+ for an additional fee to cover arbitration on future disputes).

So, yeah, the best thing you can do is lower a rating nobody cares about, except if IGG happens to care, they can just shell out a fee to nullify all your effort.



Edit: Just to add on, the BBB did nothing for the drunk driver, either. They didn't actually mediate the dispute, they just documented his complaint and my response, and gave no evaluation of the merits of either side. Had this guy been genuinely wronged, the BBB would not have helped make it right for him, and he had no recourse through them to make it right. And I as the business owner I had no actual protection against unreasonable complaints and couldn't even be held to do right by genuine ones - the limit of my relationship with the BBB was my rating, and their always open offer to pay money in order for that rating to work on a different set of rules that are 99% in my favor.