Talk:Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp/Archives/2015

Founding date(s)

I don't think the "New York City, New York 1841" founding date can be justified. Credibility is a new firm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.1.178.233 (talk) 17:14, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. They're definitely separate from the main Dun and Bradstreet.[1] John Nagle (talk) 18:28, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I've updated to simply say 2010 Tyrsdomain (talk) 23:57, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

"Grown drastically"

The claim that the company has "grown drastically" needs backup. Do they publish their financials? Also, the "awards" from "smallbiztrends.com" are of questionable notability. That's just a site where you can nominate companies and vote for them. They got 65 votes last time.[2]. John Nagle (talk) 04:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Litigation and other problems

Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp. is being sued for fraud in connection with deceptive marketing practices. "O&R Construction, LLC v. Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corporation et al", Washington Western District Court.[3]. They've also been in trouble for buying backlinks to boost their search engine rankings.[4] --John Nagle (talk) 07:08, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Undid "21:07, 7 January 2013‎ Tyrsdomain (talk · contribs) (4,339 bytes) (-1,909)‎ . . (Removed inaccurate claims)" [5] which removed cited controversy section regarding above litigation and linking issues. Please do not delete that material without discussing it first. Thanks. --John Nagle (talk) 17:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The sources being used to make the claims about deceptive marketing practices are self-generated press releases and blog posts. Clearly, John Nagle has an axe to grind with Dun & Bradstreet and Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp, and while I'm not a frequent editor of wikipedia, it would seem this is not an appropriate place to document these issues as facts. For that reason, I've removed this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyrsdomain (talk • contribs) 06:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The six references deleted in [6] ("Revision as of 06:05, 10 January 2013 Tyrsdomain (talk · contribs) (removed poorly sourced section)" were from reasonably good sources. For the link-buying issue, they were from Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan and Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz. Those are generally considered good sources for what's happening in search, and the denial of responsibility by DBCC despite evidence of the problem is documented in those sources. For the lawsuit, the sources are the San Francisco Chronicle, Justia, and the law firm that filed the lawsuit. There's no real question that the lawsuit was filed. The text "The suit alleges that", followed by a direct quote, is appropriate.

Wikipedia is not a PR outlet. Negative information about companies is appropriate. See WP:SOAP, WP:OWN, WP:COI. --John Nagle (talk) 07:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that negative information is appropriate, but are those two instances of negative information significant enough to assign weight to in a balanced article? Are there any stronger sources covering the lawsuit than Courthouse News Service, and any stronger sources for the backlinking problem than search industry websites? It'd be good to have mainstream reliable sources (newspapers, etc.) to show significance for both positive and negative events. In any case, I believe events like these should be integrated into the history section instead of being sorted into a separate section for controversies (as the essay Wikipedia:Criticism recommends), which helps raise the question of whether they're significant parts of this company's history so far. I tried searching Google News to get a sense of the company's history in the past couple years, and neither of these incidents showed up, but not much else did either.

This came up in a normal Google Search though: "DBCC high-pressure tactics generate complaints" in the San Francisco Chronicle. That sounds worth covering briefly and fairly in the "history" section (noting both the complaints and the response from the company). Including this material while leaving out the previous "Controversy and litigation" section would be a way to represent dissatisfaction from customers without relying on relatively weak sources. Dreamyshade (talk) 08:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, I can see that. There doesn't seem to be any question that the lawsuit was filed, and there's a WP:RS reliable source. Any other comments? --John Nagle (talk) 19:19, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The issue I see with including lawsuits without strong secondary sourcing (even if verifiable) is that getting sued seems fairly routine/ordinary for prominent businesses in contentious industries like this one. I tried searching Google News archive for "dun bradstreet sued", and it returned lots of major newspaper articles about DBCC's parent company getting sued over the decades. It's possible that this lawsuit will get more press as it progresses; I believe it'd help with due weight in the article to set it aside until then (until we have a stronger signal that it's important). Dreamyshade (talk) 22:02, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal just covered these issues, and I've updated the article accordingly. John Nagle (talk) 20:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Updated to add clarity to the sections Nagle added Tyrsdomain (talk · contribs)

Restored deleted "controversy" section. The Wall Street Journal article has a lot to say about DBCC's problems and is clearly relevant. John Nagle (talk) 07:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Lawsuit proceeding. Updated article. John Nagle (talk) 04:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Lawsuit still proceeding, despite the dismissal of some claims [7] and the merger. I checked Pacer; there was court activity within the last week. John Nagle (talk) 06:22, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

This litigation is not in the ordinary course of business - it calls out a fraudulent basis for the business

The whole premise of this company was built around the idea that you could bilk small businesses into thinking they could manipulate their commercial credit scores by buying "credibility." These lawsuits show that not only is that a false premise, but that D&B themselves are manipulating small company credit reports in order to sell them the service. This is outright fraud on a massive basis to the tune of over $100M a year. The lawsuits are entirely relevant to what this company is doing and should be highlighted. With factual sources, as are cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.112.199.82 (talk) 13:20, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I understand your passion, but your main source is clearly not an impartial source: http://www.dandblitigation.com/ . Add that you posted this to both Dun & Bradstreet and this page and you seem to be ignoring that this conversation was already discussed in the "talk" thread below, and it seems this section is clearly not appropriate. Tyrsdomain (talk · contribs)

Obviously I read this talk before posting here.

The section you deleted is clearly appropriate and should be put back in the page and expanded. There are 5 lawsuits in 5 states all claiming the same thing: D&B is placing false information on business credit reports simply to sell the DBCC services. And this behavior is causing severe economic damage every day. This is truly unconscionable and just outright fraud. Your glossing over of the issue and removing that information from the page abetts the fraud. The whole basis of this business appears to revolve around destruction of small business. Why are you trying to hide that? I see you originated this page and continue to moderate it. You do not appear to be an impartial editor at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.149.125.147 (talk) 00:25, 14 June 2015 (UTC)