Willemstad, Curacao — Curaçao has been blocked from visiting the online site of The Better Business Bureau (BBB) headquartered in the United States! The Better Business Bureau of the United States is a non-profit organization that uses an Accredited Corporations system to rank businesses, charities, and non-profit organizations and it maintains track of a company’s information.
BRIEF BACKGROUND ON THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU
The BBB is not a government organization and they do not have any legal authority. The BBB is composed of 112 individual regional bureaus, all of which are independently operated and funded through accreditation fees. Each region operates differently, offers different services, and charges different fees.
The BBB has no government affiliation whatsoever, it cannot shut down a business or force it to do much of anything. In Yelp reviews of the BBB, consumers and business owners alike call the organization “useless” time and again.
There are two Better Business Bureau sites for checking a company’s track record with customer complaints: (1.) The National BBB database, and (2.)The state (or regional) BBB that covers the particular company.
When businesses receive a complaint through the BBB, it can really harm marketplace trust, since the BBB complaints are not only publicly available, but they also impact a company’s overall BBB rating.
According to the BBB’s website, they are “focused on advancing marketplace trust.” The BBB promotes that mission primarily through two functions:
(i) Rating businesses based on their reliability and performance.
(ii) Facilitating the resolution of complaints.
It is worth noting that having the BBB mediate your complaint can sometimes result in a refund, but the BBB isn’t able to force companies to fix the dispute, however; the best way to get your money back if the company doesn’t refund you through its own policy; is to file a fraud complaint through your bank or credit card company.
CLICHE: “THROWING THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER…”
Therefore, by the US Better Business Bureau applying a #403 Forbidden Block List to persons and entities in or within Curacao’s jurisdiction. To many Curasalenos; who were made aware of this raise an inflection point; “this apparently further victimizes and ostracizes the victims apparently even further, since there is no one to file a meaningful complaint to; if they can not trust the Ombudsman Office or the Curacao’s Office of Complaint for Business!
Therefore to understand the reason why Curaçao was possibly blocked from visiting or using the BBB.org website and services, certain points in history may help the understanding in recent Curasaleno history of the country’s “hacking terrorist” record accounts.
CURACAO CYBER ATTACK TERRORISM: OF NOVEMBER 2019
In early November 2019, Curacao’s Ministry of Planning and Services (BPD); was hacked and held hostage (in Dutch: De minister van Bestuur, Planning en Dienstverlening van Curaçao (BPD)), under former Minister in charge at the time (2017-2021); Armin Konket; from the political party MAN.
The BPD is responsible for the country’s electoral process, which organizes the general elections of members to the Staten van Curacao. The hackers apparently infected the BPD’s systems, therefore apparently making the departments unable to access data, statistics and the country’s National Archive! The hackers also infected the ministry’s backup files (2018 backup) and unfortunately, the public personal information database was compromised!
CURACAO CYBER ATTACK TERRORISM: OF SEPTEMBER 2021
Early September 2021, the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (in Dutch: Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten) (CBCS) Interim President; Bob Traa, was the victim of a major cyber attack but it was claimed that the payment system platform was not exposed to the hackers. After the cyberattack, CBCS deactivated it’s email communications and it’s external telephone services. CBCS kept it’s investigation under secrecy and did not expose much information to the public!
WHY THE UNITED STATES BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU BLOCKED PERSONS WITHIN CURACAO FROM THE USE OF ITS SITE AND SERVICES!
JJosephaNews journalist visited the “https://www.bbb.org” site, but received a #403 Forbidden warning. JJosephaNews asked for a response based on the local cry that the site may be dysfunctional or non-operational but what was discovered was apparently worse.
The BBB reported why the local Curaçao community would be unable to access it’s website:
“The Better Business Bureau serves consumers and businesses in North America. To ensure optimal website performance and availability to those markets, we sometimes must limit access to our website from certain other countries. Countries are blocked when we experience a sudden surge of unwanted traffic that undermines our site performance for our primary users. If you are a citizen or resident of Canada, Mexico, or the United States and find your access blocked while out of the country, please wait until you are home to engage with BBB.org. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
GLOBAL CYBER ATTACK
During the last year, sixty-five percent (65%) of people all over the world have reported spending more time online than they have in the past, most likely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns. Globally on average; every thirty-nine (39) seconds, a hacker attacks someone online and that is according to internet security data, that a cybercrime is perpetrated 2,244 times each day on average.
A “PROFITABLE” ILLEGALLY CRIMINAL WHITE COLLAR CRIME ON THE RISE…
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the global cost of cybercrime is predicted to rise 15% annually over the next five years, to $ 10.5 trillion in 2025, up from $ 3 trillion in 2015. This crime will be more profitable than the global trade in all major illicit narcotics put together, and it will be the largest transfer of economic wealth in history, producing incentives for innovation and investment that will dwarf the harm inflicted by natural disasters in a single year.
