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MyPillow F-Rated By Better Business Bureau: BBB Pulls Accreditation

By Roz Zurko
Published on: 10:11 PST, Jan 4, 2017

If you own a television set, you have probably seen MyPillow advertised over and over again promising you a better night’s sleep. It seems the Better Business Bureau disagrees with the creator of MyPillow when it comes to his techniques for advertising and they have garnished the foam head rest with a BBB rating of “F.”

Not only was MyPillow awarded the lowest rating the BBB offers, but the MyPillow maker had its BBB accreditation revoked. This isn’t the first time someone has taken the MyPillow maker to task over false advertising, according to MSN.

The BBB has received a few hundred complaints over the MyPillow buy-one-get-one (BOGO) deal. This is advertised as a special, but it hasn’t ended. It continues to remain the normal price for this product. This BOGO deal has conjured up a good deal of confusion over this special deal. The BBB reports they’ve received 232 complaints about this advertised MyPillow price, which they consider a “substantial number” for a product.

You’ve probably seen the infomercial or a commercial clip on the MyPillow, in which the inventor of the product also acts as the spokesperson. In the commercials, Mike Lindell talks about why his pillow is so comfortable. He also expresses how he prides himself on the fact that it is made in the U.S.A., right there in his home state of Minnesota. He has been very active in promoting this product and his face is more than likely the face you associate with MyPillow, as seen below in a tweet.

USA Today reports that the BBB of Minnesota and North Dakota revoked the accreditations of MyPillow after several attempts at notifying the company about the on-going BOGO deal needing to come to an end. They were asked several times put a halt to it, but they did not comply with the requests. The company kept offering the MyPillow product for $89.99 and they threw in a second one free in the BOGO offer.

Because MyPillow’s price never changed from the BOGO price, it became the regular price of the pillow and therefore seen as “false advertising.” Barb Grieman, who is the Senior Vice President of the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota said that “you can’t offer that sale price for more days during the year than you do the regular price.” She reports that the BBB guidelines clearly states this as a criteria to carry a BBB accreditation.

Up until recently, the MyPillow product had the highest rating with the BBB, which was an A+ rating, and was accredited by the bureau. It was the problem of false advertising and not the pillow itself that caused the rating to tank. According to the BBB when you become accredited by the BBB, you agree to certain standards. There are no complaints about the pillow itself causing it to lose the A+ rating, the drastic drop stems from the way the owner and creator of the MyPillow business presents the advertising. Although Grieman also said that the “full warranty” offered by MyPillow isn’t actually “full,” citing another problem.

The Better Business Bureau is not a law enforcement agency, it is a bureau that many consumers look to before making a purchase or before doing any business with a company. The BBB accreditation allows consumers can feel confident when making a purchase. The BBB accreditation is well-known, as they’ve been offering this rating service since 1912. They’ve been around more than a century and are considered a trusted and fair accreditation service.

The BBB was created more than a century ago when a group of aggravated business owners had a real need for this type of service. They had come to their wit’s end trying to compete in business against unscrupulous competitors who had no qualms about creating false advertising for their wares.

There was also a real need for this accreditation so the consumers wouldn’t get duped by false promises made about products by business owners with the almighty dollar in their scopes. Grieman calls it a “two-fold” system that not only protects the consumers, but also the marketplace.

Citing the problem with the MyPillow advertising, Grieman said, “We want consumers to understand what the savings claim is, and what saving they are getting, which they don’t in this case. Second, this is very unfair to businesses in the same industry.”

The BBB code of advertising contains certain standards the businesses need to follow to stay in good standing. One of those standards was cited by Grieman as “you can’t make a BOGO a continuous offer, or any deep discount a continuous offer.”

Lindell, who has become quite the popular personality over the creation of this MyPillow, is seen in the tweet above with the future president and vice president, Donald Trump and Mike Pence. So what is Lindell going to do about this advertising debacle? He said that he would look into changing this special sometime in 2017, but they couldn’t stop the offer now. He also said he was “terribly disappointed” in the BBB’s decision over MyPillow’s advertising.

Lindell said he wanted to give as many people as possible the chance to get MyPillow and get a good night’s sleep. He explained that this is the reason for the ongoing sales and specials. Several California counties were awarded a $1 million in November in a false advertising settlement against MyPillow for the alleged false health claims they advertised. There was also a class action suit proposed against the MyPillow company last year for allegedly making claims that were considered misleading in advertising.

[Featured Image by Sue Ogrocki/AP Images]

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