🛡️ BBB Scraper

🚀 Export BBB ratings, customer reviews and complaints in seconds, with owner names and decoded emails on the same dataset. A Comcast run returned the full profile (44 fields), its 2,954 reviews and its complaint history with every company response, no login needed.

This Actor reads the Better Business Bureau's public search and its business profile pages, the same data a visitor sees on bbb.org. Search by keyword and city, narrow by state, BBB letter grade, accreditation or category, or paste profile links, and get one clean row per business, per review and per complaint.

Business rows carry 44 fields: BBB rating and score, accreditation date, owner and management contacts with titles, phones, emails (BBB hides them behind a code, the Actor decodes them), website, address with coordinates, service areas, licenses with numbers and expiry dates, years in business, entity type, social links and the review and complaint totals. Review rows carry 14 fields and complaint rows 13, including the consumer text and every business and consumer message.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
B2B sales and lead generation teams	Build local contractor and service-business lead lists with owner names and emails
Reputation and review agencies	Track ratings, new reviews and unresolved complaints for clients
Lenders, insurers and procurement teams	Vet vendors and partners by BBB grade, accreditation and complaint history
Market researchers	Compare complaint types and resolution rates across an industry
Consumer advocates and journalists	Find patterns in complaints against a company
Data and AI teams	Build labeled datasets of customer complaints and company responses

📋 What the BBB Scraper does

1. Searches BBB by keyword and location (city and state, or postal code) in the United States or Canada, 15 businesses per page.
2. Narrows the search with BBB's own filters: state or province, letter grade (A to F), accredited only and category code. It also sorts by best match, distance, rating or name.
3. Accepts direct BBB profile URLs when you already know the businesses.
4. With Include full profile details on (the default), opens each profile and reads owner and contacts, decoded emails, website, licenses, dates and totals.
5. Optionally adds one row per customer review, every review BBB shows, newest first.
6. Optionally adds one row per complaint with the consumer text and each business and consumer message, filtered by status and type.
7. Turn profile details off for a fast listing-only run of name, rating, phone, address and categories.

💡 Why it matters: the BBB letter grade tells you little on its own. The complaint text, the company's reply and whether it was resolved tell you how a business behaves when something goes wrong, and the owner contact tells you who to call.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

📊 Output

Each dataset row has a recordType of business, review or complaint. Business rows have 44 columns, review rows 14 and complaint rows 13. Fields BBB does not publish for a record show Not Disclosed.

Field	Type	Description
🖼 imageUrl	string	Business logo, N/A when BBB has none
🗂 recordType	string	business, review or complaint
🏢 businessName	string	Business name
🔗 url	string	Profile, reviews or complaints page
🆔 businessId / bbbId	string	BBB business ID and local BBB ID
🅰 bbbRating / ratingScore	string / number	Letter grade and numeric score (score comes from search)
✅ accredited / accreditedSince	string	Yes or No and the accreditation date
🏷 primaryCategory / categories	string / array	BBB categories
📞 phone / additionalPhones	string / array	Phone numbers
✉ emails	array	Decoded email addresses
🌐 website	string	Business website
👤 contacts	array	Owners and managers with title and principal flag
📍 address, city, state, postalCode, country	string	Location
🧭 latitude / longitude	number	Coordinates
🚚 serviceAreas	array	Counties and regions served
📜 licenses	array	License number, agency and expiry date
⏳ yearsInBusiness, businessStarted, incorporated, entityType	mixed	Company history
🙋 claimed	string	Whether the profile is claimed
⭐ reviewCount / averageStarRating	number	Review totals
📣 complaintCount, complaintsClosedLast12Months, complaintsClosedLast3Years	number	Complaint totals
⭐ starRating, reviewerName, reviewDate, reviewText	mixed	Review rows
↩ businessResponse, businessResponseDate	string	Business reply to a review
🏷 complaintType, complaintStatus, complaintDate, complaintText	string	Complaint rows
↩ responses	array	Every business, BBB and consumer message on a complaint
🕒 scrapedAt	string	When the row was collected
❌ error	string	Populated only on failed rows

Real sample records

{
  "imageUrl": "https://m.bbb.org/prod/ProfileImages/2024/1f7a8bd4-fdd2-45ca-8963-5c246e1d3b85.png",
  "recordType": "business",
  "businessName": "Calixto Plumbing",
  "url": "https://www.bbb.org/us/tx/austin/profile/plumber/calixto-plumbing-0825-1000223803",
  "businessId": "1000223803",
  "bbbId": "0825",
  "bbbName": "BBB Heart of Texas",
  "bbbRating": "A+",
  "ratingScore": 98.49,
  "accredited": "Yes",
  "accreditedSince": "2024-01-16",
  "outOfBusiness": "No",
  "primaryCategory": "Plumber",
  "categories": [
    "Plumber",
    "Plumbing Renovation",
    "Commercial Plumber",
    "Plumbing Plan"
  ],
  "altNames": [
    "Calixto Plumbing, LLC"
  ],
  "phone": "(512) 945-3143",
  "additionalPhones": [],
  "emails": [],
  "website": "https://calixtoplumbing.com/",
  "contacts": [
    {
      "name": "Omar Calixto Cordoba",
      "title": "Owner/Manager",
      "isPrincipal": "Yes"
    }
  ],
  "address": "8410 Georgian Dr # B",
  "city": "Austin",
  "state": "TX",
  "postalCode": "78753-6003",
  "country": "USA",
  "latitude": 30.3,
  "longitude": -97.76,
  "serviceAreas": [
    "Bell County,  TX",
    "Burnet County,  TX",
    "Lee County,  TX",
    "Milam County,  TX",
    "Travis County,  TX",
    "Williamson County,  TX"
  ],
  "yearsInBusiness": 3,
  "businessStarted": "2023-03-14",
  "incorporated": "2023-03-14",
  "entityType": "Limited Liability Company (LLC)",
  "productsAndServices": "Not Disclosed",
  "licenses": [
    {
      "number": "44648",
      "agency": "Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners",
      "expires": "2026-11-30"
    }
  ],
  "paymentMethods": [],
  "socialLinks": [],
  "claimed": "Yes",
  "reviewCount": 1,
  "averageStarRating": 1,
  "complaintCount": 0,
  "complaintsClosedLast12Months": 0,
  "complaintsClosedLast3Years": 0,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-28T22:19:29.701Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "imageUrl": "N/A",
  "recordType": "review",
  "businessName": "Comcast Corporation",
  "url": "https://www.bbb.org/us/pa/philadelphia/profile/internet-providers/comcast-corporation-0241-80003221/customer-reviews",
  "businessId": "80003221",
  "reviewId": "0241_80003221_557400",
  "starRating": 1,
  "reviewerName": "Kerri F",
  "reviewDate": "2026-09-22",
  "reviewText": "TERRIBLE customer service. I used ********************** for my small business (for 14 yrs) and Comcast/Xfinity for my residential service (for 26 yrs). I canceled these services in July because the prices were far above competitors, ser...",
  "businessResponseDate": "Not Disclosed",
  "businessResponse": "Not Disclosed",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-28T22:20:23.291Z",
  "error": null
}

{
  "imageUrl": "N/A",
  "recordType": "complaint",
  "businessName": "Comcast Corporation",
  "url": "https://www.bbb.org/us/pa/philadelphia/profile/internet-providers/comcast-corporation-0241-80003221/complaints",
  "businessId": "80003221",
  "complaintId": "0241_80003221_25231522",
  "complaintType": "Service or Repair Issues",
  "complaintStatus": "Resolved",
  "complaintDate": "2026-09-02",
  "complaintText": "My mother has xfinity TV service, and the TV box went out. After spending about an hour troubleshooting they determined the TV box was defective and sent out a technician to replace it, which he did. The TV works fine ******* there is a ...",
  "responses": [
    {
      "from": "business",
      "date": "2026-09-04",
      "text": "September 4, 2026\n\nBBB of ******************* & ********************\n*****************************************************************************\n**********************\n\nRe: ***** ******\n******************************** \nUnit 267a\n ****..."
    },
    {
      "from": "consumer",
      "date": "2026-09-04",
      "text": "[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]\n\nBetter Business Bureau:\n\nI have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to..."
    }
  ],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-28T22:20:26.332Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Decoded emails. BBB hides business emails behind an encoded string. The Actor decodes them, so customerservice@cable.comcast.com comes out as a real address.
• Every review. BBB shows all reviews of a business, and the Actor pages to the end: 2,954 for Comcast.
• Complaints with the full conversation. The consumer text plus every business and consumer message, with the type and status.
• Owner and management contacts. Names and titles with a principal flag, ready for outreach.
• Licenses with expiry dates. License number, issuing agency and expiry, useful for contractor vetting.
• Real BBB filters. State or province, letter grade, accredited only and category, all applied by BBB itself.
• Fast listing mode. Skip the profile pages for a cheap and quick list of names, ratings, phones and addresses.
• Pay per record. Error rows are never charged.

📈 How it compares to alternatives

	This Actor	Typical BBB scrapers	Copying from bbb.org by hand
Login required	No	No	No
Search by keyword and city	Yes	Yes	Yes
Filters: state, grade, accredited, category	Yes	Varies	Click through the filters
Decoded emails	Yes	Varies	Not visible
Owner and management contacts	Yes	Varies	Copy by hand
All reviews of a business	Yes, paged to the end	Yes	Scroll and copy
Complaints with all responses	Yes	Varies	Open each complaint
Licenses with expiry dates	Yes	Varies	Copy by hand
Listing-only fast mode	Yes	Varies	No

The Actor sees what any visitor to bbb.org sees. BBB returns at most 225 businesses per search query (15 pages of 15), so combine terms, locations and filters to go deeper. BBB shows at most 10,000 complaints per business and filter combination, and the status and type filters let you reach the rest. Some consumer names and details in complaints are masked by BBB itself. Reviewer names are first name and last initial, as BBB publishes them.

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account. New accounts include $5 of free platform credit, which is plenty to try this out: console.apify.com/sign-up
2. Open the Actor and go to the Input tab.
3. Add Search terms and Locations, or paste BBB profile URLs.
4. Set Max Items to the total number of records you want. Businesses, reviews and complaints all count.
5. Turn on Include customer reviews and Include complaints if you want them, and set how many per business.
6. Optionally narrow with state, letter grade, accredited only or a category.
7. Click Start, then open the Dataset tab and download as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML, or pull it from the API.

{
  "searchTerms": ["plumber"],
  "locations": ["Austin, TX"],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "includeReviews": true,
  "maxReviewsPerBusiness": 5,
  "accreditedOnly": true
}

💼 Business use cases

Local lead generation

Search "roofing contractor" in a list of cities, keep accredited A-grade businesses, and export owner names, titles, phones, emails and websites into your CRM.

Vendor and partner due diligence

Paste the profile links of your suppliers and read their grade, years in business, licenses and expiry dates, plus complaint counts for the last 12 months and 3 years.

Reputation monitoring

Schedule a run for your clients and their competitors and alert on new one-star reviews or complaints that are still unanswered.

Complaint analysis and AI datasets

Collect complaints by type and status with the consumer text and the company's answer. Every row is labeled, which makes a ready training set for classification and summarization.

🔌 Automating BBB Scraper

• Make and Zapier: run the Actor weekly and send new leads or complaints to a sheet, CRM or help desk.
• Slack: post a message when a monitored business gets a new complaint.
• Airbyte: sync datasets into Snowflake, BigQuery or Postgres to keep a history of grades and complaint totals.
• GitHub: schedule runs from Actions and keep versioned snapshots of a market.
• Google Drive: drop a CSV or Google Sheet into a shared folder after every run.
• API and webhooks: every run emits a dataset ID; subscribe to the run succeeded webhook and process the rows wherever you need them.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

• Research: study which industries draw the most complaints and how often they are resolved.
• Personal: check a contractor's grade, license and complaint history before you hire them.
• Non-profit: document patterns of consumer harm from the words of the people affected.
• Experimentation: complaints with company replies are a good playground for NLP projects.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude or any assistant to get help designing your run:

I am using the ParseForge BBB Scraper on Apify. It searches bbb.org by keyword and location or takes business profile URLs, and returns rows of type business (44 fields including bbbRating, accredited, contacts, emails, website, licenses, yearsInBusiness, reviewCount, complaintCount), review (starRating, reviewerName, reviewDate, reviewText, businessResponse) and complaint (complaintType, complaintStatus, complaintDate, complaintText, responses). It can filter by state, letter grade, accredited only and category. Help me design a run to answer this question: [your question here].

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔐 Do I need a BBB account? No. The Actor reads only what bbb.org shows to any visitor.

📚 How many businesses can I get from one search? BBB caps every search at 15 pages of 15 results, which is 225 businesses. The plumber search in Austin, TX matches 2,543 businesses, so split it with several terms, locations, states or letter grades to cover more.

⭐ How many reviews can I get for one business? All of them. BBB shows every review and the Actor pages to the end, for example 2,954 for Comcast. You choose the cap per business.

📣 How many complaints can I get? BBB shows up to 10,000 complaints per business and filter combination. Comcast has 26,591 closed in the last 3 years, so use Complaint status and Complaint type to slice a large history.

✉ Where do the emails come from? BBB publishes business emails in an encoded form. The Actor decodes them. Many businesses publish no email, and those rows show an empty list.

🔒 Why are some words starred out in complaints? BBB masks consumer names, addresses and account numbers in the public text. The Actor returns the text as BBB shows it.

🗂 Why do rows have different columns? A dataset row can be a business, a review or a complaint. Use recordType to split them.

⚡ What is the fast listing mode? Turn off Include full profile details to skip the profile pages. You still get name, rating, score, phone, address, categories and service areas at a fraction of the run time.

🌍 Does it work for Canada? Yes. Set Country to Canada and use locations such as "Toronto, ON".

🛡 Do I need a proxy? Search runs over plain HTTP. Profile, review and complaint pages sit behind Cloudflare, so the Actor uses a real browser session with residential proxies by default.

📥 What export formats are supported? CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, plus direct API access and integrations with Make, Zapier, Airbyte, Slack, Google Drive and more.

⚖️ Is this legal? The Actor collects information that BBB publishes to everyone. Reviews and complaints mention real people, so you remain responsible for how you use the data, including privacy law such as GDPR and CCPA, and BBB's terms.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Every run writes to an Apify dataset reachable through a REST API, so the output drops into whatever you already use. Native integrations cover Make, Zapier, Airbyte, Slack, Google Drive, GitHub, Google Sheets and webhooks, and the API covers everything else.

🔗 Recommended Actors

• Trustpilot Reviews Scraper - reviews of the same businesses from Trustpilot.
• Angi Contractor & Reviews Scraper - contractor profiles and reviews from Angi.
• Yellow Pages Business Scraper - local business listings and contacts.
• Manta Business Directory Scraper: Companies, Contacts & Revenue - company data from Manta.
• LinkedIn Company Scraper - 25 Fields, No Cookies - company profiles to enrich your BBB leads.

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with the Better Business Bureau; only publicly available data.