The Better Business Bureau is looking into a shady business possibly operating in the area and Canby Music's Brian Haines is glad they are.

Haines bit on the proposal initially, but thought better of it and was fortunate enough to get his money back.

A group calling itself Northwest Publishing/Trivia Pages approached Haines about advertising Canby Music in a publication they said would appear in restaurants all over the area. Haines thought it sounded promising, so paid for the advertisement with a credit card.

A couple of weeks after the deal was done, the organization said that, no, that wasn’t what it had promised, he said. Additionally, Haines had made some calls to restaurants that were supposed to be in on the deal — they hadn’t heard of the group.

That’s when he got the Better Business Bureau involved. A spokesman for the BBB said that the group Haines got tangled up with has a long list of complaints, more than 140, against them and has an “F” rating by the BBB, the worst you can get.

“In three years they’ve had 141 complaints filed against them,” said Haines. “If I’d checked on that first, I wouldn’t have had to go through this.”

Haines filed a complaint with the BBB after fighting with the Northwest Publishing for several months looking to get his money back.

“I paid with a credit card and was fortunate enough to get my money back (through the card company),” said Haines. “They (Northwest Publishing) had 45 days to dispute it and never did.”

While the Better Business Bureau wouldn’t comment on any specifics of a case against Northwest Publishing, it did refer to the rating and complaints filed against the company as a good rule of thumb to go by.

Haines said it was a good lesson to other small business owners to check out opportunities like this with the Better Business Bureau.

“After all that, in late April they put out the trivia pages with my ad in it and sent me a bill,” said Haines. “Five months after I told them I wanted my money back — and they didn’t dispute it — they put this thing out and think they can charge me for it. I got my money back, but others who paid in cash weren’t so fortunate.”