If the financial crisis has taught us anything it's that those highly respected firms tend to get corrupted easily. See rating agencies. Who verifies that the private firm is clean?
Consumer confidence. The problem with financial institutions is a systemic and intentional policy of using law to prevent competition. You need the, again, certification nightmare to be legally allowed to even make a loan, let alone a home mortgage. If those barriers to entry did not exist (and again, it is death by a thousand cuts - only Wall Street institutions have the army of lawyers to stay compliant) we might have a hundred major banks again like we did fifty years ago than the five we do now.
That still doesn't solve the problem of corrupt private institutions. A lot of people trust Yelp or the BBB but from whatever I know their ratings can be bought.
So inform other people not to trust Yelp because the ratings are bought, provide alternatives (I usually use a mix of Foursquare / Trip Advisor / Google Reviews) and tell them to tell their friends not to use Yelp because they are fraudulent.
Most techies with any news awareness know not to trust Yelp, that right there is proof it works. It is just the onus of the informed to educate those not.
If the financial crisis has taught us anything it's that those highly respected firms tend to get corrupted easily. See rating agencies. Who verifies that the private firm is clean?