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CONSUMER REVENGE by Christopher; Linda Cawley & Rick Schmidt Gilson

CONSUMER REVENGE

By

Pub Date: Oct. 28th, 1981
Publisher: Putnam

A comeback--not just due recompense--for consumers who've felt 'Intimidated or exploited by banks, restaurants, appliance manufacturers, used car dealers, doctors and lawyers . . . even burglars who sue for bodily injury. For the most part, this is concerned--like its many predecessors--with securing reasonable compensation for genuine and outrageous wrongs. To that end, there are sample letters and dialogues to cover a variety of consumer needs--from the letter requesting a credit bureau to clean up your credit profile to the sample interview demonstrating how to dodge some subtly discriminatory interviewing practices. But the book also strays occasionally into revenge-for-revenge's-sake--as when it suggests paying a restaurant back for overbooking by making a host of reservations for the same time through friends, then arriving on the scene to watch the place empty out (and getting a table yourself). And, can consumer rage be so all-consuming that we're now ready to report someone who cheated us in a barter arrangement to the IRS for unreported income? (Or should our attitude toward landlords and neighbors be, as a chapter subtitle suggests, ""Vengeance Begins at Home""?) For firm guidance without vindictiveness, see John Dorfman's Consumer Tactics Manual (1980).