This book is for the Jeffs of the world..

Jeff snapped. That's not like him. He works in social services and has compassion for people. He understands that people make mistakes, and he believes in a second chance, even a third.

But every so often, something gets his dander up.

This time, it was a $4 mistake.

"The amount is irrelevant," Jeff says. "It will barely buy you a gallon of gas."

But then he says something that I hear time and again about companies that owe their customers small amounts of money: It's not the money; it's the principle.

"The problem is that nobody is willing to take responsibility for the problem and apologize for the error," Jeff says.

It all started when Jeff was charged $90 for work done on his car. But as he stood before the cashier, he saw that the invoice was totaled incorrectly. He was being overcharged by $4.

He asked the cashier. She fetched the manager. The manager assured him the total was correct.

So he paid the bill and left the store. But the overcharge hung over him like a dark cloud.

A few days later, he went back to the store and asked that the bill be corrected.

He was rebuffed again.

At some point, desire can become obsession, and that's what happened here.

He went back a third time to ask for his $4. He got the same answer.

Most people would give up. Not Jeff, apparently a true member of The Watchdog Nation.

On the fourth visit, he recalled, "I took a printout with my own math to show them in black and white that the amount was wrong."

OK! Uncle! The manager had had enough of this guy. He handed Jeff four bucks, probably expecting the matter to go away forever.

He didn't know jack, er, Jeff.

Jeff sent a letter of complaint by certified mail to the business's supervisor and another to the business's local owner. He told them what happened.

Neither bothered to reply.

So he took it up the next notch: He wrote to the corporation whose name is on the front door of the auto dealership. His reply? A voice-mail message from a woman at headquarters telling him to expect a call from the business' supervisor.

He waited. And waited. A week passed. Nobody called. He called the woman back at the automaker’s headquarters. Sorry, she said. Nothing more she could do.

Jeff stepped up still another rung on the company ladder. He contacted the supervisor of the woman at headquarters and reported that his complaint had been ignored. The supervisor repeated the company line: Sorry. See ya.

Had Jeff run out of rungs? Not exactly. He could have sent letters to each member of the company's board of directors. Or he could do what he did: contact me. Sometimes just talking about these common business dysfunctions is therapy in The Watchdog Nation.

"I think my experience is highly representative of everything that's wrong with the American way of doing business today," he said. "The employees didn't care about doing their job properly because they knew their supervisor wasn't going to hold them accountable. And the owner didn't care because he knew, quite correctly, that while the corporate bosses might make a small show of it, ultimately, they weren't going to hold him accountable either."

Of all the contacts Jeff made, nobody accepted responsibility.

"I guess that was too much to expect," he says.

Now he is torn. He loves the specific automobile involved. But he will never buy from the carmaker again.

The company stands to lose a loyal customer over $4 and an apology.

A few years ago, I would have thought that Jeff was being a bit obsessive. But now, after hearing hundreds of stories like his, most involving more than $4, I don't trivialize the experience.

Get this: Jeff is not the one with the problem.

If the Jeffs of the world lose their passion to fight for things no matter how big or small, then who is left among us who will fight at all?

This book is for Jeff — and for you.

Let’s fight back.

Introduction

Every day, I spend about 15 minutes on the phone or on the computer trying to correct a problem that has to do with one of the companies with whom I do business.

In the old days, it took one phone call. These days, it’s never solved in one phone call, and the person I’m talking to is rarely local. They work off a script. Today’s customer service representative has no record of my call from the day before. Or so they say. So I have to start all over again.

Why does it have to be this way?

It doesn’t.

OK, I’m cranky. Today my 15 minutes was spent trying to cancel a traveler’s club membership that promised to save me $30 on a motel room bill. The deal was I could get the $30 coupon and then cancel without a hassle. But they “forgot” to send the coupon. It took three phone calls over a two-week period to cancel.

A traveler’s club? Don’t laugh. I never go for that stuff. But the original saleswoman popped up with such a beguiling sales pitch that I couldn’t resist.

She literally popped into my life inside a chat box that burst forth on my computer screen while I was online making the motel reservation. Her question? Do you want to save $30 on this bill?

We chatted. She explained the deal. I grilled her like she was the star witness on the Senate Watergate committee. I even copied and saved the transcript of her pitch and my interrogation.

But as is always the case, after I agreed to the deal, there were the inevitable complications.

Fortunately, I taped all three of my follow-up phone calls to them. (In Texas, where I live, that’s legal.)

On the third call, when the saleswoman tried to keep me from canceling by dangling club goodies in front of me, I said joyfully and confidently: “Ma’am, I have a transcript of the initial sales conversation. I have three tapes of my phone calls including this call. I also have the address of the Attorney General in your home state. I am here right now to cancel and end this matter. Are you with me or not?”

She was with me.

Welcome, my friend, to The Watchdog Nation.

In The Watchdog Nation, we figure that if we are going to spend 15 minutes a day — almost two hours a week or almost four days a year — dealing with corporate goons and scammers, they are going to be 15 quality minutes. We are going to know what we are doing. We are out for the kill.

When I’m on hold, I’m plotting. When my call is lost overseas during a transfer from one department to another, I can’t run fast enough to fill out a nasty customer survey to log my complaint. When I finally do get a human being who gives me a fake name (“Hi, my name is Biff”), I ask Biff for his full name, employee ID number and location of his office. They hate that.

Somebody will one day write a great book about bizarre customer service stories. This is not that book, although there are some bizarre stories in here. No, this book shows you how you can avoid being the star of one of those stories. This is a book with tips, tools and strategies that are designed to save time and energy and help you beat the system before it beats you.

You won’t win every time. But you’ll win more than you lose. And every time you get a refund and an apology, you strike a winning blow for The Watchdog Nation.

But The Watchdog Nation is more than about solving your problems. It’s about waking up the masses and alerting everyone to what many of us already suspect: we are in the midst of The Great Era of Scams. There’s little difference, I think, between the phone company that tacks an extra charge on your bill and the guy on the street corner with a fold-up table asking you to guess which shell the bean is hiding under.

There’s always somebody looking to pick your pocket. When you complain, you find nobody willing to take ownership of a problem, barely any accountability and lots of promises made and then broken.

The Watchdog Nation seeks to inspire millions of Americans to rise up and bite back.

The Watchdog Nation is founded on a few simple ideas.

Until a few years ago, it was almost impossible to put the pieces of the puzzle together about the reputation and credibility of any business or individual. Today, with the click of a computer mouse, you can do an instantaneous background check and strike the mother lode.

But if it’s too late for that, and you do fall prey to a scam or unfair business practice, it’s now easier than ever to find out what laws or rules apply to you as the victim and to the scammer as the perpetrator.

By typing in key words in any search engine, you can locate laws, rules and regulations that apply to most situations in city, county, state and federal government.

Most people don’t know their rights. We have many. And now, it’s easier than ever to learn what they are.

As part of this, these various government agencies have enforcement agents, inspectors and others who are supposed to monitor, accredit, certify or approve the activities of those engaged in various businesses. Often, though, because of negligence on the part of the government and an apathetic public, these enforcement staffs are cut to the bone. That’s why The Watchdog Nation seeks, as a long-term goal, to beef up regulatory agencies, prosecutors and others that seek to protect the rights of consumers, the infirmed, the disabled and the elderly. What good are laws against fraud, negligence and deceptive trade practices if you don’t enforce them?

I have worked as a newspaperman for more than 30 years, half of that time with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram where, as one of a handful of U.S. investigative columnists, I learned how a few people can make a very big difference when it comes to bettering our lives.

Each week in my role as The Watchdog columnist, I hear from dozens of people who are at their wit’s end in dealing with situations that reek of unfairness and often, criminality.

They want to fix their problem, but they don’t know how. And they want to help others avoid the same mess.

In these pages, we’ll share tales of struggle and triumph that will inspire you to fight back.

We need to stand up for ourselves because no one else is going to do it for us.

We are The Watchdog Nation.