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The “Ultimate Consumerist Guide to Fighting Back” is the handbook you need when fighting your consumer battles.

It includes tips for the whole process from initiating hostilities (your initial complaint) to going nuclear (small claims court). Included are such tips as escalating complaints up the corporate ladder and reaching an officer with the power to fix them, guerrilla warfare (complaining in non-traditional forums like a company’s stock message board), going straight to the top (contacting execs with the lengthy contact list), email bombing, propaganda  measures (passing out flyers outside stores detailing your problems), and online shaming campaigns.

Lots of worthwhile advice so read the briefing, scout the terrain, and gird your loins for battle.

The Ultimate Consumerist Guide to Fighting Back 

Recently Argonautica was honored to be granted an interview with well-known B-movie actor Carl Weathers. During the interview, Carl Weathers expounded upon his own brand of personal finance.

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Arg: Hello Mr. Weathers, it’s a pleasure to meet you.

CW: The pleasure is all mine. First things first, do you have the honorarium? (Arg. hands Mr. Weathers the envelope). Excellent! Next, there’s no need to call me Mr. Weathers, that’s my father. Just call me Carl Weathers.

Arg: Uh, okay, Carl Weathers. The public first discovered that you had valuable lessons to offer on frugality by your appearance on the first season of Arrested Development. You suggested such tips as taking advantage of overbooked flights, saving leftovers for stew, and utilizing free drink refills at Burger King. Was that frugality an accurate reflection of your philosophy or was it just your character talking?

CW: Oh, no, that was all me, baby!

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Anyone familiar with the first season of Arrested Development knows that the way of Carl Weathers is the TAO of Frugality. The character Tobias hired Carl Weathers to give him acting lessons, but Carl saw the best lessons in life were those of frugality:

Let me tell you a little story about acting. I was doing this Showtime movie, Hot Ice with Anne Archer, never once touched my per diem. I’d go to Craft Service, get some raw veggies, bacon, Cup-A-Soup… baby, I got a stew going.

When J. Alan Maguire at the SavingAdvice.com Blog posted his methods for saving money while attending conferences, I just knew Carl Weathers would approve.

The federal Do Not Call registry became available in 2003. The registry maintains your listing for 5 years, meaning those of us who signed up in 2003 will fall off the registry soon if we do not renew.

Don’t remember when you renewed? No problem, the registry will tell you! Go to https://www.donotcall.gov/ and click “Verify Your Registration” where you can enter your phone number and email address and you will be immediately emailed your registration and expiration dates. Completely painless.

In case you are wondering, the registry works fantastic. It reduced the amount of calls we received an incredible degree. Coupled with the purchase of a telephone that speaks aloud out the phone number of the caller based on Caller ID, we now control our phone instead of allowing our phone to control us.