The Art of Corporate Grievance (or, How To Get Stuff For Free)

We are a society of consumers. The technical definition of a consumer is--stay with me here--someone who consumes stuff. And we buy lots of it. Thumbtacks, cottage cheese, Hyundais, instructional Yoga DVDs, private islands--these can all be classified as stuff. In the process of buying all this stuff, we are sometimes disappointed with our purchasing experience. People react to this is one of three ways:

1. Get all pissed off and swear off forever the establishment that provided the product and forbid your children and your children's children from ever stepping foot into that store or, so help you God, you will disown them for the rest of your natural life, and Jesus, why would they want to put you through that, given your heart condition most likely caused by your hatred of said establishment.

2. Return to the faulty product's establishment and abuse the acne-covered teenager who was unfortunately assigned to customer service while cudgeling him with the toaster or pork chop or whatever happened to be defective.

3. Calmly return to the establishment, purchase an identical item, and return the defective item in the new item's packaging. This option is self-perpetuating, and pretty soon you have a store full of broken products in new packaging, thereby increasing the risk of consumer-induced homicides.

I used to be a Number 1, and my Dad, on more than one occasion, urged me to go the Number 3 route. However, it seems that, at the individual store level, there is no authority to give you what you really want--an unconditional admission of guilt for providing a crappy product and something for your trouble. To get that level of satisfaction, you have to go up to the corporate level, and, thanks to corporate storefronts on the internet, you can email just about anyone. And they have to answer you, lest they take the risk you will mail them a bomb. You never can tell with people who write letters and emails. They tend to be, as they say in the Old Country, "touched."

So I've become somewhat of an expert at writing these emails, and I'll share a portion of my impressive resume of free crap:

-Free Barq's T-shirt. Sonny Barq's address is on every can. I wrote him and said thanks. He gave me a t-shirt.
-$50 credit for a small dent in a pool table. I ordered a ridiculously cheap ($350) pool table off Walmart.com. It arrived with a miniscule dent (over the course of 10,000 games of pool, it affected our game once).
-New HP Printer (~$80)
-New shaver base cleaner (~$40) I got this after I completely dismantled (and voided the warranty) the old unit trying to fix it. I was horribly unsuccessful.
-USB extension cable for cordless mouse
-New Roomba (~$200)
-$20 Gift Certificate to Carrabba's
-$10 Gift Certificate to BestBuy

All of these achievements followed the same format, which I think is key to my success. Customer Service folks appreciate a calm, courteous customer who won't try to send them a mail bomb. If you ever need to get free stuff in reparation for a minor consumer affront, the following three-paragraph format is gold:

Paragraph 1: Establish your loyalty to the company and the product. Before they give you free stuff, they want to know if it is worth it to keep your business. NEVER THREATEN. The first paragraph is all positive. For example, say I bought a Samsung MP3 player and the headphones stopped working after three months (beyond the warranty period and return period) I didn't give a model number, but you should be as detailed as possible, include model and serial number, if applicable.

"Dear Sir/Madam:

I recently purchased a Samsung mp3 player and have been enjoying it thoroughly. I am an enthusiastic owner of two Samsung TVs and my experience with your quality and workmanship played heavily in my purchase of one of your mp3 players. For the first three months your product has once again exceeded expectations."

Paragraph 2: Bring up the issue, but gently. Sound remorseful that you have to bother them with this issue. Be as detailed as possible to avoid stupid follow-up emails that insult your intelligence. Generally, paragraph 1 should separate you from the crowd, but you have to be aware of stubborn outsourced customer service people. Your goal is to get kicked up the chain to the stateside people, who are able to make these "free stuff" decisions.

"However, only recently the left speaker of my headphones ceased to function. Subsequent examination of the cable revealed no kinks or pinch points, and the plug seems intact. When plugged into another device, the problem repeats. There doesn't seem to be a user-serviceable means to fix it."

Paragraph 3: Close with a reaffirmation of your loyalty, but suggest this will hurt it. You should regret this experience and offer that it is not indicative of the brand. Don't suggest any course of action. They'll do that.

"Your reputation for workmanship and quality closely parallels my previous experience with Samsung, and I am confident that my headphones are not representative of what your brand represents. In the future I hope to be able to consider Samsung for my home electronics needs. Thank you for your time to read and reply to this email, and I appreciate the value Samsung places on its customer service.

Thank you,

Bryan"

One week later, BAM! free headphones. I am pretty sure for a small item like this they wouldn't do any background work, so if you were unethical and in need of headphones this would work. However, be careful with big-ticket items and restaurants. They have a smaller profit margin and will actually look up your receipt.

More good fun on watch. The computer is kind of freaking out with the Java applet, so if this isn't in a right format I'll fix it later.