Making Them Pay

A Consumer’s Guide to Achieving Corporate Accountability

By Ronald Kaplan

Preface

I wish I could honestly say this book was a labor of love like many other authors convey. But the truth is as a high school and college student I worked hard to avoid writing, instead of working to master it. I was born gifted with skill in mathematics. Math and science came easy to me, but not writing. As an adult it became more and more important that I communicate in writing and I learned to better organize my thoughts and the importance of editing and reediting. There was no way around writing business letters, proposals and legal declarations for me, so I had to put in the effort and churn them out. I also took on some technical article writing. In my mind, as an expert, you have to have evidence of your expertise and published articles were the trick for me.

It is my hope that the material in this book serves to motivate relatives, friends and strangers alike to challenge and fight for what is right. I hope that my experiences demonstrate that the world has changed and that we have great tools within our reach to fight and prevail with even the biggest and strongest opponents. That you don’t need to be a lawyer, hire a lawyer or be independently wealthy to win. Leverage is certainly a key to winning, but one has to do research and to be creative in finding that leverage and then smart about how they use it. Persistence is also a key to success. It takes a lot of persistence in the beginning, but as your skills are honed and refined the need for persistence is diminished. Sometimes you fight a battle just to maintain and develop your skills, as the “prize” (what you receive as the victor) is not justified by the effort.

Companies, especially large ones, have empowered themselves with the belief that they are large enough to not have to do the right thing. They admit their mistakes and acknowledge that we would have to pay them if we were at fault, but they do not want to pay for the consequences caused by their mistakes. “Wasted time” is always one of the consequences. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that “we can’t pay for your time.” Why not?, time is my most valuable resource and you were the one who caused mine to be wasted. In my cause, as a consultant, time is my only inventory. When I have to use an hour to fix a problem I did not cause, I can’t sell that hour to a client. Another common refrain is “that would be a precedent for us to compensate you for that,” as though precedent is always a bad thing. Looking back, there are many very positive precedents: Stop lights, vaccines, tools, and the list goes on and on. Don’t accept the lame excuses that “if we did that for you we would have to do it for all our customers” or “we would go out of business if we paid for the consequences of our mistakes.”  Those used to work with me, but no longer. If a company can’t afford to pay for the consequence of their mistakes, they should not be in business.

This is not intended to be a guidebook on how to get what you are entitled to, instead I intend it to serve as a motivator by sharing my stories and demonstrating what is possible. Not everyone who reads these pages will transform themselves into consumer advocate and champion for what is right, but my hope is that many will engage in confrontation instead of avoiding it. To challenge the companies we all made rich and successful when they are wrong. I am a strong believer that in our lifetimes we will all have battles that we must engage and which are very important for us to win. I am in constant training for those battles so I will be fully prepared when they arise. I continue to hone my stills and I won’t give up the valuable first mover advantage when it’s time to challenge.

I know my successes serve to motivate others; I have seen it first hand with my wife and my son. They have become just as insistent that no one takes advantage of them as I am. I often get calls from friends and relatives for next move advice when they have a problem.