The Watchdog learned so much this year from readers. Let's review some of the best lessons:
Stay calm in battle. Kristi Vest was caught in a techno tug of war between a CompUSA store on Bryant Irvin Road in Fort Worth and with America Online when she sought a refund for service she never wanted.
Relentless, she spent two months working her way up corporate chains of command with letters and phone calls.
Her advice to The Watchdog in March: "They kind of stress you out to the point where you're just going to quit. .
.. You gotta stay calm.
You get an attitude with them, it makes everything hostile. You go to the managers, talk to them. You work up the chain.
You've got to stay firm. Keep your documentation. When you're right, you've got to stand up.
" In the end, she wore them out -- and won.
Learn the law. Tow trucks can be vultures on wheels.
Or so thought Fort Worth firefighter Jeff Natterer, a former captain in the Green Berets who told The Watchdog in March that one of his worst battles was with A-AArlington Abandoned Vehicle. After his Ford pickup was towed from a parking lot near the Fort Worth Stock Show, he took photographs of faded, unreadable no-towing signs and researched Texas towing laws. He believed that his vehicle was towed without cause.
He took his complaint to small claims court. The court ordered A-AArlington to refund Natterer his $244 in fees. What's the lesson?
Learn the law, because often there are built-in consumer protections.
Follow the money. Reader Mike Kelly, who owns a small cattle and horse ranch in Central Texas, taught The Watchdog a lesson in smart journalism.
Kelly wrote to me that he laughed after reading a March column in which I quoted Matt Brockman, an executive at the Fort Worth-based Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. In the column, Brockman made positive comments about a proposed animal registration program under consideration by state and federal governments.
Kelly knew an important fact was missing.
Brockman's association, Kelly had learned through a Public Information Act request, had a $190,000 contract with the state to help promote the animal ID program.
Lesson learned? The Watchdog needs to know whether the experts I turn to are getting paid in ways that could influence their views.
Be smarter than your computer. In April, I reported that file-sharing computer programs that allow you to download music and videos from other people's computers can also make your tax returns available to strangers. Computer consultant Scott Green of Philadelphia showed me how easy it is to fetch personal information off other people's computers.
He sent me a half-dozen tax returns of unsuspecting computer users.
Lesson? If you use file-sharing software, make sure you keep personal documents in secure file folders on your hard drive that are not open to file-sharing software where others can find it.
Check the charges on your bills. Several readers benefited from information shared in April after The Watchdog helped reader Randy Young of Azle get a $14 charge removed from his phone bill. The charge was from ESBI -- Enhanced Services Billing Inc.
-- for voice-mail services that Young didn't order.
Check your phone bill each month for unauthorized charges. Pay special attention to items marked "Miscellaneous Charges and Credits," which may be so small they are easy to overlook.
Call your phone company to get the charges removed, and file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and the Texas attorney general.
Get it in writing. Former North Richland Hills police officer Bob Curtis admitted in April that his excitement about buying a new hot tub got the best of him.
He forgot to get details of the financial payments in writing.
For months afterward, he fought to get unfair charges removed from his credit-card bill. The Watchdog was able to help get the money refunded, but Curtis lost important legal protections against shoddy construction of a gazebo because he didn't have the right paperwork.
Remember: Insist on signing a legal contract for the purchase of any big-ticket item, and sign a separate financing deal.
Do your homework. Rosemary Cox of Pantego and DeAnn Carter of Keller both complained in May about high garage-door repair bills.
The problem is that not all companies are locally owned, and finding someone to complain to after an overcharge isn't easy.
But it is easy to avoid these problems: Get written estimates from several companies; ask for customer references in your area; check with the Better Business Bureau; and make sure that the company has a local address.
Also, never pay upfront, and avoid cash payments.
Keep your records. Roy Gann of Fort Worth told The Watchdog in August that what he thought was a penny overcharge on his department store credit-card account had ballooned to $363 in penalty charges. But Gann admitted he didn't keep his records, so he wasn't sure.
Those records would have saved him months of aggravation. Turns out the problem was not about a penny, but about a payment that he didn't realize was late. But because Gann didn't keep his records, he couldn't go back and see what happened.
"I won't throw those records away anymore," Gann told The Watchdog.
Don't buy from strangers who knock on the door. That's the lesson learned by several Haltom City residents who handed over money to the Luna brothers to repair their driveways, Haltom City police say.
The residents, all of them elderly, paid cash for driveway repairs that turned out to be little more than quick patches. The repairs lasted only a few days before they cracked. One brother, Louis Luna, was arrested by Dallas police in November.
Police from several jurisdictions are still looking for his twin, David.
Here comes 2007. More scams, mistakes and problems.
More work for The Watchdog -- and more lessons for us to learn together.
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