Customer Service Issues

Video: Here’s The Watchdog’s 5 Principles to Become a Super-Consumer

August 16, 2020 by Dave Lieber

In this Watchdog Nation training video below — sponsored by The Dallas Morning News — Watchdog Nation founder Dave Lieber shows the best way to stay on top of businesses, scammers and other 21st century life annoyances.

WHAT VIEWERS SAY:

“I always knew you were chock-full of useful info but had no idea you were so absolutely hilarious,” J.M. wrote me.

“I made my family listen to your five rules during dinner last night,” R.A. wrote.

“Loved the webinar. It was short and sweet and very informative.” K.B. wrote. “Thank you for educating us and entertaining us all at the same time.”

“I appreciate the wonderful, helpful content,” D.W. told me.

“Your steps are very clear and give us a great blueprint to not lose out. Thanks!” wrote B.T.

“I thought I needed a haircut, but you…,” M.G wrote.

Filed Under: Bad Business, Column, Customer Service Issues, Introduction to Watchdog Nation, Video Tagged With: Dave Lieber Watchdog, watchdog nation, Watchdog nation training video

A waitress who defeated an auto dealer in court gets the surprise of a lifetime, thanks to readers

April 19, 2018 by Dave Lieber

When my wife and I picked up Christal Scott at her Dallas restaurant at the end of her waitress shift (her planned ride canceled because of bad weather), she was bitter about humanity.

With good reason.

She’d been without a car since July because of her duel with 1and2 Automotive in northwest Dallas. Her car was snatched back by 1and2 in what she called an illegal repossession. She lost her $5,100 cash down payment, too.

She sued the used car dealer in small claims court, and stood up to co-owner David A. Kost Jr., whom I call the King of Car Repossessions. The day of that trial, Kost told me many of the 200 cars he sells each month come back to him. (Note: This story first appeared in the Jan. 19, 2018 Dallas Morning News.)

It was quite a courtroom scene. No lawyers. Just the single mom, 43, still wearing her all-black work uniform and platinum blond hair tied back in a ponytail, going toe-to-toe with Kost, 39, shaved head, goatee, untucked shirt, jeans and boots with a silver chain around his neck.

“I was a mess that day,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what to ask him. It was really scary.”

She won. A jury awarded her $2,000. She hoped to use the money for a down payment on another car, but, as of Thursday, Kost has not paid.

1and2 Automotive sales tactics

We were driving to a car dealership in Plano, but Christal didn’t know exactly why. She’d find out soon. A surprise of a lifetime. For the moment, the Irving woman was sour on life.

“Everything you do nowadays is a ripoff,” she said. “You can’t trust anybody at all. Not businesses. Not anybody. Nobody is honest. Everybody is so greedy.”

She’s worked at the same restaurant for 11 years. She has no family other than her disabled son. She’s street-smart and savvy.

She’s also brave. By herself, she took on what The Watchdog calls one of the worst used car dealerships in Dallas.

The pattern, shown through my reporting, is that 1and2 Automotive customers often find their desired cars on Craigslist. But when they arrive at 1and2 at the corner of Reeder and Joe Field roads, they’re told sorry, that car sold 20 minutes ago.

A salesman points the buyer to a more expensive car and asks to see cash to make sure the customer is serious. The cash is dropped in an office safe. Salesman says he can’t get it out. You just bought a car.

Kost, who owns 1and2 with his father, David A. Kost Sr. (hence 1and2), told me customers can get the money back in a check, but it takes two weeks.

That scenario happened to Christal and also to Dalwan Washington, a single mom whose story I shared. She lost her car because she missed a $275 payment by a few days. She, like Christal, was confused because it turns out the contract language calls for biweekly, not monthly payments.

Christal thought she was making a monthly payment of $450 but it was actually supposed to be $900 a month on a Camaro, a car she felt forced to buy after they snatched her life savings of $5,100 and dropped it in the safe.

If you come back to the dealership to complain, staff puts you in what Kost calls “the manager’s room.” I call it “the scream room.”

Kost said, “If someone is in my showroom and they’re yelling and screaming, what do you do? You can do whatever you want to in this room. … The thing that upsets them about this room is their voice doesn’t go very far [even] if they yell and scream.”

Makes you want to buy a car, huh?

A surprise at Ewing Buick-GMC

We arrived at Ewing Buick-GMC on Dallas Parkway in Plano. General manager Jeff Gaden was waiting with a smile — and a surprise.

Four anonymous donors, after reading about Christal’s plight, stepped forward with more than $12,000 in contributions. It’s a bit overwhelming.

Gaden happily said that he would sell her a 2012 Honda Accord (one of the best cars ever made), black to match her waitress uniform, with 65,000 miles.

“Are you serious?” Christal asked, fighting back tears.

Gaden sold it at wholesale, so Christal has no payments.

The Buick GM told her why. “We appreciate you standing up in court.” Auto dealers, he said, “try to keep a good name. That’s important to us for someone like you to stand up.”

Asked what lesson she wants to share, she agreed.

“The lesson is to stand up and fight,” she said.

She sat in the driver’s seat. “I’m ready to drive. It’s been so long. … No more Uber or Lyft.”

“You told me people were kind of rough and mean. And that you couldn’t trust anybody,” I reminded her.

“Yeah.”

“You still think that way now?”

She answered quickly.

“Nope.”

Filed Under: Bad Business, Column, Customer Service Issues Tagged With: 1and2 Automotive, Dallas used cars, Dave Lieber, David Kost, watchdog

What happened when Watchdog Nation ate lunch with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson

January 17, 2018 by Dave Lieber

My #shameATT campaign on Twitter landed Watchdog Nation in the office of AT&T CEO/Chairman/President/Big Kahuna Randall Stephenson.

Hear what happened when we gave him a red binder full of complaints

Here’s the story that originally appeared in the Dave Lieber Watchdog column in The Dallas Morning News.

A mistake I made about AT&T led me into AT&T Chairman-CEO-President Randall Stephenson’s office last week. That’s right. The C-Suite. Suite 400 at AT&T world headquarters in downtown Dallas.

Guys like me can’t get past a company’s PR gatekeepers. But here I am being escorted in the elevator by a building guard. I bring a message from you to him. I carry a large red binder with more than 100 complaints about his company.

Previously, I had written that “the big kahuna at AT&T” doesn’t list improving customer service as one of his top three goals. I launched a #shameATT Twitter campaign.

After that, the big kahuna himself calls on my AT&T cellphone to alert me of my error. He says making customers happy has always been and will always be his numero uno. He invites me to his office for a chicken salad lunch (for which, incidentally, I pay).

After spending 90 minutes in his office last Wednesday, I attest that the big kahuna cares about customer service. Absolutely.

The natural follow-up I ask is: How does it feel to fail?

And I give a little speech: “The reason I’m here, though, is specifically — besides the honor of coming to meet you — to present to you my dilemma. I really have a dilemma. And the dilemma is this. I made this for you.”

I pull out the large red binder. The cover title I created is “The Last 100 Days.” What’s inside? 119 emails from 119 customers and employees — more than one a day — from the last 100 days. I deleted the senders’ names and other personal information to protect their privacy. But these little stories are the saddest tales of corporate failure and customer frustration one can imagine.

“This is what my life has been like for the past 10 years,” I say.

I explain that since I became The Watchdog in 2005, not a day goes by, hardly, when I don’t receive a complaint about his company. Stephenson is tall. Dark hair and glasses. Friendly and courteous. When I talk negatively about his company, he listens intently and doesn’t get defensive.

“Is this something I can keep?” he asks, pointing to the binder.
“Yep.”

“OK, good,” he says. “Did they ask to have the names stripped out?”

“No,” I explain. “They wrote to me.”

“So you don’t have their permission?”

“Yeah. I want you to see what people say about this company.”

“Good. I want to see it.”

- “It’s shocking,” I warn. “Such a terrible reflection on this company. And I’ll be honest with you: When I give speeches, I will say that I think AT&T is the worst large-scale company in America. And nobody really ever argues with me.
  
  “This is just amazing — the level of ineptitude, of carelessness,” I continue. “And it’s shocking to me, and it’s been happening to me every day for 10 years. I’ve always forwarded these to your PR guys. But I’ve stopped.”
  
  “Why don’t you just start forwarding them to me?” he asks.
  
  “I would love to do that,” I say, “but here’s what I started sending to people.” I pull out a sheet that shows a keyboard shortcut I created to answer AT&T complaint emails. The shortcut is a link to the complaint website of AT&T’s regulator, the Federal Communications Commission.
  
  He says that’s an option for people. AT&T gets monthly reports to which it must respond.
  
  He taps on the red binder again: “I’ll be on an airplane tomorrow. And I’ll spend time going through it.”
  
  I say, “So that’s why I’m here, OK? I’m here on behalf of what I would call the ‘Make it stop’ campaign.”
  
  “What is that?” he asks.
  
  “Make this stop. For every 60 I get about AT&T, I get one about Verizon. For every 90 I get about AT&T, I get one about Time Warner Cable. So your ratio is so far off the charts.”
  
  His main point to make to me? “If you leave here with nothing else,” he says, “know that this is a priority of mine. This is my No. 1 priority. This is where we invest more capital than anyplace else.”
  
  He adds, “I would like to convey that we have a plan and a lot of investment” in improving customer service.
  
  OK.
  
  He points to the red binder again, screaming brightly in his modern wood-and-glass office. “I’ll find this very useful. … I want to study it. I want to see if I can put together a plan and address this on a broader scale.”
  
  He tells me that a column I wrote last month describing a customer service horror story was studied intensely by his team. He calls these studies of what went wrong a “root cause analysis.”
  
  During the next hour, I glimpse what it’s like to run a company with 150 million customers and 280,000 employees. I learn how he monitors performance using scores and metrics and data, some of it independent of the company and some internal.
  
  I learn that customer service at AT&T is changing. Much of it will go online. Call center reps are going to get more training and better technology to help them do their jobs, he says.
  
  He glances at the screaming red binder again. “I don’t know what I’m going to find. I’m dying to dive into it. It will actually be valuable intel I suspect.”
  
  Then he says something that changes my impression of him in a big way. He is removing the gatekeepers. When I ask him again where I should send the daily complaints about AT&T, he gives me his email address.
  
  Do these emails go to your phone? I ask.
  
  “Yes.”
  
  If our little meeting improves customer service for one person, I’ll be happy. But my goal is bigger. His is, too. Let’s improve AT&T’s customer service for millions.
  
  Staff writer Marina Trahan Martinez contributed to this report.
  
  Check out The Watchdog on NBC5 at 11:20 a.m. Mondays, talking about matters important to you.
  
  On Twitter:
  @DaveLieber

Still here? Visit Dave Lieber’s other fun website: DaveLieber.org

Filed Under: Column, Customer Service Issues, Technology Issues, Utilities Tagged With: AT&T, att customer service, CEO, Dave Lieber, Randall Stephenson, watchdog nation

Latest on The Watchdog’s #shameATT campaign. An ethics award, then a few hours later, embarrassed in the Michael Cohen money mess

December 12, 2017 by Dave Lieber

AT&T won an ethics award.

I know! I look at that sentence, and even though The Watchdog witnessed this with my own eyes the other day, it still unnerves me.

AT&T winning an ethics award is like Jerry Jones winning an award for Best General Manager. (Note: This story first appeared in The Dallas Morning News, May 10, 2018.)

But the glow among the beaming crew of a dozen or so AT&T employees who attended the Tuesday luncheon of the North Texas Ethics Association in Dallas didn’t last long.

Three hours later, the company found itself mired in the detective story of our lifetime. Dallas-based AT&T, we learned through information furnished by Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti, paid Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen $200,000 in consulting fees.

Later, various news outlets upped AT&T’s payment total to $600,000.

Paying for influence may not be illegal, but it’s worthy of an ethics discussion for sure.

AT&T didn’t try to duck and hide. In its first statement, the company said that Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, was hired in early 2017 “to provide insights into understanding the new [Trump] administration. They did no lobbying or legal work for us.”

The final payment was made in January.

In its second statement, AT&T said it “cooperated fully” with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation late last year. The company said it considers “the matter closed.”

Hardly. Nice try.

The right track?

AT&T’s award — called the 2018 Greater Dallas Business Ethics Award — was accepted by David Huntley, AT&T’s senior executive vice president and chief compliance officer.

In a prepared statement, Huntley said, “Operating an ethical company is a top priority at AT&T…. Recognition like this further validates that we’re on the right track.”

Michael Webb, head of the ethics group, invited The Watchdog to attend the ceremony because, he told me, “For all of these years, I’ve been kind of watching your column.”

Then he knows that for the past dozen years, I’ve received more complaints about AT&T’s putrid customer service than any other company in America.

The award, Webb said, “is based on process, not performance.”

He said, “Our philosophy is that ethical lapses and failures will happen, but companies with strong communications and programmatic ethic practices and expectations will be in a better position to avoid and correct ethic failures.”

What did the contest judges say about AT&T?

AT&T has “a well-developed and sound ethics approach for a very large company.”

“There’s a well-stated public commitment from the CEO…”

“The company showed a willingness to publicly speak on values.”

“Strong top-down strategic management leadership with bottom-up implementation.”

Too bad nobody asked The Watchdog.

Moving jobs overseas

Is sending jobs overseas an ethical issue? Or just a business issue?

Communications Workers of America, the union that represents many AT&T employees, released a report recently that shows that AT&T continues to lay off thousands of long-time employees because it has moved much of its call center operations to Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, India, Jamaica and Philippines.

The union calls this a form of “colonization” because low-wage overseas contractors, often poorly-trained, make much less than their American counterparts.

When foreign workers make mistakes, the union report said, American employees must clean up the mess. (From The Watchdog’s mail, I know this to be true.)

In bad company

AT&T’s money went into the same shell company as money used to pay a porn star to keep her silence about a sexual fling with the president. However, there’s no evidence that AT&T’s money was used for that.

Still, it’s not a very ethical place to be.

Same goes for the Russian oligarch who also paid into Cohen’s fund.

AT&T claims it needed “insight” into Trump’s thinking, especially with its proposed mega-merger with Time Warner, which is now tied up in a court case. So it paid Trump’s self-described fixer a quiet fee. But it didn’t work. Trump’s Justice Department sued to stop the merger anyway.

This reminds me of the International Telephone and Telegraph scandal in the Nixon administration that preceded Watergate. An I.T.T. lobbyist pledged $400,000 for the 1972 Republican convention. In a memo she wrote that the money “has gone a long way toward our negotiations on the mergers.”

Is history repeating itself?

A slush fund?

Is Essential Consultants a slush fund, defined as an unregulated fund often used for illicit purposes? We’ll find out.

“There does not appear to be any legitimate business rationale for these payments,” New Yorker magazine reports.

The magazine adds, “Put another way, did the Russians and AT&T inadvertently help to pay” for a porn star’s silence?

What a spot for Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s CEO/Chairman/President/Big Kahuna, to be in. Stephenson’s tenure as president of the Boy Scouts of America, coincidentally, is scheduled to end this month.

Stephenson has fostered a progressive image and enhanced his reputation by supporting diversity, sustainability and even the Black Lives Matter movement.

Will he mention his company’s involvement with Trump’s fixer when he gives life advice as he delivers the commencement address on May 19 at Southern Methodist University? Tell the graduates the way the world really works, sir.

I’ve talked to Stephenson in the past about his company’s customer service failures. Every month, The Watchdog sends him a report of all the complaints I receive about his company.

I created the #shameATT hashtag, and I guess I’ll bring it out again.

One day, I dream, I’ll no longer hear constantly about AT&T’s failures with its customers trying to resolve billing and service issues.

The company is too big, and with the Time Warner merger, it wants to grow even bigger.

At the ethics luncheon the other day, nobody would sit next to me. That’s a good thing because of what I’m going to say next. I’m going to rain on this sunny parade.

Congratulations to you, AT&T, on your ethics award.

Now give it back. #shameATT.

No one would sit by The Watchdog at the luncheon. Good thing, because he rained on their parade.

Filed Under: Awards, Bad Business, Column, Customer Service Issues Tagged With: AT&T. #shameATT, Dave Lieber, ethics, michael cohen, trump, watchdog

“Worst garage door company” busted by Watchdog Nation

December 29, 2015 by Dave Lieber

Before you call a garage door company for repairs or replacement, READ THIS.

One company with many different names and websites is commandeering the market across the U.S.

But it’s called the nation’s “worst garage door company.”

It goes by many names — Garage Door Services, GDS, Neighborhood Garage Door Services, Yes Garage Door Service (which uses a phony address on invoices) and many, many more.

The company overcharges. That’s what it does. It takes a $200 job and turns it into a $2,000 job.

It’s all here, below.

Here’s a great clue about them: their main phone numbers are 800-215-1223 and 800-833-3520. But they use others.

So learn about this company in these stories by Watchdog Nation founder Dave Lieber that appeared in The Dallas Morning News Watchdog column.

Click on these links to read these investigative reports.

Watchdog: Dallas-area garage door company labeled worst in nation

Watchdog: Garage door company sells you what you don’t need

Now in Dallas, garage door company founder evades public attention

Watchdog: Listen to clues in sales script to find good guys

Watchdog: Carrollton-based garage door company’s ex-manager fesses up

Here’s company founder Pete Stephens:

Here’s former manager Justin Willard:

Read the trade industry magazine story that exposes the company here.

Still here? Visit Dave Lieber’s other fun website: DaveLieber.org

Filed Under: Bad Business, Column, Customer Service Issues Tagged With: 800-215-1223, 800-833-3520, Garage Door Services, GDS, Lance Willard, Neighborhood Garage Door Services, Pete Stephens, Yes Garage Door Service

Amazing story of Larry Duncan the transmission schemer

December 26, 2015 by Dave Lieber

Larry Duncan offers cheap transmission repairs. Then he gets your vehicle, takes it apart and tells you it will cost two or three times the promised amount. And he wants you to pay him $2,000 or $3,000 that day. In cash. At his bank. Or he will start charging you $40 a day storage.

Can you believe the chutzpah of this guy?

Larry Duncan in his Grand Prairie, Texas garage.

Exterior of Larry Duncan’s transmission shop in Grand Prairie, Texas

And he’s been doing it for more than a decade without apparent serious trouble to hundreds of vehicle owners.

Watchdog Nation founder Dave Lieber first wrote about Larry Duncan in 2007.

But in his latest expose in the Dave Lieber Watchdog column in The Dallas Morning News, he shows how Larry Duncan does it — in his own words, with scripts and audio tapes.

Read the entire piece here:

Watchdog: A car repair upselling playbook goes national

Vehicle repair sales scripts show every car has the same problem, no matter the truth. And yeah, the price is now double.

Watch the video and listen to Larry Duncan, in his own words.

Watch The Watchdog share the latest about Larry Duncan on NBC5.

Check out Larry Duncan’s actual selling scripts:

“How to Get Started” By Larry Duncan

“Upsell Presentation Script” by Larry Duncan

Earlier Watchdog Nation reports on Larry Duncan include:

“Transmission repair deals too good to be true”

“Grand Prairie, TX auto repair owner Larry Duncan is not BBB accredited. Hardly!

Here are The Watchdog’s 12 Ways to Avoid this Kind of Experience

Simple stuff, but when your car breaks, you tend to forget.

Clip and save.

• Don’t shop on price alone.

• Try to avoid shopping by phone and Internet. Visit a garage.

• Ask a car dealership for ballpark prices to get an idea.

• Don’t get lured by a free tow.

• Get estimates in writing.

• Don’t pay a parts deposit.

• Find out if a sales person and the shop are local. Ask for their number and call them back.

• Get multiple bids on big jobs.

• Waiting for a vehicle to be disassembled before getting repair estimates is risky.

• Be suspicious of a business that requires a wire transfer or payment by cash. That means customers can’t cancel their payments.

• Before you make a decision, search names and business names for any online complaints.

• Get complete names of people you deal with. If they hesitate, you should, too.

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Still here? Visit Dave Lieber’s other fun websites: DaveLieber.org

Filed Under: Bad Business, Column, Customer Service Issues Tagged With: auto repair, car repair, Dave Lieber, Larry Duncan, Larry Duncan transmissions, watchdog nation

Why AT&T customer service sucks

December 20, 2015 by Dave Lieber

For 10 years, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation has received a steady flow of complaints about AT&T. Hundreds upon hundreds. More than any other company by far.

Each complaint I forward gets fixed. But in a greater sense, it seems nothing gets fixed. Is the culture of Dallas-based AT&T to accept the trove of complaints but never drill down to the root cause?

I don’t know why this continues to happen, but a recent letter I received may help us understand.

An AT&T call center employee has written The Watchdog. The employee gives me permission to share the letter, but I am not naming her because of her job. After the letter, you’ll read what AT&T has to say about it.

“Dear Watchdog, I’ve worked 17 years for AT&T. I have never, in all my years, imagined it would become the catastrophe it is now.

“As retention reps, we are told to not only retain existing customers after their promotions expire, but to also sell more to these people.

“In most cases, a customer’s bill will jump up $83 a month after the ‘intro’ pricing ends. We as reps are allotted at the beginning of week 5 ‘limited use’ promotions, giving folks the maximum of $40 off.

“By Monday afternoon, these are generally depleted as we take about 40 calls a day.

“This has created a culture of reps promising promos, but not adding them. Or telling the customer they are disconnecting the service, but just not doing it. Reps do not want to disconnect a customer, as this counts against the rep.

“You are right to request a user ID [of the rep]. However, it does not help, as every account is noted with the ID of the rep, and management does nothing to discourage the reps’ behavior (as the manager’s pay also is negatively affected by each disconnect their rep does).

“This goes all the way up to sales center manager, general manager and VP. None of the higher-ups care or do anything to stop it.

“They also turn a blind eye to ‘cramming’ by reps (mostly nonunion employees overseas) and erroneous misquotes.

“It’s very frustrating to be an ethical rep there anymore, as you are constantly under their scrutiny for not meeting numbers. The only way to meet these numbers is to be a liar and a sleaze. Three-quarters of my call center is on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medicine just to deal with the company. It shouldn’t be like that.

“The part in your article [a previous Watchdog report] about us not giving our User ID is really a directive that we had from upper management. A customer’s account was compromised by a fraudster with a real ID. The fraudster called in, changed the address on the account, then called in again and ordered iPhones to be shipped to the address he changed it to.

“The problem with this is none of these general managers communicate. Each state is covered by different laws and regulations. You in Texas may call and get a rep in California. In California, I do not have to let you record the call. You also have the option not to be recorded.

“Now that we are national, you have GMs in charge of call centers in California, Missouri, Texas and Georgia. They don’t train you, don’t care about you, don’t care about the customer as long as they are getting commission off your work.

“They know nothing of government regulations, and frankly, do not care.

“I’ve been through so many GMs and vice presidents. However, this is by far the most inept. We should be helping our customers, not forcing products on them they do not want. … I really don’t think anyone in the government cares.”

What AT&T says

I showed the letter to AT&T — and asked the company for its reaction.

“Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing if this is an employee of our company,” AT&T’s response begins. “But the picture painted is not the experience we create, promote or endorse.

“We have some of the best call center employees in the industry. We set expectations and limit the offers they can use. But we also provide new agents with 12 weeks of intensive training — with a focus on keeping customers with integrity and with offers based on needs determined during the conversation.

“Once out of training, our agents get regular and organized coaching and updates to their initial training with the option of additional coaching always available.”

The statement ends there.

The Watchdog deems it strange because the answer ignores the basic flaws of AT&T’s culture as described by the call center employee.

Perspective

At my request, Daniel Lyons, a Boston College Law School professor with experience in telecommunications, studied the letter.

Lyons said if a company promises a customer incentives to either sign up for service or renew an existing contract and those incentives are not delivered, in many cases, that’s fraud.

Don’t expect help from government regulators, he says. “The more competitive the marketplace has gotten, the less regulators feel like they need to get involved. If customers don’t like the service they get, they can switch elsewhere.”

What’s happening behind the scenes at AT&T is not unlike what occurs at other companies. But AT&T touches the lives of more Americans than most.

At least we have an idea why the company can’t get it right.

[This story originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News Watchdog column.

Still here? Visit Dave Lieber’s other fun website: DaveLieber.org

Filed Under: Column, Customer Service Issues, Technology Issues, Utilities Tagged With: att customer service, bad AT&T customer service, Dave Lieber, watchdog nation

In a symbolic campaign, our guy runs for – whaa? – president!

December 20, 2015 by Dave Lieber

Watchdog Nation founder Dave Lieber is taking a stand on behalf of his readers’ number one pet peeve.

His stand is a symbolic run for the U.S. presidency, which he announced Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016 in his Watchdog column in The Dallas Morning News. See it here.

The pet peeve? His readers — citizens of Watchdog Nation, he calls them — are quite surprised when they have phone numbers, email addresses, sometimes even bank account numbers for scammers who try to hurt them. Yet the authorities don’t seem to care.

Dave proposes creating a “junior FBI squad” that would work both here and overseas to take out the thousands of illegal operations that call, mail and email Americans every day with duplicitous schemes.

How can you help? Enjoy the debut campaign video here. And share the link – https://youtu.be/8iKqghi1nzg – with you friends. Let’s have fun.