Watchdog Video Tip of the Day: How to sell your treasured heirlooms

Watchdog Video Tip of the Day: How to sell your treasured family heirlooms. 

Learn from Marina Trahan Martinez, The Dallas Morning News Watchdog Desk Administrator, how to be smart when selling sentimental keepsakes.

The Watchdog Video Tip of the Day, produced by DallasNews.com, is designed to solve a problem in less than a minute. 

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More Watchdog Nation News:

Watchdog Nation Partners with Mike Holmes

America meets Watchdog Nation/Listen to Fun Radio Interview

Watchdog Nation Debuts New e-Book and Multi-CD Audio Book

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Dave Lieber's Watchdog Nation won a 2013 writing award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists

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Are you tired of fighting the bank, the credit card company, the electric company and the phone company? They can be worse than scammers the way they treat customers. A popular book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, shows you how to fight back — and win! The book is available at WatchdogNation.com as a hardcover, CD audio book, e-book and hey, what else do you need? The author is The Watchdog columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Visit our store. Now revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER, CD AUDIO BOOK, ON ITUNES (AUDIO), KINDLE AND IPAD.

Marina

Texas Education Agency announces new investigative unit to probe troubled school districts

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Michael Williams has announced a new investigative unit to make sure the more than 1,000 Texas school districts follow the rules. The state auditor’s office had scolded TEA for not investigating cheating allegations in the El Paso school district.

tea logo

No surprise there. TEA has had a philosophy of allowing school districts to police themselves. The new investigative unit would handle complaints of wrongdoing, something state education regulators don’t like to do.

Watchdog Nation promises to watch the new unit’s work very carefully. We congratulate Commissioner Williams for making the move.

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More Watchdog Nation News:

Watchdog Nation Partners with Mike Holmes

America meets Watchdog Nation/Listen to Fun Radio Interview

Watchdog Nation Debuts New e-Book and Multi-CD Audio Book

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Dave Lieber's Watchdog Nation won a 2013 writing award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists

Visit Watchdog Nation Headquarters

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Like Watchdog Nation on Facebook

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Watch Watchdog Nation on YouTube

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Twitter @DaveLieber

Are you tired of fighting the bank, the credit card company, the electric company and the phone company? They can be worse than scammers the way they treat customers. A popular book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, shows you how to fight back — and win! The book is available at WatchdogNation.com as a hardcover, CD audio book, e-book and hey, what else do you need? The author is The Watchdog columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Visit our store. Now revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER, CD AUDIO BOOK, ON ITUNES (AUDIO), KINDLE AND IPAD.

Chasing after bad appliance repair techs is a lonely job

Repair

I have a problem with appliance repairmen who take the money and run. I like to chase these guys across Texas.

As readers of The Dallas Morning News Dave Lieber Watchdog column first learned, something about a guy showing up at your house to fix a refrigerator or dryer, taking money for a service call along with a deposit for parts and then not returning bugs the life out of me.

Several years ago, customer Barry Boardman wanted help getting his $175 deposit back. Took me five minutes to learn his repairman had a prior conviction for theft in Dallas County. Showed Boardman his repairman’s police mug shot. Ouch.

Before that, I hunted for Brian Littlefield, a longtime repairman who skipped out on a legal secretary with a broken icebox. Always the same with these guys. “Oh, you need me back. Sure, I’ll be right over.” But nothing. Then they never return your call.

For that guy, I placed a public call to my Watchdog Nation Posse. (If you’re reading this, you’re a member!) Help me find Littlefield, I asked. People told me how Littlefield pulled the same stunt on them. Turns out he had nine judgments against him. He filed four bankruptcies. All those unfinished bankruptcies helped him avoid eight apartment evictions. Then somebody — I’ll never say who — told me he was hiding out in East Texas.

When I reached Littlefield by phone, he explained it wasn’t his fault that he skipped out on customers. People are rude.

“They are yelling and screaming and being hostile on the answering machine. I have a policy: If someone is hostile, I will not call them back.”

“Why do you think they are hostile?” I asked him.

“I’m not sure.”

A few weeks ago, Gorgonio Pena of Carrollton told me about his refrigerator repair saga. Same old story.

Pena, a volunteer minister, takes his old motor home on the road and hosts Bible retreats. But he didn’t get to go anywhere this summer, not after he gave a repairman $200 to fix his motor home’s refrigerator. The repairman not only skipped town, the dude moved to Alaska. (I never heard that one before.) That was three months ago.

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More Watchdog Nation News:

Watchdog Nation Partners with Mike Holmes

America meets Watchdog Nation/Listen to Fun Radio Interview

Watchdog Nation Debuts New e-Book and Multi-CD Audio Book

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Fortunately, the repairman was a subcontractor for Accurate Appliance Repair in Garland. The Watchdog contacted company owner Ella Watson.

After she heard from me, Watson wrote Pena a note: “I truly apologize about the issue with your part. I have tried and tried and will continue to try to locate this part for you again. Before David left for Alaska, he told me he would get the part by the weekend. …

“I will have your part next day aired at my expense and schedule a return to complete this repair. Again, I truly apologize for this terrible inconvenience. I am still working on this for you, sir. May God bless you and may He also help us get this issue resolved.”

Wow. You think Brian Littlefield or his brethren ever wrote a sweet note like that?

Watson presents the problem in a candid way. The appliance repair business, she said, attracts “shady characters.”

She owned a Rowlett appliance store for 20 years. Now she runs a repair business from her Garland home. She hires repairmen to work for her.

“I’m always having trouble finding good workers. Now that David went back to Alaska, I’m in the process of looking for somebody.”

With jobs scarce, new people come into the business. “Right now everybody in the world is doing it because they’re out of work,” she says. “It’s easy to con somebody. I hear people all the time say, ‘They took my money and changed their phone number.’”

Anyone can open a repair business by placing ads in the Yellow Pages or on Craigslist and by creating a website. That’s it. In Texas, appliance repair techs don’t get licensed (like plumbers) or registered (like heating/air conditioning techs). Appliance repair techs don’t take required continuing education classes or pass a criminal background check. That’s why it’s risky to hire someone based solely on their ad.

Watson says old machines are sometimes hard to fix, but customers are difficult to deal with, too. There are stories on the Internet about how she let a few customers down. She’s tired when she talks of it. She’s 59, a grandmother of nine. “This is a mean, ugly world,” she says.

I credit Pena with perseverance. He kept calling Watson. She kept putting him off. Enough of that. Finally, I convinced them both to call it a day.

Forget about the part. The deposit is lost. How about giving the man of God his refund? Watson said she would. Pena says he might buy a new refrigerator. The motor home minister wants to hit the road again. After all these months, the divine intervention needed to find that missing part isn’t working.

This first appeared in The Dallas Morning News Watchdog column. Staff writer Marina Trahan Martinez contributed to this report.

# # # 

IN THE KNOW / Hiring an appliance repair technician

• Consider getting bids. Ask if there’s a service charge for a call, and if that’s included in future repair costs. Ask friends and family for referrals of reputable techs.

• Check the company name through the Better Business Bureau website and also by doing an Internet search with the company’s name and the words “scam” and “ripoff.”

• Consider doing a background check on anyone that enters your home. Get a full name and date of birth to use on various Internet databases or public court records. Look for a criminal record.

• Get a written estimate that includes the length of any warranties. Does the paperwork include the repair tech’s name, phone and physical street address?

• Don’t pay for work not done. If a tech wants a down payment for a part, ask to see his driver’s license for backup. Copy the information, or better, take a photo.

• Trust your instincts. Does everything sound right?

Dave Lieber's Watchdog Nation won a 2013 writing award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists

Visit Watchdog Nation Headquarters

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Like Watchdog Nation on Facebook

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Watch Watchdog Nation on YouTube

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Twitter @DaveLieber

Are you tired of fighting the bank, the credit card company, the electric company and the phone company? They can be worse than scammers the way they treat customers. A popular book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, shows you how to fight back — and win! The book is available at WatchdogNation.com as a hardcover, CD audio book, e-book and hey, what else do you need? The author is The Watchdog columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Visit our store. Now revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER, CD AUDIO BOOK, ON ITUNES (AUDIO), KINDLE AND IPAD.

Watchdog Video Tip of the Day: How to file a complaint when airline mistreats you

Watchdog Video Tip of the Day: How to file a complaint against a U.S. airline.

An airline mistreats you. You go to the airline for help. But the airline isn’t interested in helping. So what do you do?

Learn with Dave Lieber, The Dallas Morning News Watchdog columnist. He tells tells you where airline complaints are supposed to go.

The Watchdog Video Tip of the Day, produced by DallasNews.com, is designed to solve a problem in less than a minute. 

Source: Dallas Morning News

airline

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More Watchdog Nation News:

Watchdog Nation Partners with Mike Holmes

America meets Watchdog Nation/Listen to Fun Radio Interview

Watchdog Nation Debuts New e-Book and Multi-CD Audio Book

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Dave Lieber's Watchdog Nation won a 2013 writing award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists

Visit Watchdog Nation Headquarters

facebook icon 1

Like Watchdog Nation on Facebook

youtube icon 4

Watch Watchdog Nation on YouTube

twitter icon 3

Twitter @DaveLieber

Are you tired of fighting the bank, the credit card company, the electric company and the phone company? They can be worse than scammers the way they treat customers. A popular book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong, shows you how to fight back — and win! The book is available at WatchdogNation.com as a hardcover, CD audio book, e-book and hey, what else do you need? The author is The Watchdog columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Visit our store. Now revised and expanded, the book won two national book awards for social change. Twitter @DaveLieber

AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER, CD AUDIO BOOK, ON ITUNES (AUDIO), KINDLE AND IPAD.

A story you won’t read in tomorrow’s Star-Telegram

Laid-off Fort Worth Star-Telegram Watchdog columnist Dave Lieber won two top prizes at Friday night’s 2013 First Amendment Awards Dinner from the Society of Professional Journalists/Fort Worth chapter.

Columnist Lieber, who lost his job after 20 years in January, was the only Star-Telegram staffer who won the contest. SPJ is America’s oldest journalism organization, founded 104 years ago.

press hat small version

Lieber says he’s not ready to give up on newspapers — or his readers.

Other winners came from Fort Worth Weekly, The Oklahoman, San Antonio Current, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Texas Watchdog, The Ellis County Press, Texas Public Radio and WFAA-TV, Channel 8.

Lieber won first place in the Opinion/Commentary category for his piece called “Texas Insurance Department has made disciplinary information harder to find.” Lieber revealed that the state agency had hidden information from the public about disciplinary actions against members of the insurance industry. He asked the public to complain to the state about this coverup.

Apparently, enough did.  After the column appeared, the policy, initiated by Texas Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kirtzman, was reversed a few days later and the public information was once again made available. That helped Texas consumers learn whom to avoid in the insurance industry.

Judges from the Indiana chapter of SPJ stated, “A very good example of what a columnist who serves as government watchdog should do – raise enough hell to shame public officials into acting on the public’s behalf.”

Accepting the award, Lieber, who founded consumer rights movement WatchdogNation, told the audience, “I like raising hell.”

watchdog_badge-profile-pic-

Lieber also won first place for Opening the Books for a story that uses business or public records to report on corporate practices. His winning column – “One DFW travel business takes on another” – traced the secret owners of Oasis Getaway, a Southlake, Texas travel club that charged excessive fees for helping consumers plan trips. The company closed its offices after the column appeared.

The judges said, “It was easy to see the digging involved with specific records cited.”

Accepting the award, Lieber cried out with a smile, “I need a job.”

Last year, Lieber won national, state and local journalism awards for his columns. (Read more here.)

In addition, one of Lieber’s heroes, the late Betty Brink of Fort Worth Weekly, was honored posthumously with the Open Doors Award for lifetime achievement. (Read Lieber’s letter to the newspaper when Brink passed away here.)

When Lieber was laid off in January for economic reasons, readers of the newspaper were never informed. Lieber says he still receives letters, emails and phone calls from readers almost every day asking what happened to him. (Read Fort Worth Weekly’s take here.)

For instance, on the day of the April 19, 2013 SPJ banquet, Lieber received this note from a senior engineer at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics: “I’ve always enjoyed your reporting. I kept clicking on the Star-Telegram link, week after week, thinking you must be on an important assignment and would eventually return. It slowly dawned on me you weren’t there anymore. That’s when I started looking for you. If they’d informed me you’d departed, I’d have looked much sooner. That must be why the Dave Lieber button is still there – it keeps us from suspecting anything and turning our attention away from ST.”

And maybe that’s why you won’t read about Lieber’s latest awards in tomorrow’s Star-Telegram.

Final note: Lieber’s winning pieces were edited by his former editor Lois Norder, now the investigations editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Norder was laid off from the Star-Telegram in August 2012, five months before her columnist. (Read “Lois Norder, One of America’s Best Newspaper Editors.”)

One of America's top journalists

Lois Norder

 

Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation wins national, state and local awards in 2012

In the past year, Watchdog Nation has been helped by readers and their wonderful suggestions and tips for future investigations.

We are pleased to announce that some of our recent stories won national, state and local awards in 2012. Here’s a list.

Local: The Fort Worth Society of Professional Journalists, 1st place for First Amendment Awards for reporting on open government.

 State: The Texas Associated Press Managing Editors, honorable mention for community service.

 National: The National Society of Newspaper Columnists, 2nd place in general-interest columns for large metro newspapers.

 The judge in that contest, Tom Ferrick Jr., former metro columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, writes: “If I were a government official in Texas and picked up the phone to hear, ‘This is Dave Lieber,’ my heart would skip a beat. And not from joy. Lieber is a classic watchdog journalist, looking out for the little guy – and he gets results. While it’s admirable that he is an ombudsman, it’s his flair and skill as a writer that earn him this award.”

 Read the web version of some of the prize-winning Watchdog columns:

 160  constituents make a difference with bill on North Texas Tollway Authority

 Fort Worth Official resigns after boss finds backlog of open-records requests

 Investors in Bless 7 financial program start complaining

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 The Watchdog appears regularly in the Star-Telegram here.

 

VIDEO: Dave Lieber & Watchdog Nation Show the Starbucks Secret on The Texas Daily TV Show

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/-HOrQFbuac8″]

How to survive 20 years as a Texas newspaperman without voodoo

   Forget the awards and the thousands of columns I wrote and all the people I met and helped — and who helped me. Looking back on 20 years as a columnist at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram — a career that ended with a layoff last week — I’m proudest of the little box.

  The box is called “Voodoo Lou’s Office Voodoo Kit.”

   It sounds silly, I know. But I’m proud that I never felt the need to open it.

Voodoo kit voodoo office kit 2   

   Voodoo Lou was my backup. My nuclear option. If things ever got too tough for me in the hard-assed politics of a newspaper newsroom, I could open the box, pull out the doll and start sticking pins in it.

   Life is a test. Do they get to you? Or not? I bought that box in New Orleans. Where else? But as long as that doll stayed in the box, I controlled my destiny.

   To understand why that matters is to know my close relationship with the Star-Telegram. I dreamed of joining a newspaper as a columnist since I was 14. After 22 years of learning how to write and hundreds of rejection letters from across the country, S-T editor Mike Blackman hired me as a columnist in 1993 with instructions to practice what he called “New York style journalism.” The dream had come true. I was a columnist! But I was so naive and new to Texas that I didn’t realize that New York-styled anything doesn’t necessarily play well.

   I came down here from New York where I grew up and Philly where I attended Penn and later worked at the legendary Philadelphia Inquirer during its Pulitzer prize-winning heyday. I wrote a comic story about my Yankee-to-Texan transformation in the Pennsylvania Gazette here.

   As a new Texan, I was oh-so-rough around the edges. The S-T polished me up. Taught me how to behave. Act proper, as Texans say. Learning that the “you” is more important than the “I.” Listening is more important than talking. Getting both sides of every story and being fair to everyone. That’s what matters here.

press hat small version

   As part of that, I was drilled in customer service techniques. I bought into it, so much so that I eventually taught the course in training sessions to the rest of the company. (Me? Ha!) For 100 years since it was founded by the legendary Amon Carter, the Star-Telegram has worked to be nice to people. Positive stories. Millions donated to the community. Embedding its staffers in committees, boards and foundations.

   Being nice? At a newspaper? Really?  

   * * *

   “There’s no bogging Dave down with office politics or other concerns. He knows who he is and what he wants to accomplish. But he doesn’t come across as arrogant or above the work that others at the Star-Telegram do. He shows respect for them and may be the first to tell a colleague they’ve done a good job.”  — From Dave’s annual job review, August 2012.

   * * * 

   It’s 1993. My first column. By way of introduction, I ask readers if chicken-fried steak is chicken or steak. I know. It’s a dumb way to begin. Maybe the dumbest. As I struggle to find my columnist voice, the bosses assist by assigning me extra duties. I am ordered to sell subscriptions door-to-door at night so I can understand the product. I am assigned to sit on a United Way committee creating an emergency hotline number. And there’s the company picnic committee. I get that plum assignment, too.

   Twenty years fly by. Lots of good things happen. I’m The Watchdog columnist. Thousands come to me each year with their pleas for help with unsolvable problems or tips about government or corporate corruption. Newspapers may be dying, but my column brims with life. “So many problems, so little time,” my outgoing voice mail greeting explains. My plate is full.

Watchdog Ad

   Then it all stops.

   I’m the latest casualty in the slow death of one of the most important industries in the history of the world – the 400-year-old newspaper business. Former Kansas City Star columnist Bill Tammeus writes on how my departure fits into the bigger picture here.

   I knew the inevitable was coming. So I prepared. Jeff Prince wrote about my layoff and future plans in Fort Worth Weekly here.

   The Star-Telegram gave me many gifts in 20 years. The freedom to write what I wanted. To kick butt like all newspapers should (and hardly do anymore). To root out corruption, chase after bullies, right wrongs, tell great stories, give folks a laugh and help make lives better. Wow.

   With the publisher’s approval, I co-founded the Summer Santa children’s charity, now in its 17th year. The paper backs it with thousands of dollars worth of publicity and donations.

ss logo

   The S-T allowed me to propose marriage to my future wife, her two children and her doggone little dog in my Sunday column. You can read that national award-winning story here. Or listen to me read it here.

newfamily

   The paper gave me room not only to write a column but also launch a national consumer rights movement, WatchdogNation.com.

watchdog_badge-profile-pic- 

   I had lots of old-fashioned stupid newspaper fun, too. Ran my young son Austin for governor of Texas. (And raised money for Summer Santa in the process). Watch his TV commercial here.

austin3

   And against the editors’ best advice, I rode bulls in rodeos, too. Don’t believe me?  Here’s the video.

bullride

   Most important, I got to partner with a brilliant editor, Lois Norder, who for all of those 20 years helped me work toward being what Oregon columnist Bob Welch so kindly described me as “America’s quintessential columnist: likeable, passionate, and hard-driving. Nothing could stop him.” Bob wrote an uplifting column about what my layoff means for him here.

   Lois is now investigations editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the paper where I began as an intern. I wrote a tribute to Lois here. In this pic below, Lois doesn’t know what to make of me showing up for a meeting in a Revolutionary era costume. Why? Watchdog Nation is revolutionary!

  

   “If I were a government official in Texas and picked up the phone to hear, ‘This is Dave Lieber,’ my heart would skip a beat. And not from joy. Lieber is a classic watchdog journalist, looking out for the little guy — and he gets results. While it is admirable that he is an ombudsman, it’s his flair and skill as a writer that earn him this award.” — Judge in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists 2012 contest who awarded Dave 2nd place for large U.S. newspapers.

   * * * 

   When they call me in on vacation, I figure the meeting is about my contributing video reports for the paper’s new iPad edition. Before the meeting, I search my library for a history book called The American Newspaper Columnist. My plan is to show the editors the line in the book stating that I “pioneered” the “multi-media Internet column” at the Star-Telegram in the middle 1990s with a regularly produced “video column.” Going back to my roots. Whatever you need, boss. I’ll do anything to help us survive. That’s what I plan to say. But I can’t find the book.

   It’s an omen.

   The purpose of the meeting is to tell me it’s over. I’m not expecting this. Well, I am, eventually, just not at this moment.

   * * * 

   “Say it ain’t so.” — Missy Cook Beevers reacting to layoff news on Dave’s Facebook page.

   “And Lieber did a lot of good for the community, looking out for underdogs, the voiceless, the aged, the conned, and the screwed over.” — Jeff Prince writing in Fort Worth Weekly

   “If wealth is counted in friends, Dave Lieber is the richest man in Texas.” — Paul B. Moore on Facebook

    * * *

   My father died at age 90 in July. He’s the one who sent me, as a teenager, out for the newspaper every night. That’s how I met the great columnists, including my hero Pete Hamill. My eulogy for Dad is here.

   Aside from losing Dad, I’m losing a gazillion readers. We’ve been hanging out together several times a week for 20 years. Will they find me on the Internet? And what about my gutsy sources? Where do they go for help?

   The assistant in the school superintendent’s office who secretly helps me analyze documents I received through an open records request so I can figure out what went wrong.

   The City Hall tipster who makes an anonymous call from a pay phone at night.

   The employee so paranoid about giving me information that she visits me in a disguise.

   And the people, all the people with requests for help. Where will they go?

   The friend of 5th-grade teacher Theresa Neil who tells me that Neil is dying of cancer. Her death wish is to meet Emmitt Smith. “Can you bring Emmitt to her classroom?”

   Check.

emmitt

   The 100-year-old Arlington woman who writes a check to her insurance company for $480 instead of $4.80. Ruth Wingfield, shown below, has a hard time getting a refund. “Can you scare ’em?” she asks.

   Check.

Ruth Wingfield at 100

   The big-time preacher, shown below, secretly running church members for city council so he can take over the local government. Perfect for zoning changes he seeks. “Can you expose that?”

   Check.

The pastor

   The city council holding public meetings over dinner in restaurants at taxpayers’ expense. “Can you get them to stop?”

   Check.

   A press pass is a ticket to a front-row seat watching the world, Pete Hamill says. It’s also a way to make things better, day after day, year after year, column after column. What a truly American honor. Every day, I saw being a newspaper columnist that way.

  press pass

   “This past year, Dave’s writing has been more consistently strong. He’s conversational and punchy. He can take complex stories and tell them in simple and engaging ways. He listens attentively to editor feedback — and he has applied lessons he has learned from the coaching seminars he has attended on his own to help him as a public speaker.” — From Dave’s 2012 job review.

   * * * 

   I wrote my final column as a farewell column. I was taught to always write every column like it’s the last. Only this one was the last, but I didn’t know it at the time.  That piece is here, as long as the link is up.

   Then I went to Vegas on vacation for a “Laugh Lab” humor conference led by the National Speakers Association. There I laughed — and learned — for three days from the “faculty,” shown below, along with me and the other students.

Faculty at the Laugh Lab kept me laughing.

 

   On the last day, my wife Karen, Austin, the almost governor, and I flew in a small plane above the Grand Canyon. I listened to Ave Maria on my headset. I felt something strong up there. God was preparing me for my next step. (See, to my old New Yorker friends, that’s what talking proper like a Texan sounds like.)

072

   If you’re gonna lose your job, I do recommend laughing your hiney off for three days, then having a quasi-religious experience above the Grand Canyon beforehand. Puts everything in perspective.

   Fortunately, I’ve been building my new life for a decade. I’ve spoken to more than a thousand audiences in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. For me, writing and speaking go together. Now I get to do more of the latter.

   Sure, I’ll miss writing every week in a newspaper, something I’ve done for 38 years. My online sites are WatchdogNation.com, YankeeCowboy.com and  YourStoryBlowsMeAway.com. But I do love the platform and the live audience. The telling of stories and the sharing of ideas designed to make life better is a lot more fun in person than it is writing alone in a dark room. So helping others is the key to life ahead. Like a proper Texan.

    * * *

   Last week my final piece of mail arrived at the newspaper. It was a card. “Thank you so much,” it said. But nobody signed it.

   I’ll say in my proper Texas voice what my final editor at the paper, John Gravois, always says when he’s thanked for something:

   “No, thank you!!”

cowboy hat tip

 – 30-

 Dave Lieber

Watchdog Columnist

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Read a recent magazine profile about Dave by Rhonda Ross that gives more of the story here.

Catch Dave’s latest happenings on Twitter @DaveLieber.

Visit Dave’s Yankee Cowboy Store for books, CDs and other cool stuff.

 

Watchdog Nation “Tougher ‘n a junkyard dawg”

Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation receives mail, mail and more mail every day from folks who have problems and want to learn how to solve them. This is one of our favorites that arrived at Watchdog Nation World Headquarters this week.

 Dear Brother Dave (aka “Tougher ‘n a junkyard dawg”):

 It is well-imagined that all your postal mail, your e-mail and your received phone calls begin with, “Dave, I’ve got a problem, and I want you to spend your time/energies/ and all your remaining resources toward arriving at a resolution.”

 This letter, though, is the exception!

 Dave Lieber's Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong

Ever since you responded to my “Dave, I’ve got a problem” letter several months ago, I’ve since felt a very close connection to “The Watchdog” and look forward every Sunday morning to reading about your resolution of other folk’s problems in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

 The “resolutions” are general in nature, and as such they benefit not only the one who request your monumental effort — but they further aid those who’ve had similar problems, or may be confronted with them in the future.

 But of course, not everyone enjoys reading “The Watchdog.” Not everyone you say!?!

 Well, the con/scam/bunco “artists” don’t enjoy it, and I think it is safe to say that many of them (if not all) have been “run out of Dodge” because of your having revealed their attempt to “separate us gullible old fools from our meager (cash) holdings.”

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More Watchdog Nation News:

Watchdog Nation Partners with Mike Holmes

America meets Watchdog Nation/Listen to Fun Radio Interview

Watchdog Nation Debuts New e-Book and Multi-CD Audio Book

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 So once again, this hard-scribbled letter is but meant to serve as a GIGANTIC and heartfelt thank you for all that you have done/are doing/and will continue doing for all of us “everyday/average” folks who (too often) are being “stepped on” by the big bully ner-do-wells with their “get rich quick schemes.”

 With sincere respect and admiration,

 Rod Hale

Glen Rose, Texas

 PS I already know the quality of your heart, and as such, a response to this letter is not necessary. Have a coffee break instead, OK?!

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Dear Rod,

Response unnecessary? Surely, you jest. What a wonderful, touching piece of writing that we will treasure always.

Dave

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Dave Lieber shows Americans how to fight back against corporate deceptions in his wonderful book, Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong. Are you tired of losing time, money and aggravation to all the assaults on our wallets? Learn how to fight back with ease — and win. Get the book here.

Read The Watchdog Nation manifesto here!

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Watchdog Nation proudly sponsors Summer Santa children’s charity

Dave Lieber’s Watchdog Nation is a proud sponsor of Summer Santa, one of North Texas’ largest children’s charities.

The donation goes to the charity which sends several hundred children to summer camp each year. Summer Santa has no physical office and no paid staff. All of its work is done by volunteers.

Summer Santa was co-founded by Dave Lieber and Westlake Municipal Judge Brad Bradley in 1997. Since then, Summer Santa has helped tens of thousands of children with its back-to-school clothing program, free medical checkups, after-school activities, toy distribution to area charities for summertime play and sports league scholarship.

“I am just as proud of my work on Summer Santa as I am of my work creating Watchdog Nation,” Dave Lieber says. “One helps children; the other helps adults. Helping others is a key component of Texas culture. I’m so grateful that I have learned that lesson!”

Learn how you can donate to the tax-deductible charity here, and know for certain that your money will only go directly toward paying for these valuable children’s programs that help children in need.

Dave Lieber's Watchdog Nation: Bite Back When Businesses and Scammers Do You Wrong

Cyn Choate, Summer Santa Chairman, accepts a sponsorship check from Watchdog Nation and Summer Santa founder Dave Lieber.