Sick of having your complaints ignored, being ripped off and getting the short end of the stick?

Here are 52 great sites, services and secrets to help shoppers, road warriors, home owners and all types of consumers. There are tips on how to complain effectively, protect your privacy, talk to a real person, get free stuff and fight back when the system is unfair!

How to Complain (and Get Results!)

• How to write a complaint letter - Tips for writing letters that get results, regardless of who you need to complain to.
• Sample complaint letter templates - This includes a general letter of complaint, a complaint letter about goods you have bought and a complaint about a service provided to you
• A Guide to Fighting Back - A well done guide written by the Consumerist.
• Complain to the Federal Trade Commission for any consumer complaint except:
  • Do Not Call list issues: use this form.
  • Identity theft issues: use this form.
  • Issues involving a non US company: use this form.
• For Airline Complaints contact the Department of Transportation with this form, since that’s who the airlines listen to! The Wall Street Journal reports that: “airlines admit they do pay more attention to consumer complaints if travelers send them to the DOT, which categorizes and tallies complaints and publishes monthly rankings of airline performance.” You can also email the the DOT at: airconsumer@dot.gov or call 202-366-2220 where complaints can be recorded.

How to Talk to a Real Person (or to Stop Them From Bugging You)

• Dial A Human - Press 1 if you are sick of talking to a robot! Dial A human is an exhaustive list phone numbers and instructions on how to reach a real person at hundreds of companies.
• Hard to find 800 Number - Can’t find a phone number for Amazon, Ebay or Microsoft? Here is a handy directory of some of the more difficult to find toll free numbers.
• 800 Notes - Gotten a call with Unavailable Caller ID info? Then the caller did not leave a message, now you can type the phone number in here and find out who is using the number and how. A really handy tool to research and report annoying phone calls.
• Catalog Choice - A free service that allows you to save natural resources by deciding what gets in your mailbox. Consumers can indicate which catalogs they no longer wish to receive, and businesses can receive a list of consumers no longer wanting to receive their catalogs.
• The National Do Not Call Registry - Stop telemarketing calls at home. Most telemarketers should not call your number once it has been on the registry for 31 days. If they do, you can file a complaint at this Website. You can register your home or mobile phone for free.
• FCC Junk Fax Complaint Form - You may use the FCC Form 1088 to complain about: Telemarketing issues, i.e., (1) junk faxes, (2) telemarketing (including Do-Not-Call violations), and (3) other issues, such as pre-recorded telephone messages, automatic telephone dialing systems, and unsolicited commercial e-mail messages to cell phones, pagers, and other wireless telecommunications devices.
• How to block your caller ID - Keep your number to yourself. Important note: Calling Toll Free numbers (800, 888, 877) your phone number is available to the party you call even if you have blocked yor caller ID though an alternate system know as ANI.
• How to Reject Anonymous Calls - From most land lines, dial: *77 to enable it and *87 to disable it. Incoming callers who call you when you have Caller ID blocking on hear a message stating that this line does not accept calls from anonymous callers. This service is usually free with Caller ID on land lines. It is not available from most cell phone services.

How to Research Companies (or Take Your Complaint Public)

• The Consumerist - A widely read blog which has made its name by reporting on stories where consumers have been wronged.
• The Better Business Bureau - A resource to research companies and charities, as well as a place to file a complaint. Because of the high profile of the BBB and their frequent use by the media, companies tend to work hard to address BBB complaints.
• The Rip Off Report - A consumer reporting service, by consumers, for consumers, where you can publish complaints about companies or individuals.
• Complaints.com - A database of personal, first-hand, consumer experiences (well bad experiences anyway) with products and services. Learn from the experiences of others, or educated them with your own complaints.
• Guide Star - The leading source of information on U.S. nonprofits. The site has a searchable database of more than 1.7 million IRS-recognized nonprofit organizations and is the best place to research a charity before making a donation. (You must register for free to get access.)

Free Stuff and Services (Why pay when you can get it free!)

• AnnualCreditReport.com - The official service provided by the three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) for consumers to request and obtain a free credit report (once every 12 months) from all 3 companies. They must provide this in accordance with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act). You can view and print credit reports online, and they also offer options to request reports by telephone and by mail. There are MANY sites with similar names, this is the official site and you do not need to pay to get your credit report. They may offer other services, just decline them.
• Craigslist.com - Everybody’s favorite site for free classifieds. Find a job, sell a car, get an apartment, give away your empty boxes. If you need to find or unload pretty much anything, this is the site.
• FreeCycle.com - It is a grassroots and nonprofit site where people are giving away & getting stuff for free in their own community. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. It is sort of like Craig’s list, but where everything is free.
• 1-800-free-411 - Call (or visit the web site) and get your free directory listings. It’s just like 411, but there is a brief (about 20 seconds) recorded ad before you can get your listing and of course it doesn’t cost anything.

Shopping Tools (Get a Deal!)

• Amazon Discount Finder - lets you search Amazon for hidden discounts and mispriced items.
• Shopzilla - A price comparison shopping tool, that let’s you check prices for the same item and many different online stores.
• Deal Locker Coupon Codes - Get online coupon codes for thousands of stores, over 20,000 online coupon codes for 5000+ stores. Never let the empty coupon code box on the check out page mock you again!
• Find Misspelled eBay auction items, so you will be the only bidder! This search tool lets you find typos and misspellings in eBay auctions and craigslist ads. This is a really clever technique to buy things for cheap since few other people don’t find the misspelled items.
• GroceryGuide - Find grocery sales and coupons by zipcode for many grocery stores around the country.
• Pharmacy Checker lets you compare prescription drug prices for 1,000+ medications. You’ll also see online pharmacy ratings and shipping fees so you can compare total costs.
• Priceprotectr.com - After you buy something, you can register it with these guys. If there is a price drop in 30 days (or whatever the appropriate store policy is) they will notify you so you can get your refund.
• Printable Grocery Coupons from Smart Source. No Registration or sign up is necessary, but it only works on Windows.
• Just one club card is a great tool to fix the problem of having to carry around tens of loyalty, discount, and club cards by letting you print one handy card with all your barcodes. Merchants love to create loyalty cards to track your purchases and to force you to carry around an ad for them in your wallet. Now you can put your wallet on a diet by printing all of your various supermarket and loyalty cards on to one thin piece of paper.

Major Purchases (Don’t get ripped off buying a house or a car)

Buying a House

• Check Zillow.com to get an estimate of the value and to see what the house has sold for in the past.
• Check BankRate.com to see what the most competitive mortgage rates available are.
• Lending Tree will connect you with 4 lenders that know they are in a competitive bid situation, so you have a better shot at getting the best deal.
• See the Motley Fool’s guide to shopping for a loan and this list of things to know when getting a mortgage.
• If you are an experienced buyer and you are willing to do some of the leg work on your own, you can save with real estate agents that rebate you a portion of their commission like: RedFin and Zip Realty.
• Previously listed was AnnualCreditReport.com where you can get your credit report for free.

Buying a Car

• Edmunds.com can help you find out what a dealer’s invoice price is on a new car, as well as appraise a used car. They also published Confessions of a Car Salesman, a very entertaining 9 part series written by an Edmunds employee about what he learned undercover. It is very insightful, but it is a long read; you may just want to skip to the conclusions.
• If you have a problem with your new car be sure to check your state’s Lemon Laws.

Buying Electronics

• CNET Reviews - Extensive reviews of cameras, laptop, cell phones and TVs that can be very helpful.
• Steve’s Digicam - The most detailed and helpful Camera reviews to be found anywhere on the web, including an excellent “Best Camera List”.
• Epinions - Reviews on electronics (and tons of other stuff). Reviews are by regular users, so you may need to read several to get a complete picture, but a useful resource.

Crime Fighting (Because Crime Shouldn’t Pay)

• Steal-It-Back Property Recovery Service - A site that auctions unclaimed property from law enforcement in the United States. They offer a free nationwide registry for recovering lost or stolen goods. Create a free account and start logging your serial numbers. (or better yet log your serial numbers at home, and only add them to the site once stuff is stolen).
• JustStolen.net - Created by police officers in Boston to help the police return recovered property to its rightful owner. They provide consumers and business owners with a place to safely record serial numbers and valuable information about their belongings. When lost or stolen property is recovered law enforcement agencies worldwide can consult the database to identify the rightful owner. They also list items recovered by the police, where the police have not found the rightful owner (though all the items seemed to be from Boston).
• Minimize the risk of identity theft - Tips from the FTC and find out how to recover if you have been a victim.
• Six Online Shopping Scams - Online shopping is very convenient but be aware of some common scams: Missing Auction Items, Free Stuff, Phony Payments, Secret Signups, Phishing Sites, Counterfeit goods.

Travel Tools (Travel smarter!)

• Seat Guru - We all know middle seats suck, but now you can get detailed information about which seats are the best on any plane, including specific comments denoting seats with limited recline, reduced legroom, mis-aligned windows, In-seat power port locations, Galley, lavatory, Exit Row and closet locations.
• Flight Stats - Wondering if your flight will be on time? Sick of being misled by the airlines? The WSJ’s awesome travel column the Middle Seat tested all the airline services and several others and picked Flight Stats as the best!
• United Airlines promo sign-up tool - The tool will automatically sign you up for any United Airlines promotions. You just enter your United Advantage number and every day it checks for new promotions. When it finds one it signs you up. This way you’ll be sure to get whatever bonuses they offer with out having to check back. One caveat: Signing up for an offer multiple times OR signing up for offers in a specific order may hurt you (a lesser offer may take precedence over a better offer). This tool uses no prejudice - it signs you up for everything in the order in which the results are found.
• Trip Advisor has consumer written hotel reviews, so you can find out what the hotel is really like before you make your reservation.
• Kayak.com lets you search 100+ airline and travel sites in one easy interface to find the best deals.

Other Useful Sites (but you Need to Pay for Them).

We love free services, but there are some sites that require subscriptions and are worth it:

• Angie’s List is a subscription based review site for contractor and home repair and maintenance workers. As a member you can research and find vendors as well as file reports on your experience.
• Consumer Reports is the original unbiased and objective reviewer. It is a great tool, but you have to pay since they refuse advertising.
• Zagat Restaurant Reviews is a professionally edited restaurant review guide based on consumer’s own reports about the restaurants. It is a great place to look for restaurants in new cities (and you’ll get a free copy if you fill out your own report.)

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