So a business fucked you.
Maybe your bank, maybe your insurance, maybe your phone company, maybe your cable company. Double billed, service doesn't work, whatever. The pound of flesh is a strategy to get what you want from customer service, and I've found it to be an effective strategy. Here's how it works.
Running a call center is expensive. It costs money to pay a phone rep, it costs money to buy a telecom system, and it costs money to have a building to do all that in. Every second you can drive up your call time incentivizes the call center to pay you to go away so they don't lose money.
This is the secret of the pound of flesh. The pound of flesh is a purely negative strategy. The pound of flesh does not necessarily intend to succeed so much as it is designed to extract the maximum penalty from the company that has screwed you.
This strategy is named after a Shakespearean play where a merchant named Shylock intends to extract a pound of flesh from a debtor who owes him a pound of gold.
The first technique of the pound of flesh is the hammer wrapped in feathers. Make a good faith attempt to resolve your issue with as little fuss as possible. Don't demand to speak to a manager. Don't curse (ever) or even use high pressure. You want to have an example with the call center of you acting rationally and politely, so you can use that as a hammer against them later. When they question why you are being so unreasonable and demanding later, remind them that you tried being nice, and they decided to escalate the issue, not you. If you can get what you want this way, the next steps aren't really justified. They normally are, though.
The second technique is the bleeding cut. Now that the company has been unreasonable and not responded to your reasonable demand, make a second call. Do nothing but stall for time. Only address a single issue at a time, and make sure to talk about talking when you talk about talking. At this point you have two goals: cost the company money by jamming up their call center, and driving up the call times on your rep. Never express anger, only confusion and sadness. Do not threaten them with legal action, or demand anything in strong terms. You are not trying to settle at this point; you are trying to bleed as much from them as you can. Do it right, and your rep will beg to send you to a manager to get their call time down. Reps bonuses/quotas are based around getting their call times down. Become confused about what you want; sometimes a rep will offer you things you didn't even know you could get just to shut you up and make you go away. Play dumb and polite.
The third technique is the back stab. You've played nice up to this point, and the company will not see this coming. Most businesses require a license from the state, and that license is regulated by a government office on the state website you can complain to. File a formal written report that is honest but presents your rep in the worst possible light. If there is not a state agency, write an email or certified letter you can use as evidence if things get legal and you have to hire a real lawyer to fix this. If you got sent to voicemail, accuse them of dumping you to voice mail to get rid of you, which is the same as hanging up on you. Take a swipe at their business license, and blame the state for allowing them to operate. Make sure and throw the highest ranking person in the company you know the name of under the bus. It is super important to have a reasonable request at this time. This technique will not work with requests the state will not take seriously. Make sure and show expressly where advertising/policy/billing has mislead you and abused their state license . Do not tell the business about this; the state will contact them if this is effective, and they will contact you and probably beg to settle. Never threaten to do this; the element of surprise is crucial. If you contact the state and the state doesn't believe your issue is legitimate and the company finds out about this, you will get nothing and they will stone wall you. If the state leans on them to grant your request, they will become noticeably spooked you went for a KO that could possibly shut their business down and were almost successful. Even if it doesn't work, it puts a mark on their record that could get them shut down later.
The fourth technique is the technical. At this point you are trying to get in contact with a manager while still dragging out call times. You want to get in contact with the highest ranking person possible, catch them in a mistake, and throw them under the bus. Make appointments to make appointments about making appointments. You are trying to make your negotiations as complex as possible in order to catch your rep making a mistake. Make them promise to call you at specific times about specific issues. You should have been negotiating for several days at this point. Contact them on a weekly basis; just enough to let them know you're not going anywhere, but not long enough to get anything done. You are still extracting your pound of flesh and driving up their costs as much as possible out of pure negative spite, so low pressure and no cursing. You want them to keep answering that phone until you can catch them slipping. If they make a mistake, use this in further reports to the state as deception. This will make you the caller from hell who makes the rep feel shitty at their job relentlessly, especially because you only ever display confusion and sadness. Try and give them depression. Play video games while you taunt them to remind them you are doing this purely to extract as much misery as possible. This will make them beg their managers to obey your whims.
Finally, there is the cost benefit analysis. How much did this company fuck you for? It probably costs at least $20 an hour to fight your requests, but you can make requests for free while you play video games relentlessly. If a company fucks you for $100, you can easily extract that from them negatively in losses just defending against your claim in a week, at which point you can feel justified that your stood up for yourself and they didn't profit from fucking you. If they fucked you for over a $1k, be prepared to extract your pound of flesh for a month or three. If they fucked you for $3-5k, expect to extract your pound of flesh over the course of years.
This technique works on the principle that if everyone stood up for themselves in every business dispute every time, businesses wouldn't dare knock people around and cheat them. Even if you don't get what you want, you will probably change the way the business operates and make them treat people better, which is the ultimate goal.
This is a song about death. It's on mandolin.
Hate is the first step to all solutions.
You will not end bigotry until you learn to hate it.
