What's Your Problem?: Cut Through Red Tape, Challenge the System, and Get Your Money Back

by Jon Yates

Overview

“Watch out, Goliath. Jon Yates has a slingshot and he’s teaching us how to use it.”
—Amy Dickinson, New York Times bestselling author and America’s favorite advice columnist

“Jon Yates gives consumers a great primer on how to solve their own customer service problems.”
—Angie Hicks, Founder of “Angie’s List”

Jon Yates, the Chicago Tribune’s popular “Problem Solver,” offers eminently practical, money-saving advice on how to become your own consumer advocate. What’s Your Problem? is a godsend for anyone who has ever had to take on the bureaucracy—from getting through to the cable company to dealing with identity theft to fighting the unfriendly skies. The first book of its kind—a combination of illuminating true stories and essential advice for cutting through the red tape put up by local governments, health insurance companies, and heartless corporations—What’s Your Problem? is an indispensable handbook that can alleviate your frustrations once and for all and help you get the results you need fast!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062009883
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/27/2011
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	7.98(w) x 5.44(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Jon Yates grew up in Ames, Iowa, and began his newspaper career in Iowa City. He briefly covered Congressman Sonny Bono for the Palm Springs Desert Sun and was a crime reporter at the Nashville Tennessean. He lives in Oak Park, Illinois, with his wife, two kids, and eighty-pound mutt.

What People are Saying About This

Angie Hicks

Jon Yates gives consumers a great primer on how to solve their own customer service problems.

Amy Dickinson

Watch out, Goliath. Jon Yates has a slingshot and he’s teaching us how to use it. This is ‘self help’ with an ass-kicking.

Mark Di Vincenzo

Nothing less than a public service … [What’s Your Problem?] will make you feel smarter, wiser and well equipped to battle institutions and individuals who sometimes don’t have our best interests at heart-everyone from giant banks, utilities and insurance companies to sleazy car salesman, mechanics and contractors.

Editorial Reviews

A goldmine of hand-picked information for those trying to navigate today’s tough consumer terrain.” — Kirkus Reviews

Watch out, Goliath. Jon Yates has a slingshot and he’s teaching us how to use it. This is ‘self help’ with an ass-kicking. — Amy Dickinson, America's favorite advice columnist and New York Times bestselling author

Nothing less than a public service … [What’s Your Problem?] will make you feel smarter, wiser and well equipped to battle institutions and individuals who sometimes don’t have our best interests at heart-everyone from giant banks, utilities and insurance companies to sleazy car salesman, mechanics and contractors. — Mark Di Vincenzo, New York Times bestselling author of Buy Ketchup In May and Fly at Noon

Jon Yates gives consumers a great primer on how to solve their own customer service problems. — Angie Hicks, Founder of Angie's List

From the Publisher

Watch out, Goliath. Jon Yates has a slingshot and he’s teaching us how to use it. This is ‘self help’ with an ass-kicking.

Amy Dickinson

Jon Yates gives consumers a great primer on how to solve their own customer service problems.

Angie Hicks

Nothing less than a public service … [What’s Your Problem?] will make you feel smarter, wiser and well equipped to battle institutions and individuals who sometimes don’t have our best interests at heart-everyone from giant banks, utilities and insurance companies to sleazy car salesman, mechanics and contractors.

Mark Di Vincenzo

Yates compiles the advice from his Chicago Tribune column, "What's Your Problem?" to help you overcome your problems and get results. According to Yates, it's all about knowing what prods utility companies, what motivates government officials, how customer service works, and how airlines are held accountable. He has helped readers solve myriad problems from correcting a misspelling on a tombstone and contesting a traffic ticket to dealing with unscrupulous home-improvement contractors and fixing an incorrect credit report. Yates provides over 20 pages of addresses, phone numbers, and websites for consumer assistance in a variety of areas. A timely, valuable reference.

Library Journal

The Chicago Tribune's problem-solving advocate hacks through the bureaucratic roadblocks of the contemporary customer experience. Yates admits that he's come a long way from his roots as a sheepish kid and reticent college student to becoming Chicago's solutions guru. He effectively distills his years as the Tribune's "consumer conscience" in a book that tackles a variety of thorny and universal buyer-beware issues. As a common consumer, Yates sympathizes with those given the circuitous company runaround when simply seeking problem resolution. Refreshingly, the author doesn't mince words about today's fiercely competitive marketplace. Companies are in business to make money, they routinely avoid confrontation and being nice only goes so far when aiming for real results. The author dispenses pages of practical information on how consumers can avoid being taken advantage of whether by circumnavigating circuitous call centers, initiating small-claims court cases or battling utility providers and banks. He provides cautionary counsel on too-good-to-be-true product deals, service contracts and automobile financing, exposes cunning scamming operations and, perhaps most importantly, provides a definitive listing of "consumer commandments." Elsewhere, Yates directs readers to resources like junk-mail removal websites and offers counsel on the most effective way to complain, and he reiterates that dogged determination is often the key to a successful negotiation. Rather than solve consumer problems, as in his newspaper column, the guidebook supplies the necessary tools to empower consumers to help themselves. "At some point," Yates writes, "we all must become our own best advocates." A goldmine of hand-picked information for those trying to navigate today's tough consumer terrain.

Kirkus Reviews