To say the corporation is the schnorrer’s best friend may seem a truism hardly worth elaborating. Its customer-is-always-right attitude and its affinity for “writeoffs” are a godsend to the freeloader. But to reach the large bills in companies’ ample wallets, the schnorrer knows you have to move beyond the storefront to the generous bureaucratic bosom that is the Customer Service Department. 

The schnorrer is always on the lookout for imperfections and irregularities in the products he buys. These flaws do not have to be major–a slightly curved baseball bat, a pair of shorts with a missed stitch, a misprinted book–but they do have to be photographically documentable. 

When the schnorrer identifies product errors, he always has a pen (or an e-mail client) at the ready, and he fires off a letter or e-mail to the culpable corporation’s Customer Service Department. Companies usually have a mailing or e-mail address for their Customer Service Department readily available on their Web sites. (Telephone requests to Customer Service Departments must go through an irritating labyrinth of corporate procedures, which often robs the joy of any success.) 

In drafting his letter of complaint, the schnorrer makes sure to follow these three rules:

1. Be Outraged. Companies establish Customer Service Departments in order to mollify upset consumers. In his missive, the schnorrer acts slightly unhinged so that the company becomes worried that not only will he cease to use its products but that he will become an anti-ambassador for their brand, traducing and defaming the company to his family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors.

2. Be Articulate. The schnorrer details the specific malfunction of the product and the specific harm that he suffered. In short, the company should fear the legal repercussions that will rain down upon it if their well-mannered customer is not quickly and quietly appeased. This is where attaching a photograph of your faulty product comes in handy.

3. Be Courteous. Success in retrieving gifts from the Customer Service Department’s coffers depends on the whim of whichever low-level employee is assigned to read company e-mails. Politeness–and a dash of humor–often works wonders in charming said employee into unleashing the restitution that is your due.

Customer Service Requests are a bit of a long-schnorr–it can take weeks or even months before a schnorrer’s karmic tides turn and spritz him–but the benefits can be huge. Companies will often bestow bounties of upwards of $100, and the schnorrer don’t even need to leave his home.

If aspiring schnorrers are still wondering how to concoct the perfect complaint, they may peruse this example letter, with which their schnorring correspondent obtained a year’s supply of tomato sauce:

To Whom This May Concern: 

Let me start off by saying that I am a devoted fan and loyal consumer of Classico’s line of bottled pasta sauces. The devotion to flavor and texture in equal measures is what has made Classico into an American tradition.

So I was disheartened, shocked, terrified, and outraged when I sat down this morning for a simple pizza bagel—bagel, Tomato and Basil Classico Pasta Sauce, cheese—and found myself in short order choking on an alien object of twiglike shape and treacherously barbed. After several traumatizing and endless seconds, I was able to remove the foreign object lodged in my throat, and soon, after I was able to quell my mortal fears, I deduced that the object, a rough hewn stalk of fibrous constitution, was a tomato vine.

Putting aside the irony that my object of terror—the tomato vine—was part and parcel of the same living organism that produces the object of my lust—the tomato—I think we can agree the Classico corporation should be deeply aggrieved to hear that one of their products, instead of causing their consumer happiness and joy, has imperiled the aforementioned consumer—i.e., me. 

I am not by nature a litigious man (I have a comfortable income), and I do not want to cause Classico any undue harm in terms of preparing a legal defense or defending the trustworthiness of its name for what was surely an unintentional and regretted error. But I believe that Classico’s sense of justice will compel it to seek recompense. As a gesture of goodwill, I would gladly accept any Classico products, memorabilia, paraphernalia, or financial renumeration offered in an act of reparation.

Thank you very much for reading my story. I am attaching photographic documentation of the vine that choked me.

Sincerely,

Your Schnorrer

By: Zac

Zac doesn’t come up with his own schnorring ideas. He schnorrs them from his grandmother, a Boca Raton, Fla., resident, and her wily gang of schnorrer associates.