Inside The Work Of A 'Professional Complainer' Who Teaches People How To Get Refunds From Customer Service
Her services are literally worth every penny.
shurkin_son | Shutterstock Every one of us has done it at one time or another: You know you've been wronged by a retailer or service provider, you know you're entitled to every penny of a refund, but the process of getting customer service to actually give it to you is so infuriating, you just give up and let yourself be railroaded.
If only there were someone we could pay to do this for us! Enter Helen Dewdney, a U.K. woman who's made it her business — literally — to sit on the phone getting jacked around by customer service, winning her clients thousands in the process.
Helen Dewdney is a 'professional complainer' who teaches people how to get refunds.
Yes, you read that right: Dewdney has made an entire business enterprise out of doing that thing most of us dread, sitting on the phone with customer service until they do the right thing. Well, sort of. Mostly, what she does is strategize exactly what people can say to get their way, even coming up with scripts for their eventual customer service calls.
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After 13 years of doing this work, Dewdney has become an expert on U.K. consumers' rights, and she knows exactly how to wield them to get companies to do the right thing. For example, a recent client's TV broke after just two years, but without a warranty, he was told he was out of luck, and £2,000, or about $2,700.
Not on Dewdney's watch, because it turns out that's not how the U.K.'s consumer laws work; it's just that most people don't realize it. "I advised [him] to write to the company and quote the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA)," she recently explained in Metro. "Under the CRA, goods must match the description and be fit for the intended purpose and of satisfactory quality," whether there's a warranty in place or not.
She gave him the verbiage to include, and within hours of sending his letter, the company had written him back to offer not just a replacement TV, but a hand-delivered replacement right to his door AND pick-up of the broken one. My, how quickly they changed their tune!
Dewdney's 'professional complainer' career started when she herself was taken advantage of by businesses.
As is the case with so many innovations, Dewdney's started with being taken advantage of herself, beginning at age 12 with an essay in her school magazine positing that the school's focus on "boys' games" in P.E. constituted a violation of the U.K.'s discrimination statutes. Sure, the school retaliated by shutting the magazine down, but not before changing the P.E. curriculum to Dewdney's standards!
"That moment sparked a lifelong drive to challenge injustice," she wrote. Cut to 2008, when she began a blog called "The Complaining Cow" as "a hobby, a way to share my stories of getting redress for faulty goods and poor service." That blog led to book deals, media appearances, and consulting work.
But it was her own battle with iconic U.K. grocery chain Tesco that really solidified her as one of the world's most effective bellyachers. After a double-discount coupon code the chain offered during Christmas failed to work, Dewdney was promised a reimbursement and a "goodwill gesture" to make up for the inconvenience.
"They didn’t give me either," Dewdney wrote, so she gathered up her paper trail, dragged them into court, and won. Not just the roughly $100 she was owed, but also her court fees and an extra £50 the judge decided she was entitled to because Tesco had been so "unreasonable."
Dewdney says her work is all about giving people 'power' by teaching them their consumer rights.
As thrilling as her Tesco victory was, "I found I got more of a buzz from helping others," she wrote, and soon her business was born. Since then, she's helped thousands of people obtain redress, all by simply citing the relevant laws that companies rely upon customers not knowing about, like a U.K. version of America's beloved consumer advocate Erin Brockovich.
We could use some of Dewdney's pluck over on American shores. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported it issued $337.3 million in refunds to consumers just in 2024 alone, due to various forms of illegal activity, including the kinds of consumer protection violations Dewdney focuses on in the U.K.
And despite the fact that one-third of consumers will abandon a brand based on a single bad experience, customer service is getting markedly worse in the U.S., all part of a strategy called "sludge" meant to make it ever more infuriating, if not impossible, to get the help you need. Those "dropped calls" that seem to happen every time you call customer support these days, for instance? Those are literally on purpose.
Ms. Dewdney, if you're reading this: Please do a Brockovichian deep-dive on American consumer laws and expand your business offerings to the U.S. You will be a legend on both sides of the Atlantic in no time!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
