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Advocates On Edge

   Imagine my delight when I picked up Friday’s Wall Street Journal and on the front page was an article about people going after those unwarranted auto-warranty calls. The calls go like this, “This is the second notice that the factory warranty on your vehicle is about to expire.” I regularly receive these calls on my cell phone and I eventually became so annoyed that I called them back a few times. However, the company only had voice mail and I could not reach anyone.  I left a voice mail telling them to take me off their list and please not to call me again.  Of course they did. The reason I had reached my limit and turned into a “badvocate” was that I received one of those calls while in Beijing last summer. The call came in the middle of the night and I thought that something terrible had happened at home. After the infuriating call, I had trouble falling back asleep and my jet lag was prolonged.

The article described how an individual began an Internet crusade by leaving music recordings on the company’s voicemail and how an entire posse of angry badvocates or are they rightful advocates? soon overloaded the phone lines at the company in question. Eventually the online mob took down the company’s voice mail system and it started to get too personal. Some people stalked outside the owner’s home (who said his company was not involved) and wanted to take pictures of employees leaving the premises.  Although I did not join this online swarm attack with elevator music, songs and rants, I understood how ordinary citizens might want to retaliate.  What could be worse than an online army of enraged advocates turned badvocates.