Using a lawyer, however, is one of the most expensive ways to get revenge. If $100,000 is nothing to you, it may make sense. If $50,000 is all you have, you may destroy your financial freedom in the process. Remember the old saying: "The most dangerous lawyer you will ever meet is your own."

(Revenge should not be confused with using a lawyer to drive your business competitors into bankruptcy. That's sleazy, but at least it's rational.) Here are some alternatives to using a lawyer:

Advertising Hurts
Several years ago a Canadian millionaire whose daughter had been murdered in Hawaii took out a series of ads on the evils of going to Hawaii. It hurt the tourist industry substantially. Whether it hurt the right people is another question.

On a more modest scale, an angry Starbucks Coffee customer in San Francisco took out some much smaller ads saying, "Have you had a problem with Starbucks?", and went on to tell his opinion of their coffee and service. The radio shows picked it up, and people laughed at Starbucks. I doubt the man paid over $1,500 for the ad.

If you do advertise, be sure to ask the newspaper (or whatever) about their rate for public interest ads. It should be substantially lower than the commercial ad rates.

There are any number of ways to advertise that cost less than lawyers: newspaper ads, skywriting, even blimps. Small blimps are available for less than $1,000 a day. And of course, there's always the Internet, though that probably won't get any exposure for your message unless the target is fairly large.

And let's not forget picketing. Sandwich-boards are good for a long day, and about ten years ago I came across a man in a suit and tie wearing a sandwich-board in downtown Washington, DC. It was lunch time, and he was munching on a sandwich and handing out brochures while he stood in front of a men's clothing store. It was a hilarious sight. I stopped and asked for the story. Apparently the store had shortened the pants too much on his new suit, and then refused to replace the pants or refund his money - so he picketed. If the store mananger knew how to do math, he probably refunded the man's money that first day. If the manager couldn't do math, the man definitely hit the store in the pocketbook.

I don't mind telling you about getting revenge through advertising, for one simple reason: libel. You had better make sure it's the truth, or you could be on the losing end of a lawsuit. (Of course you may be sued anyway, even if it is the truth. Revenge works both ways...)

The basic rules of avoiding libel are:

Don't lie. Use the truth as a weapon.

Avoid phrases that have too much punch, like "Nazi, pervert, lush, Jekyll and Hyde..."

And – to quote libel expert Bruce Sanford – "State the facts, and then state your opinion." I would add "making fairly clear the difference between them."

Of course an ad should be effective. You can't write a crazy-looking ad and expect the public to listen. Words like "evil" or "crazy" are likely to make you look crazy – and no one likes crazies.

Recommended reading before you spend money on advertising: Tested Advertising Methods, by John Caples, from Amazon.com. The classic book on how to write "gotcha" headlines and copy.

Give Until It Hurts Them
If you are after a corporation, utility, or government body, there is a good chance that someone hates them more than you. In fact, someone may hate them so much that there is a non-profit organization dedicated to opposing the people you are after.

If you donate $500 to a solid non-profit organization, you can sleep much better, knowing that the bureaucrats are suffering endlessly for their crimes. Donate $5,000, and you become a patron of the non-profit organization. You may be able to make your gift contingent on them investigating your type of problem.

Fair warning on donating $5,000: you will be very popular with any non-profit (other than Harvard), and they may bedevil you for the rest of your life for more money. This is a good reason to consider anonymous gifts.

Call the Cops
People get so tormented with the idea of "what's been done to me" that they forget: some things are illegal. Fraud is one crime worth mentioning, since most of the tormented people I meet were defrauded. (They were also insulted, abused, and humiliated – but those are not crimes.)

Crazed with anger, people completely overlook calling the cops. But it's worth considering. Take a recent situation:

I recently did some consulting work for a company that - it turned out - was not in the business of making money, but of suckering small-town farmers into investing millions of dollars in a bogus company. The company put up fancy offices and signs, and hired help - but the profit was in bilking investors. It wasn't hard to figure out; when accountants quit every six weeks, you suspect there's a problem. When I figured it out, I dropped them.

I later questioned an associate of one of the farmers on whether he would have called the D.A. if this happened to him. He said "No, it's not worth it when you consider the legal expenses." What legal expenses? When you take it to the D.A., it's at the taxpayer's expense!

Now, be realistic. The local cops aren't going to get a grip on a case like this. You have to take it higher, to the D.A. or a federal agency. They may tell you to go away. On the other hand, you may find extra budget at the agency, and a young investigative lawyer looking for a promotion.

Of course this is semi-major league stuff. Will the cops be interested when some scam artist calls you with an offer of lifetime Kodak film developing plus membership in a health club for $75.00, and they want to come to your front door and collect the money in cash? No, the cops will not be interested. And it's too small to interest a D.A.'s office orFederal agency, unless you can show them a "pattern of abuses."

In between these two stories - you may succeed, and you may not. Give it a try!

Fraudulent Advertisement?
Call the newspaper's ad department. Fraudulent employment schemes, work-at-home scams, call-this-number telephone billing ripoffs, dare to be great plans?

Newspaper ad departments will step on this fast. You will never see that ad again in that newspaper.

But the crooks are still out there. Need more revenge? Go to the biggest newsstand around. Buy all the regional papers. You will find the same ad in most of them. Call all those papers, and get the ad wiped out everywhere!

I may expand on this article one day, and then I may not; every time I mention emotions and revenge on radio, the switchboard lights up and the next caller asks, "Well, Nicholas, can you tell us about some cheaper ways to get revenge?"

We'll see...