The Pester Threshold is more about who you annoy within the beast than the 
beast itself.  My wife is a past master at pester.  Back when I was still in 
the USAF, our Volvo 265 broke down in Texas while we were visiting parents.  We 
bought a demonstrator 745 off the Volvo dealer in San Antonio.  About a month 
later, I was driving a back road in Bellevue, Nebraska when a back wheel 
literally fell off.  It turned out that the dealer in San Antonio had swapped 
rims on the demonstrator for some customer who thought the stock 745 rims were 
"cool".  The replacement rims literally wore through the studs and, voila, the 
wheel fell off.  Neither the Omaha Volvo dealer nor the San Antonio Volvo 
dealer wanted to take responsibility for the problem.  My wife worked her way 
up through the dealers, the regions, and eventually to Volvo USA.  She found a 
way (this was in the '80s) to use a toll-free number to call the president of 
Volvo USA every hour, on the hour.  We didn't have to wait too much longer 
before the problem was resolved.

The customer service rep for our region of a past health insurance company was 
the recipient of so many calls from my wife that she would literally break down 
in tears when my wife announced her name.  She isn't nasty but she is firm and 
persistent.

Ray Parks
Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager
V: 505-844-4024  M: 505-238-9359  P: 505-951-6084
NIPR: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
SIPR: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> (send 
NIPR reminder)
JWICS: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> (send NIPR reminder)



On Jan 14, 2013, at 10:17 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

You know, I wonder what the Pester Threshold is to annoy the beasts (Google, 
Apple, MS, Amazon, etc.) enough to get results?  It likely has some correlation 
with size and number of products.

I think the "consumer protection agencies" of one flavor or another are just 
too bureaucratic.  Too serious.

But something edgy and different might have a huge and surprising impact.

Just think of all the annoyances you have with completely tone-deaf companies.  
Just collecting the list would be fascinating.  The WiFi example with Google, 
who *depends* on networking, is just beyond belief.

   -- Owen
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