Complaint Cannon — Escalation-Aware Complaint Engine

Overview

Most consumer complaints fail for structural reasons, not factual ones:

1. No paper trail — the story lives in chat scrolls and phone calls; when it reaches someone with authority, there's nothing to review.
2. Wrong audience — complaints escalate horizontally (more agents) instead of vertically (supervisors, executives, regulators).
3. Leverage unused — companies weigh complaints by feared consequence. Naming the actual regulator for the actual industry, citing the actual statute with a deadline, and sequencing public review pressure are the three multipliers, and almost nobody uses them.

This skill builds complaints as cases with escalation-aware letters:

1. Incident timeline — dated facts, money amounts, evidence references. The spine every letter cites.
2. Letter generator — complaint, escalation, final-notice-before-action, each citing the timeline, with tone control (firm-but-professional; rage loses).
3. Regulator router — per industry and country: which regulator/bodies actually act (telecom → FCC/ofcom-equivalents, airlines → DOT/EU261, banking → CFPB-equivalents...), with the escalation ladder in the right order.
4. Statutory overlays — common consumer-protection timelines (EU 14-day withdrawal, US FCBA billing dispute windows, airline compensation deadlines) that convert "our policy" into "the law".
5. Detonation sequencing — when the CEO email, the review-site blast, and the regulator filing are each optimal: too early reads as unhinged and burns the escalation path; too late means the refund window closed.
6. Case tracking — every contact logged; follow-up cadence (never let a claim die of neglect — silence is a company strategy).

When to Use

• A refund/replacement/repair is owed and support is stalling ("we'll get back to you", chat loops, dead timelines)
• Damaged delivery, billing error, unauthorized charge, service failure with documented loss
• You're about to write an angry email — don't; generate an escalation-aware one instead
• Post-filing tracking: what's due when, what to send next, when to escalate a rung
• Don't use for: employment disputes, landlord-tenant court process (different regimes), personal injury, or anything where a lawyer should act first.

How It Works

1. Open a case — case add "Delta broken TV" with the company, industry, amount at stake, country.
2. Log the timeline — event add per dated incident: what happened, evidence file refs (photos, order numbers, chat logs).
3. Generate letters — letter complaint → letter escalate → letter final; each cites the full timeline and states a specific remedy + deadline.
4. Route leverage — regulators prints the ladder for the case's industry+country with what each body fears; letter regulator drafts the filing.
5. Sequence detonation — plan prints the escalation timeline: when CEO-email, public reviews, and regulator filing are each optimal given days-since-first-contact and response history.
6. Track — contact add logs each interaction (channel, person, response); due shows follow-ups owed today; status summarizes the case.

Commands

# Case + timeline
python3 scripts/complaint.py case add "Broken TV delivery" \
    --company "ElectroMart" --industry retail --amount 649 --country US
python3 scripts/complaint.py event add C001 --date 2026-09-10 \
    --text "TV delivered with cracked screen (photo IMG_2231)"
python3 scripts/complaint.py event add C001 --date 2026-09-12 \
    --text "Support chat: 'not our fault, carrier issue' (chat log saved)"

# Letters (each cites the timeline; tone: firm, factual)
python3 scripts/complaint.py letter complaint C001
python3 scripts/complaint.py letter escalate C001
python3 scripts/complaint.py letter final C001

# Leverage
python3 scripts/complaint.py regulators C001
python3 scripts/complaint.py letter regulator C001

# Sequencing + tracking
python3 scripts/complaint.py plan C001
python3 scripts/complaint.py contact add C001 --date 2026-09-13 --channel chat \
    --person "agent 4412" --result "promised callback in 48h (never came)"
python3 scripts/complaint.py due
python3 scripts/complaint.py status C001

Storage: complaints.json in cwd. 100% local.

The Escalation Ladder (what plan enforces)

A substantive company response resets the clock for its promised action only. Two broken promises = skip to rung 4 (the plan recomputes automatically).

Common Pitfalls

1. Raging. Anger signals low escalation risk. The letters are deliberately factual: dates, amounts, remedy, deadline. Rage loses; records win.
2. Chat-only contact. Support chats are designed to dissipate. The first letter converts the scroll into a reviewable document — send it early.
3. Escalating to regulators prematurely. A regulator filing before the company had a written chance reads as bad faith and can get your case bounced. The ladder exists for a reason: rung 3's final notice is what makes rung 4 land.
4. Vague remedies. "Make this right" is not a remedy. Each letter states the exact amount/action and a specific deadline (default 14 days).
5. No deadlines on yourself. Statutory windows (chargebacks, EU withdrawal, airline claims) expire. plan surfaces the applicable windows; if a chargeback window is inside 30 days, it says so loudly.

Verification Checklist

• Case opened with company/industry/amount/country
• Every incident logged as a dated event with evidence refs
• Complaint letter sent (rung 1) — written trail started
• Follow-up cadence active (due clean on every check)
• Escalation ladder timing respected (no premature regulator filing)
• Statutory windows checked against plan output
• Each contact logged with channel/person/result
• Case closed with outcome recorded — patterns across cases are leverage too