Given our constant entreaty to hear about your ripoffs, Whistleblower isn't surprised that our most common complaint is not getting what you paid for. We get so many emails and phone calls about it that we have to be extremely selective about the ones we take on. Sometimes, as in my colleague Lora Pabst's tale today of the license plate refund that never came, the agency's mea culpa makes its newsworthy, if not front page news.

Other times, the circumstances are so unusual that it's hard to ignore. When John Evjen of Eden Prairie sent me an email with "Caribou hunt from hell" in the subject line, I knew that he had a story to tell. While the number of U.S. hunters affected by the trouble in Schefferville, Quebec, in mid-September 2007 is probably low, this story offered a glimpse into a conflict that went unnoticed in the American press.

Lately, though, I have found myself urging callers or emailers to do some more investigation and pushback on their own before contacting Whistleblower. It makes no sense for us to ask why you haven't gotten your money back if you haven't posed that same question yourself.