Keep on suin' (Score 1)

I've been getting a flood of hits and email since yesterday when that PI article turned into a piece on KING 5 TV here in Seattle and, obviously, this Slashdot piece. When it rains, it pours. :)

I've won $7150 in small claims court. I've collected $2650, of which $1800 was from pre-trial settlements.

I've been doing this for about a year and I'd estimate I spend about twelve hours a month doing it. That works out to ~$18 per hour, which isn't too shabby in this economy. If you actually enjoy doing this sort of thing, it's that much better.

This hobby keeps getting more interesting every day. Two weeks ago I was contacted by an assistant attorney general in Arizona about one of my cases. They wanted to "compare notes." That same week, a police detective from Oregon contacted me, wanting to "share" information. It seems that these people might not have jurisdiction over the spammers (who violate more than Washington law when they hijack mail servers), so they're really rooting for me. The Oregon detective said he was hoping to come to my court case!

All in all, this is good fun and you get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing what slimebags most of these people are. Junk faxes and recorded calls are illegal under federal law as well as many state laws, so anyone can go after those folks and, if you enjoy playing detective at all, you really should.