Note: This article didn't actually run because it was too similar to an article the Seattle Times ran the day before. Instead, they put some of this column into the previous day's news story. I'm reprinting the column here, sans permission, and hoping that I don't get sued.

Pests pay for calling this guy

Nicole Brodeur
Seattle Times staff columnist

You grab the ringing phone during dinner, hear that outer-space pause and know it is the enemy.

Ben Livingston hears the pause and grabs a pen; it could be money in the bank.

Livingston, 22, has made a hobby of suing telemarketers and those who send him spam e-mail and faxes.

So far, my new personal hero has netted $524.74, has eight claims pending (view them at www.smallclaim.info) and has published a zine called "Zen and the Art of Small Claims."

In it, he outlines the laws of telemarketing and e-mail soliciting and his own experiences tracking and suing companies that barrage him with unsolicited offers for everything from Volvos to improved sexual prowess.

"I know it all," he told me. "I know it all too well."

Livingston is vice president of Innovative Access, a small Internet service provider in Ballard. He studied graphic deisgn for a year at the University of Washington.

His job makes him a daily commuter on the information highway. By suing offenders one $20 claim at a time, he is trying to run them off the road by either making them pay or promise to stop -- or both.

Under state law, many recorded commercial calls and unsolicited faxes carry a $500 statutory fine. Spam e-mail can carry penalties twice that high.

Apply those numbers to the nightly calls and the morning mailbag we all contend with, and you think you could retire.

But Livingston insists it is not about the money.

"One must start with the notion that a lawsuit is an act of selflessness," he writes, "filed for the benefit of fellow people, neighbors, brothers, sisters. Money is a stipend offered so that the true warrior may continue the art."

Livingston's first call came to his work phone, from a vacation company pitching a timeshare condo. He though he might go to the sales session ("Even though I know they're a scam") and write about it for a zine. But as he researched the company, he found its contact with him was illegal and filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office.

It took some letters and a visit to the company's lawyer, but Livingston left with a check and a new hobby.

He can recite the names of the King County judges who handle small claims: "Goodman, Spearman, Linde, Chow and Kato."

"Goodman was very inquisitive," he said. "She was almost excited, and when I got to the end of my statement, she said, 'I agree!'"

Those off the bench seem just as enthusiastic.

"I've never heard anyone say this is a bad use of the court system," Livingston said. "Most people say, 'I love that!'"

His zine is available by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to P.O. Box 95227, Seattle, 98145. There is no charge, but Livingston wouldn't mind if people tossed in a few extra stamps.

As for any settlement money, it will go to copying costs, "some cartoony ninja illustrations" and to buy flowers for the court clerks who file his claims.

Copyright © 2002 Seattle Times.