To err is human. To really screw things up takes modern technology. To enjoy reading about the misfortunes of others at the hands of technology...all it takes is this book! In addition to being one of the country's leading technology experts (he's co-authored more than 30 books), Rick Broadhead has had a life-long predilection for stories of the strange-but-true genre. In Dear Valued Customer: You are a Loser, he combines his two abiding passions to present an exhaustive, fascinating, and hysterical collection of technologically enabled blunders, bloopers, and mishaps. Have you heard the story about the bank in Chicago whose computer made overnight multi-millionaires out of hundreds of its account holders? How about the man in California who was informed that he owed 39 trillion dollars in overdue library fines? Or the woman in New York state who claimed she was seeing the names of dead people on her caller-ID box? The Most "F" words in a Disney movie, The Most Embarrassing Open Mike Gaffe by a Politician, The Strangest Discovery by an Airport Metal Detector (a woman discovered she had a surgical retractor in her stomach)..;.these and more than one hundred other bizarre stories will definitely keep readers uproariously enthralled.

Herewith a handful of sample entries to tickle your funny bones... In the 1824 war between Britain and Ashanti (now part of Ghana), the British Redcoats found themselves surrounded by 10,000 fierce Ashanti warriors, and running very low on ammunition. Their commander ordered Charles Brandon, the army’s stores manager, to break open the reserve ammunition he’d ordered. As the Ashanti advanced Brandon began to open the ammunition boxes – only to find he had brought the wrong supplies. They were all full of biscuits. The grandfather of film star Lana Turner owned a half share in a brand new company that had started bottling a fizzy drink. He thought the drink’s name would affect its saleability and wanted to change it – without success. In frustration and as a protest he sold his 50%. It’s a pity really because Coca-Cola became quite popular... Italian Vittoria Luise was out driving during a fierce storm in Naples. A huge gust of wind blew his car into the River Sele. The car began to sink, but the calm motorist managed to break a window and swim to safety. He dragged himself onto the riverbank – and it was here that he was hit by a falling tree and killed. The Times of 19 October 1986 carried the story of Emilio Tarra, a crewmember of the 1986 America’s Cup race, who was driving from Perth towards Adelaide during the Australian leg of the race. En route, his car sideswiped a kangaroo, leaving it sprawled across the road. Tarra got out of his car and, assuming the kangaroo was dead, decided to take a novelty photograph to show his colleagues. Dressing the kangaroo up in his smart team blazer, he propped it against his car to take its photograph. As he was focusing his camera, the kangaroo, which had only been stunned, woke up and bounded back off into the bush, taking with it the jacket, which contained Tarra’s passport, $2,000 worth of cash and his credit cards.