Great advice. My advice is to figure out a gradual escalation path with the legal option as the final (and unsaid) last step. Leave it unsaid because people
will lawyer up the moment legal action is brought up and it short circuits any less adversarial (and expensive) escalation options.
I've been in a few difficult situations like this and was able to solve all these situations without threatening legal action simply by walking up the escalation path, saying what I was going to do and then doing it.
For example, I had a situation with a prospective landlord while I was in college who simply kept asking for more and more documentation while considering our application to rent (it was a largish apartment complex). After 5 visits, during which yet some new required document was needed, my wife and I decided to cancel the application and go elsewhere. I went in, told them we've decided to stop being jerked around and cancel the application, I simply asked for all of my information back (since it was sufficient for an unscrupulous landlord to commit identity theft on us). They refused.
So I started escalating.
- I found the parent company they worked for and sent a few (physical) letters requesting our information back.
- Then I filed a complaint with the BBB. This initiated a mediation procedure where the BBB contacts the landlord and tells them they're about to get a complaint and if our single criteria isn't met this complaint will reflect negatively on the apartment complex. The BBB is not a big thing, but lots of people do use it as a reputation marker and mediator. They didn't comply and got the negative complaint.
- I wrote another letter to the parent company and the landlord informing them of this escalation and again confirming our demand for our material.
- I contacted the county Consumer Protection Agency (not all counties have one) and filed a complaint and my demand for the return of our material. I again sent letters to the landlord and parent company informing them of this and providing them with copies of my correspondence with the CPA.
- I then escalated to the State Corporation Commission. Asked how to file a complaint and spent some time dealing with that bureaucracy, but eventually finding the right department. I filed the complaint, notified the offenders again. A couple weeks later the SCC contacted me back and said they'd received several complaints about the same place and about similar unscrupulous behavior and would be taking action against the landlord. They asked what I was looking for, I told them "just our application materials" and they were like "oh, is that all? that should be easy".
Two weeks later a package arrived in the mail with our stuff, not a single page missing. I contacted the parent company, landlord CPA and SCC to inform them the matter had been resolved.
It took a lot of time, but it kept options open to me and put the legal fight in other parties' hands. Going to the SCC instead of my lawyer, I found out that others had been in a similar situation and it aggregated and amplified my argument and rallied consumer protection law to my side instead of me going it alone. It also helped that I kept careful records and dates of every interaction and was able to build a record for the SCC to work off of on my behalf. It took time, but other than postage and paper supplies didn't cost me a penny.
A single hour with a lawyer would have cost me more.