One day she saw an ad on the web for a complaint referral service, Ecomplaints.com, and lodged her gripe there.

FORBES: The Whiners

That referral service can work both ways.

WSJ: In Job Hunt, B-Schools Play Matchmaker

But he said when he came to do the 2010-11 audit "while some anonymised information was provided, the clerk felt unable to provide further details on the grounds that, prior to a final decision on a referral to the Crown Prosecution Service, this would be inappropriate".

BBC: Watchdog refuses to sign off Commons accounts

If the client wanted more help, Schwab later punted him off to a small army of 400 investment advisers, the independent financial planners who passed Schwab's sniff test for fee-based services and unbiased service and who agreed to pay referral fees for the clients.

FORBES: Charles Schwab, Version 4.0

And they continue to measure health care against the golden age of fee-for-service medicine, when they could see specialists without the bother of getting a referral from their primary physicians, and when their hapless employers simply picked up the tab.

ECONOMIST: HMOs