Vigilante Force 1976 (What the hell was Kris Kristofferson thinking?)

I'm not going to get on their case too badly--it's a nice idea to hold people accountable for things. But it's better to use Yelp than it is to hand out flyers. It comes down to basic math--the illiteracy rate in America is forty or fifty percent I think. The people with money are on the Internet, reading what people like me have to say on Yelp about businesses that fail to adequately serve our every need.

At some point, someone is going to shut these ladies down:

Adrienne Ferguson, co-founder of Alibis and Paybacks

Adrienne Ferguson had retribution on her mind as she made her way along West Jefferson Boulevard clutching a stack of papers.

She wasn't reacting to a perceived injustice done to her. She was taking action for a stranger who claims to have a beef with the C&H Auto Center, a small automobile body shop down the street.

Ferguson and a partner operate Alibis & Paybacks, a Los Angeles firm that describes itself as "the ultimate revenge" service, offering paybacks both large and small.

For a fee, for instance, the pair will publicly denounce and embarrass someone or some business, peppering their target's workplace or neighborhood with fliers that colorfully describe the individual's purported malfeasance.

That's how C&H Auto Center owner Mario Dorantes ended up in Ferguson's sights.

For the flier targeting the shop, Ferguson used sugar as a metaphor, borrowing the C&H Sugar logo to assert that her client had been left "bitter" by his experience there. In earthy language, the flier alleged that the shop cheats its customers, something Dorantes strongly denies.

Ferguson and three helpers distributed 100 of the leaflets in a one-block radius around the West Adams district shop. The volunteers -- her 11-year-old son, Jordan Green, and friend Mimi Valentine and her daughter, Geraye, 12 -- placed the fliers on car windshields, behind mailboxes and at front porch doors.

Ferguson and partner Michelle Duke have conducted 20 such "payback blasts" for clients around Los Angeles since launching their business earlier this year.

The two longtime friends from the Baldwin Hills came up with the idea when Ferguson lost her receptionist job and the pair sat down to talk about how they could earn some extra money. Friends and family had long turned to Ferguson and Duke when they needed help pulling a friendly prank, so the women thought they could turn this skill into a business.

"Friendly pranks" lead to screaming and gunfire, not business opportunities. Ladies, this is not how you get to be famous the right way. How smart was it to give an interview to the LA Times, then use your real names, then admit that you're acting in a way very similar to retail business vigilantes, and then let them take pictures of you, walking around like a hot mess, putting up flyers in broad daylight?

It's a disaster, this celebrity thing...