Learn to spot and understand the perspective of people who expect to get the whole cake in life - the loser/clueless/sociopath model being of some use here:

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

I work in customer service for a sub-unit of a large telco. When people run into annying issues, I am kind of at liberty to issue a refund if I want to, sort of to please the customer and make them stay with us.

However most people don't ask for it. So only the ones who take the time to ask for it and write two sentences of why they should receive one get it.

Complain more often.