Quoting from the most recent FlyerTalk newsletter:

Traveller, responding to the latest "I've been wronged, am I due compensation?" musing, has this to say:

"Every time something bad happens to us flying we expect compensation. Every little thing, every big thing.... No wonder airlines are in the shape they are in. If you look at the threads on these pages, so many travelers are seeking help in asking the airlines for compensation. Where will it all end? I am so glad I'm not in the airline industry."

Well, Traveller, it isn't just the airline industry. Complaining in hopes of a freebie is as American as the proverbial apple pie. Been in a restaurant lately? To a hotel? Didn't like the entree? The bed was too lumpy? The complaints about the dumbest things are out of control in the U.S.!

It always does my heart good to go back to Europe or to South America and see the Hawaiian Shirt and Shorts set trying this ploy there, only to be told where to stick it in a polite and final way. I once actually heard a blonde with two drooling rugrats in tow tell my colleague on the front desk of a 5-star resort in Interlaken, Switzerland, that he could "not do that to me, I'm an American citizen!" after he had told her he would not refund her room charge because of some minor triviality (I believe the stated complaint was that CNN had been unavailable all night due to sunspots and this, of course, had made the poor lady's stay "unbearable").

Customer service in no other country is as besieged by moronic complaints and blatant carpet-bagging attempts as in the U.S. which is why "the ugly American" is alive and oh-so-welcome around the globe...