One can ask four questions about genre validity across cultures. Does a certain form or configuration occur in the culture in question? Is it acceptable? If acceptable, is it in practice preferred? Is it recommended by prescriptive authorities? This paper reports the results of an attempt to answer these questions empirically by testing the responses to four different customer complaint dialogues in English of 100 students in each of six countries: Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, England, Italy, and Japan. The result is that most versions are seen by respondents as occurring in most cultures, that a clear, brief, sincere version seems most acceptable worldwide, that this version is also preferred in the four northwestern European countries, but not necessarily in Italy or Japan, and that of the various prescribed versions some are never preferred and others are only preferred in one or two countries.