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Fiascos and Fixes
Consumer reporter and ombudsman columnist
Eileen Wendorf says a Budget mistake caused her to pay twice for the same car rental. She wants her money back. But there’s a big problem with her discovery — it occurred nearly seven months after she returned the vehicle.
Now she’s asking our advocacy team to convince Budget of its expensive billing mistake and retrieve her $426. Can we do it?
James Parker just got hit with the most excessive cleaning fee I’ve ever seen as a consumer advocate. Soon after checking out of his recent Airbnb rental, the owner sent him a $1,470 bill to clean up the mess she says his family made.
But what mess was she really cleaning up?
It goes without saying that a vacation rental in the heart of London should come with a working toilet. And, of course, if your Airbnb doesn’t have one, you should get a refund. Right?
Unfortunately, Airbnb guest Karen Morris just found out that not everyone agrees with that basic premise.
If the balcony of your cabin is super dirty — covered in soot, should you be able to leave the cruise ship and get a refund?
Rafael Rottiers and his wife believe so. They insist the heavy black soot on the railings and floor of the balcony of their cabin aboard Costa’s neoRiviera endangered their health. So they left the cruise ship days before the scheduled journey ended.
Now that the couple is back home, they want Costa to send a refund for the cruise they abandoned. But what exactly was that document the two signed before they left the ship?
Should you receive a refund if you hate your cruise so much that you get off the ship early? What if you leave the cruise before it even sets sail?
Lori Rutt and her husband maintain that if intolerable conditions push you to leave a cruise ship, a refund is owed. She says only hours after they boarded their first cruise ever, they chose to disembark — never to return.
Over two years ago, All Nippon Airways (ANA) canceled Jurian Yee’s flight to Japan. ANA promised that it would soon send a $1,296 refund through Expedia. But it never did materialize.
Now a frustrated Jurian (via his dad) is asking the Consumer Rescue team for help. He’s hoping we can nudge ANA to send that refund so he can finally take his long-awaited trip to Japan.
But after so much time, is this a lost cause? Let’s find out.
Thinking about skipping parts of your next flight? Charlie Williams can tell you from experience — it’s a very bad idea.
Here’s why.
Airline passengers can sometimes save money by booking two one-way tickets instead of a round-trip flight. But Sharon Sanborn found out the hard way that there’s a downside to this practice.
Now she wants to know if our advocacy team can do anything to help her out of the financial headache in which she’s landed.
Linda Ralston has been fighting an expensive hotel billing error for months. Several weeks after her 3-night stay at the Westin La Paloma in Tucson, Arizona, she discovered an extra night’s charge on her credit card. Now her battle seems to have ended in a lost chargeback, with the resort coming out the winner.
But with all the evidence on her side, how did she lose?
Can American Airlines make wild changes to your flight schedule and, if you object, refuse to issue a refund?
With $8,171 on the line, that’s what Michael Spanel wants to know after his recent experience with American Airlines.
Now Michael is asking the Consumer Rescue team for help. He wants American Airlines to give his money back, and he’s hoping we can make that happen.
So what is a passenger really owed when American Airlines changes their flight schedule? Let’s find out.
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© 2025 Consumer Rescue / Michelle Couch-Friedman
