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Fiascos and Fixes
Consumer reporter and ombudsman columnist
An Airbnb hacker spent a month in Malaysia using Laura Ward’s name, account, and stored credit card. Now, after a failed chargeback, Laura wants to know how this happened and why she’s being held responsible.
What’s the worst nightmare that could happen if you land in Mexico with expired travel documents? Kush Kanna’s wife recently found out in a most unpleasant way. She thought she was heading for a relaxing tropical vacation in Costa Rica with her family. Instead, she ended up detained in Mexico after authorities rejected her expired green card and Indian passport.
Now Kush wants to know who will pay for this awful travel nightmare.
Hint: He isn’t going to like the answer.
If you’re about to travel internationally, take heed. Customs and immigration agents abroad will not overlook expiration dates on your travel documents, so you shouldn’t either.
Ted Kelly says his wife made a simple passport mistake last year that snowballed into a $17,766 travel disaster.
The couple had never heard of the Schengen area or its passport requirements for U.S. citizens. But when they tried to check in for their business class flight to Italy, a Lufthansa representative quickly explained the facts. Ted’s wife’s passport didn’t have the required 90-days validity from their return date, and the airline denied boarding to the couple.
Sevil Macmot found the view from her guaranteed oceanview cabin aboard Costa Cruises Mediterranea stunningly terrible. She says her dream vacation was ruined when the cruise line assigned her to the cabin with the worst view.
Now Sevil wants to know who selected her for this disappointing cabin with the worst view — and why.
Oh, and she wants a refund, too. But is that a reasonable request?
Hertz customer Aaron Baird made a costly mistake during his last car rental. Because he returned the vehicle to the wrong location, the car rental giant slapped him with a $780 upcharge. Ultimately, in the spirit of positive customer relations, Hertz offered Aaron a goodwill gesture and erased the debt.
Lesson learned, and all was well – or so Aaron thought.
A few weeks after Hertz offered the goodwill gesture, a different department within the company resurrected the invoice. That Hertz team sent Aaron’s account to collections and put him on the Do Not Rent (DNR) list.
It’s ok for United Airlines to sell a family a flight to Morocco and then leave them stranded there when the return flight is canceled. Right?
Wrong. But the airline seems to think so.
Could a cruise ship passenger be denied boarding even if they have all of the required documents for sailing?
Lee Bolland says he knows the answer to that question is “Yes” because it happened to him.
Last fall, he and his wife planned to cruise through the Mediterranean on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Epic. The couple flew to Spain to begin their adventure, and all was going well — until it suddenly wasn’t. At the port, NCL employees shockingly denied Lee boarding and abandoned the couple there.
Mary Shaw was confident that she had done everything right while planning her trip to Paris. She had carefully selected what she thought was the perfect apartment for her family. But when Mary arrived in the French capital, she hated the Airbnb vacation rental so much that she knew they couldn’t stay.
Now Mary wants to know how she can get a refund from the unwilling Airbnb host.
After she was seriously hurt on vacation, Molly Brooks made a giant, but not uncommon, travel insurance mistake. She left the rural Mexican hospital where she received pricey emergency services and flew home without any documentation of treatment. Her only evidence of hospitalization was a non-itemized $6,000 credit card receipt. As could be expected, this lack of documentation presented an insurmountable problem when she filed her travel insurance claim.
Who is responsible when an agent of a cruise line makes a giant mistake that causes a passenger to miss their voyage? That’s what Linda Combs wants to know.
Her unpleasant experience included not just one but three errors by a Norwegian Cruise Line consultant. And it ended with Linda and her husband standing on the dock as they watched their ship sail away — and the cruise agent ignoring her pleas for help.
So why did Norwegian Cruise Line reject Linda’ refund request?
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© 2025 Consumer Rescue / Michelle Couch-Friedman
