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Chief Fiasco Fixer / Consumer reporter
Andrew Dupuy made a “little” mistake when he returned his recent car rental in Seattle. He says an innocent oversight caused him to drop the vehicle off at the wrong place. Only after it was too late to fix the problem did he see the shocking price tag of his error.
Now Andrew is asking if he’s really stuck with the $951 penalty the car rental company charged for this mistake.
Can we help?
Something went terribly wrong with Catherine Duffin’s last Expedia booking. She used the online travel agency to plan her family’s New Year’s getaway to the all-inclusive Xcaret Resort in Mexico. Assuming the cost displayed on her Expedia confirmation would indeed include everything, she received a shock at check-in. That’s when hotel management asked for not only the over $16,000 she expected to pay — but also an additional $8,000.
Is your Airbnb account safe from scammers and hackers?
Berenice Anaya certainly thought so. In fact, the possibility of a criminal accessing her Airbnb account and causing havoc had not even crossed her mind.
However, this Airbnb user recently woke up to an unpleasant reality after a scammer successfully hacked right into her account. The Airbnb security team thwarted the thief and prevented him from completing his ultimate goal. But not before $1,942 was removed from Berenice’s bank account.
So why won’t Airbnb return the money to its victimized guest? That’s what Berenice is asking our team after repeatedly trying unsuccessfully to retrieve her cash from the company.
What’s going on here, and can we help?
Could asking for an upgrade to business class end with you getting kicked off your flight — and banned for life?
Maybe.
“Social Influencer” Jacqueline Ng insists that’s exactly what happened to her when she recently asked for an upgrade. Cathay Pacific agents turned down her request in no time and then kicked her off the flight. Worse, the airline accused her of fraud and banned her from all future flights.
Jacqueline says this is all a misunderstanding. Now she wants our advocacy team to investigate and ask the airline to reverse the banishment.
If you show up with the wrong ID to board a cruise, you’ll get left behind on the dock as the ship sails away without you.
Unfortunately, Charishma Motwani and her family experienced this awful scenario firsthand. As a result of documentation confusion, they missed their much-anticipated Alaskan cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Bliss.
Charishma says Norwegian Cruise Line is responsible for the mistake that caused her family to miss their voyage. She believes the cruise line owes her a do-over or a refund for their lost vacation.
And once you hear the facts of her tale, you just might agree.
Beth Mowery just had the worst car rental experience of her life, and she wants you to know about it.
When you rent a car, you probably assume you’ll only pay for your own rental. But several days after Beth returned her last rental car, she received a nearly $1,000 upcharge. As it turns out, Hertz billed her for someone else’s rental. What followed was a series of careless mistakes that the car rental company refused to acknowledge or correct. And each mistake was more frustrating than the last.
Now Beth hopes our advocacy team can help fix these errors and retrieve her money.
What would you do if a stranger suddenly sent you a Zelle payment by mistake and then urgently demanded its return? In one unusual case, an unexpected detail later surfaced: the sender had previously appeared on National Geographic’s Locked Up Abroad. That revelation made an already tense situation even more complicated, as both parties feared they were being scammed.
Maybe you’ve chosen to fly on the same day as your cruise, and things went off without a hitch. But for Marcelino and Julieta Bautista, that’s a gamble they lost.
They redeemed a free Norwegian Cruise Lines “Casinos at Sea” cruise through the Alaskan glaciers. But they pressed their bets too far when they flew into Anchorage on the same day as embarkation. Although their flight arrived as scheduled, something went terribly wrong and the ship left without them.
As a result, that freebie cruise turned out to be no bargain at all. The couple was forced to pay thousands of dollars to catch up with NCL’s Jewel. Bautista says that the cruise line made the mistake that caused the ship to leave without them. He wants reimbursement for all their extra expenses, and he wants our team to help get it.
In May 2021, even as the cruise industry remained paused, Norwegian Cruise line began its NCL Giving Joy contest. The competition, launched to coincide with Teacher Appreciation Week, would honor 100 of the top educators in the United States. The nominees would vie for giant cash prizes for their schools. The cruise line would also award 100 dream cruises to the winners.
In August, after months of voting, Norwegian Cruise Line announced those winners in a joyful Facebook live stream event.
David Sowerby, an orchestra teacher from Caledonia, Mich, was shocked to discover he had won second place in the contest. His win meant that NCL would donate $15,000 to the middle school where he’d taught for the past 17 years. Not only that, but David and his wife, Rebecca, were awarded a dream cruise to Alaska.
In his thank-you speech, David explained that the money would buy new instruments for his school’s orchestra. He felt on top of the world.
But things took a sad and unexpected turn soon after NCL’s festive award ceremony.
Maybe you’ve taken an international cruise without a passport and it was smooth sailing all the way. But you might want to consider Earl Wentzel’s troubling tale before booking your next maritime adventure.
Earl’s case should serve as an eye-opener to anyone considering taking a cruise without a passport. When you cruise with no passport, you’re putting yourself in a precarious position that could cause you to miss your vacation completely — no refund included. Or worse. You could even find yourself stranded in a foreign country.
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© 2025 Consumer Rescue / Michelle Couch-Friedman