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Michelle Couch-Friedman

Consumer reporter and ombudsman columnist

Michelle Couch-Friedman is the founder and CEO of Consumer Rescue. She is a journalist, consumer advocate, travel writer, mediator, and former psychotherapist. Michelle is also the travel ombudsman columnist for The Points Guy, contributing author at Fodor's Travel and previously served as the executive director of the nonprofit Elliott Advocacy. During her six years managing that organization, she resolved thousands of cases for troubled travelers and other consumers. You can read hundreds of 5-star reviews Michelle earned during her service to the nonprofit on Great Nonprofits. Michelle is a public speaker, and her expert guidance has been cited in the Washington Post, MarketWatch, Consumer Reports, Travel & Leisure, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Popular Science, CNN, CNBC, Boston Globe, CBS News, National Geographic, Travel Weekly, Reader's Digest and more. You might even catch Michelle on TV reporting on a situation. :) Professionally, Michelle is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) and the American Society of Journalists and Authors (asja). Today, she continues to spend as much time as possible fiercely defending consumers and traveling the world. Contact her at Michelle Couch-Friedman or on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook.
cruise mistakes, Flying on same day as cruise and packing passport in luggage, cruise ship sailing away, missed cruise

How two little mistakes can end in tears at the cruise terminal

Two mistakes – and one delayed flight – led Tom Watson to arrive at the Miami cruise terminal without his passport. With just minutes to look for the document, time ran out. He and his wife were denied boarding the cruise, and the ship sailed without them.

Watson places the blame on Viking for their missed cruise, and wants a full refund. But who is really responsible here?

This tale highlights the danger of flying on the same day as your cruise is set to begin. Although it may seem convenient to fly into your embarkation city and transfer straight to the ship, even a slight flight delay can have devastating consequences.

Train tracks, disgusting train ride.

Here’s the most disgusting train ride I’ve ever seen

Elaine Miller’s disgusting train ride from Illinois to California should have qualified her for a full Amtrak refund. But it didn’t. With an overflowing filthy toilet inside her accessible bedroom just feet from her pillow, how did Amtrak justify its refusal?

If you have an elderly grandmother or mother, you’ll likely share my outrage at Amtrak’s treatment of Miller. Her terrible two-day experience rides the fine line between lousy customer service and what I would consider elder abuse.

hotel room cleanup

My son got sick in our hotel room. Do I have to pay for the cleanup?

During a family trip, Anna Eardley’s son got sick in their hotel room. Really sick – all over the room. After spending the rest of the night cleaning up the mess, she left a hefty tip and drove home at dawn. So why did she later receive an angry call from the manager telling her that she must pay for the extensive damage to the room — including all new carpet?

Singapore Airlines, an aircraft taking off

Middle name on your passport? Don’t make this airline ticket mistake

What happens when your middle name is on your passport and airline ticket, but your last name is missing? Eleanor Rasmussen can tell you because it happened to her.

If your middle name is on your passport, you probably always try to add it to your airline ticket. But many airlines and booking agencies don’t give you that option.

The reason for this omission? Travelers aren’t required to include a middle name on their airline ticket – even if one is displayed on their passport.

In Rasmussen’s case, the online booking agent her friend used to book their airline tickets didn’t have a specific field to add a middle name. That led to a travel fiasco that left her with an unusable ticket to Tokyo with only her first and middle name.

Now, with her middle name on her ticket where her last name should be, Rasmussen is asking for our help. She’s hoping Consumer Rescue can convince Singapore Airlines to correctly rewrite her ticket.

But will the third-party booking agent cooperate

Two cats waiting for their food from Walmart but their mother just got banned from shopping there.

Could you get banned from Walmart over two cans of cat food?

Retailers aren’t shy about blacklisting customers who are deemed problematic. Just ask Jennifer Chropkowski. She got banned from Walmart over two cans of cat food that the company repeatedly sent her by mistake.

When Walmart refused to acknowledge its error and remove her from its “No-online-shopping” list, Jennifer asked our team for help. She wanted Walmart to lift her shopping restrictions – and send the two cases of cat food she originally purchased. 

But will the mega-retailer be willing to admit its mistake and remove her from the blacklist?

Buying high fashion items on Facebook, a woman in a fancy red dress,

Think you got scammed through a Facebook ad? You’re not alone

Jeri Lynn Wentz says she feels scammed after her recent shopping fiasco, which began through a Facebook ad. The “fashionable” clothes she bought took a month to arrive and were more suitable for a baby doll than a full-grown woman. When she asked to return the garments, the retailer first resisted and then gave her some strange instructions. In the end, the clothing company kept her money and the tiny, low-quality items Jeri sent back.

So now what?

LOT Airlines, an aircraft in flight with the words LOT Polish Airlines on the side.

LOT Airlines mistakenly denied boarding to us. How do we get our $2,249 back?

Yevgeniy and Artyom Yevtushenko flew LOT Airlines from Toronto to Astana, Kazakhstan, via Warsaw, Poland, last June without a hitch. But it was a different story when they tried to check in for their flight back to Canada in August. That’s when a stern LOT Airlines agent reviewed their passports and quickly denied boarding to the father and son. 

Confused by the employee’s announcement, Yevtushenko assumed there was some mistake that the airline could easily correct. That is until a supervisor appeared who promptly ended that assumption. He confirmed that LOT Airlines was required to deny boarding to the pair because they were missing Canadian visas. 

But the agents had some good news for the rejected passengers. Since their ultimate destination was Grand Rapids, Michigan, LOT could reroute the pair and avoid Canada altogether. However, there was bad news as well: the new itinerary would cost an additional $2,249. 

Given no other choice, a frustrated Yevtushenko paid the fee, and he and his son flew home to Michigan. 

Now, Yevtushenko is asking Consumer Rescue for help getting the money back. He hopes we can convince LOT Airlines that its employees mistakenly denied boarding to him and Artyom. They didn’t need Canadian visas, and he can prove it – if only someone would listen and look at the facts. 

If you’re familiar with our team, then you know he came to the right place to find someone willing to listen.

Taking a bus tour through Europe, cliffside in Spain,

If you get sick on a bus tour, can you get a refund?

If you get sick on a bus tour, should the operator give you a refund — even if you completed the entire trip? Gay Hackney believes so.

She says that two fellow travelers aboard her bus appeared ill during a 13-day tour through Spain and Portugal. The father and son’s constant coughing irritated her, but the last straw came at the end of the trip when she woke up sick herself.

Now that she’s home, she wants to know if Trafalgar owes her a refund for this unpleasant bus tour.

Norwegian Cruise Line Joy, a cruise ship in the Caribbean, NCL cruise ship

Norwegian Cruise Line received a refund for our canceled flight. Is that fair?

Norwegian Cruise Line handled all the details of Caleb and Karyssa Deslich’s honeymoon trip. So when American Airlines canceled their outbound flight, they expected NCL to come to the rescue. That didn’t happen, and the couple almost missed their Caribbean cruise.

Almost.

The Desliches came to their own rescue and spent an additional $700 on a replacement flight. They flew to Miami and arrived just in time to board Norwegian Joy before it set sail. 

The couple assumed Norwegian Cruise Line would automatically refund either their canceled flight or the replacement one. But that didn’t happen.

Now Deslich is asking the Consumer Rescue team to intervene and get their money back. He says an NCL agent promised to send the $700 refund and then reneged on the deal.  

So what does the cruise line have to say about the missing refund for the canceled flight? The answer will probably surprise you.

River cruise ship in Europe, Vantage Travel River Splendor ship.

How did I lose a credit card chargeback against a bankrupt company?

There’s something very fishy going on with Eileen Whalen’s lost credit card chargeback against bankrupt tour operator Vantage Travel. It’s unclear who from the out-of-business company is fighting customer chargebacks for cruises it canceled, but someone is. 

Whalen was plunged right into the middle of this bizarre mystery last month. That’s when a strange chargeback response allegedly from Vantage Travel caused Capital One to reject her valid credit card dispute.

In that rambling missive, the grammatically and factually challenged anonymous author claimed Vantage Travel hadn’t canceled any cruises in September. To add insult to injury, the letter implied Whalen was misusing the credit card dispute process. In summary, it asked Capital One to return the funds to the bankrupt tour operator.

And that’s what happened.