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.

Stanley Steemer van, yellow van

Why did Stanley Steemer charge me $1,408 and damage my wall, too?

The coupon offer from Stanley Steemer was attractive: $160 to clean up to eight furnace air ducts. Roberta Cirino thought she was doing a smart thing by responding to the mailing from the well-known cleaning service company. However, what happened next is a homeowner’s nightmare. The job came complete with a shockingly high final invoice and repair bills to fix the damage the Stanley Steemer crew did to her wall.

To add insult to injury, the owner of the franchised location responded to Cirino’s complaints about this “hatchet job” with indifference.

Now Cirino is asking Consumer Rescue to help right this wrong. She would like Stanley Steemer to adjust her bill and pay for the damage to her wall.

That seems like a more than reasonable request. So why hasn’t the company already agreed to correct the problem?

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.

Red Mustang convertible rental car.

I returned my rental car to the wrong airport. Can Dollar charge me $2,081 extra?

Dollar Car Rental customer Kuno Zurkinden recently discovered how a surprisingly common mistake can end in a giant financial headache. At the end of an adventurous road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles, he made a navigational error: He returned the rental car to the wrong airport.

As a result of that miscalculation, Dollar voided the original contract Zurkinden had through a third-party provider. On the spot, the rental car company created a new contract with new charges – astronomically high charges.

Now, Zurkinden is asking Consumer Rescue for assistance. He wants to know if his “little” geographic mistake really allows the car rental company to charge him $2,081 extra.

Something tells me he isn’t going to like the answer.

A map of the world to illustrate an article about global Medicare coverage.

Will Medicare cover you on an international trip? (Don’t bet on it)

If you have Medicare as your primary insurance and get hit with a health-related emergency while traveling in another country or on a cruise ship, will your treatment be covered? That’s the question many of our readers are asking.  That’s the question many of our readers are asking. 

Read on to understand what your Medicare coverage will and won’t do if you face a medical problem during an international trip. And, of course, I’ll also tell you how to make sure you are protected.

An eBay thief came to this guy's house.

Here’s why you should never give an eBay buyer your home address!

An elaborate PayPal scam led an iPad thief directly to eBay seller Steven Sanderson’s front door. The brazen predator came disguised as a friendly eBay buyer willing to purchase the digital device from Sanderson for $650. And it was weeks before the fraudulent nature of this transaction became clear.

Now Sanderson’s iPad is gone and so is the money he made by “selling” it. He blames PayPal for this fiasco and wants our help getting his $650 back. But who really is responsible here?