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Fiascos and Fixes
The Consumer Rescue advocacy team resolves problems between consumers and the businesses that they patronize. We do this via direct mediation with companies — always free of charge.
These articles are the highlighted tales of our efforts to defend, protect, and educate consumers. Michelle Couch-Friedman is a consumer advocate, reporter and ombudsman columnist. She is also the founder of Consumer Rescue.
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.
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.
Tom Suminski intended to redeem his stockpile of $7,762 American Airlines flight credit for a Hawaiian vacation. But he says an airline representative gave him faulty redemption instructions that led the vouchers to expire right under his nose.
The entire $7,762.
That put the family’s tropical dreams in jeopardy. Tom hopes we can convince American Airlines to reinstate his flight credit. But is this just a lost cause?
Have you ever found yourself stuck paying for a subscription you didn’t want after a company “gotcha” with an automatic renewal? I bet you have.
It happened to me recently. Here’s how I fought it and what you can do to protect yourself from this predatory business practice.
Yes, Jeff, there is a Santa Claus.
And Macy’s can prove it.
Editor’s note: I wrote nearly 400 articles to promote and support the nonprofit Elliott Advocacy for over half a decade. This is the very first article I wrote and published there in December 2016.
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© 2025 Consumer Rescue / Michelle Couch-Friedman
