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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.
What if you were gazing out the window of your Airbnb and found a surveillance camera “gazing” right back at you? That was the startling scene that confronted Susan Scott as she relaxed in bed at her recent Mexican vacation rental.
If you find a pile of trash and other debris at a vacation rental when you arrive, report it immediately. If you don’t, you could easily find yourself stuck with excessive cleaning fees, as Airbnb guest Daniel Altschuler recently did.
Could a rental car company charge you for damage two years after you last laid eyes on the vehicle? A Budget Rent a Car customer discovered the answer to that $2,324 question is, bizarrely, “Yes.”
Now, that broadsided rental car customer is asking Consumer Rescue for help. He hopes we can appeal to Avis (the parent company of Budget) and get this mysterious damage fee erased.
Picture it: A Facebook friend messages you with some fabulous information about a free government grant she discovered. It’s definitely not a scam, she excitedly assures you. She knows this for sure because Federal Express just delivered a check right to her front door!
An extended flight delay stranded JetBlue customer Ellen LaPaglia overnight at New York City’s JFK International Airport. Airline employees instructed all the displaced passengers to wait in a long line to receive a free hotel voucher.
However, by the time LaPaglia got to the front of that queue no hotel vouchers remained.
During a flight across the country, Jetblue forced Samuel Cristol to share his seat. That’s correct. Cristol had a partial seatmate on his flight — a man who did not quite fit in his own space. And, although the guy … Read More
Brak Moczygemba got the shock of her life after a recent one-night stay in a budget hotel. The manager of that Quality Inn accused her of pillow theft… remarkably pricey pillows for such an establishment. To make matters worse, that same manager then informed a stunned Moczygemba that she was permanently banned from the two-star hotel.
If your child is under 24 months old, United Airlines will allow you to fly with the baby on your lap free of charge. But what happens if your offspring celebrates a birthday mid-trip?
For one family, the answer was unbelievably expensive. Here’s their story.
Your bank can’t reverse a successful credit card dispute nearly a year after confirming a positive resolution. So why did Nusenda backtrack and surprise this customer with a $16,544 recharge long after his dispute was finalized?
That’s what the Consumer Rescue team aimed to find out after this unusual request for help hit our inbox.
Could you get sent to collections over a $1,638 repair bill for a rental car you never drove? It happened to this Hertz customer.
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© 2025 Consumer Rescue / Michelle Couch-Friedman
