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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.
A Florida couple came home from their last Royal Caribbean cruise with thousands of dollars in unplanned purchases. They say a dangerous scam is operating out of a beauty shop in Nassau, the Bahamas. The couple is hoping that by telling their story, they can prevent other cruise ship passengers from falling prey.
But is this just an extreme case of buyer’s remorse?
Hertz will never ask customers to pay for their car rental with a gift card… but a scammer will. Unawareness of this basic fact led one couple to lose $800 to a devious international scheme.
Is there any way to get that money back?
The Beijing Tea House Scam is one of the most well-known tourist traps around the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, Lawrence Andrews had never heard of it. That is until after he was already a victim of the con game during a business trip to China.
A perpetually leaking ceiling in an Airbnb rental seems like a problem the host should fix immediately. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the experience of one young mom who paid $5,400 for the privilege of living in a soggy apartment.
Can Consumer Rescue help?
Barbara Goldfuss saved for two years to buy the $1,900 La-Z-Boy recliner she finally ordered last year. After relaxing in the comfy model in the local showroom, she eagerly awaited her custom-made chair. But months later, when the much-anticipated La-Z-Boy recliner arrived, Goldfuss immediately detected a terrible problem.
What if you used an online booking agent to reserve a hotel, but when you arrived at the property, you discovered it was being used as a homeless shelter? It happened to this solo female traveler, and she wants you … Read More
Princess Cruises recently accidentally published a fare for a 21-day Mediterranean sailing that was too good to be true. Literally. The mistakenly displayed price – caused by human error – rang in at just a fraction of the cruise’s actual cost.
That fat-finger rate was only briefly available on the Princess website, but word spread quickly across the Internet. That alert caused an immediate flutter of unusually high booking activity, and the cruise line noticed. For all of the elated would-be cruise passengers who snagged this dream deal, bad news was on the horizon.
After an enjoyable mid-winter getaway to Clearwater, Florida, Cynthia Sutherlin intended to return her Avis car rental and fly home. But the night before she was set to leave, a gang of thieves threw a wrench in that plan. Those bad guys brazenly stole her rental car from the valet at the luxury resort where she was staying. Will she be on the hook for the $3,600 loss-of-use fee?
Your cruise agent can’t legally require you to buy the travel insurance product he or she is selling. So why does 82-year-old Marla Caplan say that is precisely what a consultant did after booking her latest cruise?
That’s the question of the day.
If an Airbnb host asks you not to come through the front door of the vacation rental, you should ask some questions before you show up. This group of friends wishes they had done just that.
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© 2025 Consumer Rescue / Michelle Couch-Friedman
