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Your Fiasco Fixer
Chief Fiasco Fixer / Consumer reporter
Old-school scammers are trying to get back in the (con) game and, surprisingly, they’re doing it via snail mail. Here’s what you need to know about the inheritance scam, delivered straight to your home by the USPS.
Alton Locklear returned home from his latest Royal Caribbean cruise with a $16,000 diamond necklace he purchased on the ship. But all was not as it seemed. He says salespeople inside the Effy jewelry shop aboard Utopia of the Seas wildly overinflated the value of that necklace.
When Locklear took his sparkly souvenir to a local jewelry appraiser, he received shocking news. Not only was the total carat weight way off, but the diamonds adorning the necklace were lab-grown. Those details significantly diminished its value.
Now Locklear is hoping that Consumer Rescue can help. He wants to return the jewelry and retrieve his $16,000.
Expensive car rental mistakes are easily avoidable with just a little research and preparation. Yet week after week, the Consumer Rescue case files show that many car rental customers do neither. By the time I hear from these blindsided travelers, that oversight has led to hefty fees and other unexpected repercussions.
Here are the most common mistakes car rental customers make and what you can do to avoid them in 2026.
Could an ombudsman columnist who routinely writes about tourist scams become the target of one herself? The answer is, of course, “Yes.” No traveler is immune to the possibility of a brush with a bad actor — not even me.
How did a $428 Southwest Airlines ticket end up costing an American Airlines customer in distress $4,500? If you guessed a fake airline call center scam is behind this astounding upsell, you would be right.
Ace Rent a Car at the Tampa airport blindsided Carla Lemker with a $1,400 repair bill after her last rental. Sure that she didn’t cause any damage to the vehicle, Lemker asked the company for proof. That’s when things got really weird.
Norwegian Cruise Line recently denied boarding to a bewildered passenger in Tokyo — she says, solely because of her nationality. But the next day, NCL reversed course and told the woman she was welcome to join the cruise.
Unfortunately, by then, Norwegian Spirit had sailed and was nearly 500 miles away in Kobe.
Mid-flight engine troubles on Swiss Air led to a couple’s struggle for a $1,500 premium economy upgrade refund. Can Consumer Rescue help?
Publishers Clearing House scams remain a menace to senior citizens, even after the company’s bankruptcy this year. I know because a friendly, self-proclaimed “man of God” called me last week, claiming to be a representative of PCH. He said he’d soon arrive at my house to deliver my sweepstakes award of “a whopping $5.5 million.”
Aurora Expeditions’ subsidiary Vantage Explorations just turned two years old. To celebrate this milestone, the cruise line has big news and a $2,500 booking bonus for cruisers.
Here’s what’s next for Vantage Explorations and Aurora Expeditions.
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© 2025 Consumer Rescue / Michelle Couch-Friedman
