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Fiascos and Fixes
Michelle Couch-Friedman is an author and consumer advocate. She is the founder of Consumer Rescue. Michelle has successfully mediated thousands of problems for troubled travelers and other consumers during her career as an advocate.
Maureen Heller recently received a shocking message from Budget Security about a missing rental car. The letter accused Maureen of failing to return a Nissan Sentra that she had left at the Detroit airport weeks earlier.
But with no receipt to prove she returned it, will Maureen be on the hook for this missing rental car?
What if you don’t want to tip on your cruise? Or maybe you’re not against cruise gratuities but prefer to give on a person-by-person basis. Can the cruise line force you to pay a set amount for the crew’s bonus?
That’s the question Laurie May wants to be answered. She says Oceania recently blindsided her by adding $320 to the cost of her 10-day European cruise. The reason? Automatically added gratuities.
Now she wants our advocacy team to retrieve the crew bonus and put it back in her wallet. But is that something we can do?
What if you made the worst booking mistake ever — and realized it just moments too late?
Lori Korosek did just that. This novice traveler intended to book a relaxing all-inclusive beachfront hotel in Jamaica for her son and herself. But she accidentally ended up with a nonrefundable, landlocked business hotel that forbids children — located one hour from the beach.
Now Lori is asking our advocacy team if we can do anything about her $1,500 vacation planning gaffe.
Lori’s colossal booking mistake underscores the fact that not everyone should attempt to book their own travel. In this case, a professional trip advisor could have provided critical guidance to this rookie traveler. And although we don’t typically mediate self-created fiascos, Lori has an extenuating circumstance that I found difficult to disregard.
Last fall, Russell Wayne’s rental car inexplicably crashed into the ocean in a picturesque seaside town in Spain. Unfortunately, the strange accident totaled the Europcar-owned Audi and plunged Russell into an insurance nightmare with Chase Eclaims.
Now Russell is asking our advocacy team for help in getting his $27,825 insurance claim paid.
Can we do it?
Robinhood, the online millennial-focused brokerage site, brags that “Investing is simple here.” That sounded great to Bryan Bryan when he was looking for an easy way to invest some cash. So, he followed the onscreen prompts, transferred $2,400 into his Robinhood account and prepared to make his first transaction.
Of course, as is true with any investment, Bryan knew there would be some risk involved. But what actually happened, he never saw coming. That simple investment he hoped to make turned into an instant nightmare. Robinhood accepted his money, immediately froze his account, and refused to explain why.
That was four months ago.
Andrew Dupuy made a “little” mistake when he returned his recent car rental in Seattle. He says an innocent oversight caused him to drop the vehicle off at the wrong place. Only after it was too late to fix the problem did he see the shocking price tag of his error.
Now Andrew is asking if he’s really stuck with the $951 penalty the car rental company charged for this mistake.
Can we help?
Something went terribly wrong with Catherine Duffin’s last Expedia booking. She used the online travel agency to plan her family’s New Year’s getaway to the all-inclusive Xcaret Resort in Mexico. Assuming the cost displayed on her Expedia confirmation would indeed include everything, she received a shock at check-in. That’s when hotel management asked for not only the over $16,000 she expected to pay — but also an additional $8,000.
Is your Airbnb account safe from scammers and hackers?
Berenice Anaya certainly thought so. In fact, the possibility of a criminal accessing her Airbnb account and causing havoc had not even crossed her mind.
However, this Airbnb user recently woke up to an unpleasant reality after a scammer successfully hacked right into her account. The Airbnb security team thwarted the thief and prevented him from completing his ultimate goal. But not before $1,942 was removed from Berenice’s bank account.
So why won’t Airbnb return the money to its victimized guest? That’s what Berenice is asking our team after repeatedly trying unsuccessfully to retrieve her cash from the company.
What’s going on here, and can we help?
Could asking for an upgrade to business class end with you getting kicked off your flight — and banned for life?
Maybe.
“Social Influencer” Jacqueline Ng insists that’s exactly what happened to her when she recently asked for an upgrade. Cathay Pacific agents turned down her request in no time and then kicked her off the flight. Worse, the airline accused her of fraud and banned her from all future flights.
Jacqueline says this is all a misunderstanding. Now she wants our advocacy team to investigate and ask the airline to reverse the banishment.
If you show up with the wrong ID to board a cruise, you’ll get left behind on the dock as the ship sails away without you.
Unfortunately, Charishma Motwani and her family experienced this awful scenario firsthand. As a result of documentation confusion, they missed their much-anticipated Alaskan cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Bliss.
Charishma says Norwegian Cruise Line is responsible for the mistake that caused her family to miss their voyage. She believes the cruise line owes her a do-over or a refund for their lost vacation.
And once you hear the facts of her tale, you just might agree.