Elliott Advocacy is a nonprofit organization that mediates cases between consumers and businesses. These are commentary articles that detail our efforts and provide educational information for consumers.
If you’re already bracing for a long airport security line during the spring break travel season, then you must remember last year.
You do, don’t you? That’s when Transportation Security Administration screening wait times doubled under the weight of tighter security and swelling crowds. On just one day in mid-March, 6,800 American Airlines customers reportedly missed their flights, thanks to the lengthy TSA lines.
When people say you learn more from your failures than your successes, William Seavey is the first to agree. He bought a Samsung top-loader washing machine, recommended by Consumer Reports, at Sears. “It turned out to be a lemon,” says Seavey, a consultant based in Cambria, Calif.
The most complained-about financial institutions aren’t banks or credit card companies. They’re credit reporting agencies — and by a wide margin.
Although Shelley Jones’ complaint is common, I’ve never heard it from someone like her. Her problem: She’s done with airline “codesharing” — a marketing arrangement in which an airline places its designator code on a flight operated by another airline, and sells tickets for that flight. She’s seen too many passengers pull up to the wrong terminal because they thought they were flying on one carrier when, in fact, they were booked on another.
Have you noticed the recent string of stories about cases that ended in a big question mark? Neither the consumer nor the company responded to repeated requests for an update or a resolution, so we were left to guess the outcome.
Here’s an important lesson about diversity and tolerance that I’m sure you’ll find useful as a consumer.
In this season of gratitude, American consumers are feeling left out in the cold. And with good reason.
It’s not your imagination. Your grocery bills are rising.
Maybe it’s the season. The Wednesday before the Thanksgiving holiday is historically the busiest day of the year for grocery shoppers, as Americans drop a figurative cornucopia of cash on turkey, trimmings, pie and their beverage of choice.
Then again, it could be the business.
In Europe, a regulation called EU 261 protects passengers like Andrew Rapp. And although a United Airlines representative at the check-in counter said that he “might be eligible” for compensation based on the length of the delay, no promises were made. Rapp’s story is a reminder that a little self-advocacy can take you a long way, especially if you know what to ask for. (We can help with that.)
When I complain about my critics, my father, a retired Presbyterian minister, responds with St. Luke’s words of wisdom. “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,” he reminds me, “for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” In other words, maybe it’s good to have enemies.
