EXECUTIVE CONTACTS

Cartoon of a distressed woman standing at her front door, hands to her face, as a UPS driver stands by his truck with his hands raised in an empty-handed shrug.

Michael Kors and UPS are playing hot potato with my $687 refund — how do I win?

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Lina Mahmoud’s $687 Michael Kors order never showed up. UPS investigated, declared the package lost, and confirmed in writing that the refund should come from the shipper, Michael Kors. That should have settled it. Instead, Michael Kors refused, pointing to a proof-of-delivery photo that, she says, does not clearly show her package at all. She was told the claim was denied and that this was the final answer, and when she kept pushing, she says customer service agents began disconnecting her live chats. She was left feeling as though the company now viewed her as a fraud, caught in a game of corporate hot potato: the carrier says the retailer owes the money, the retailer hides behind a questionable image, and the customer is stuck in the middle. It is a stark reminder of how much the burden of proof can fall on the shopper when a package goes missing, and of what recourse you really have when the standard customer-service channels simply stop answering.

Cartoon of a distressed woman at an airport with a red suitcase, reaching toward her boarding pass as it floats away in a glowing puff, vanishing from her hands.

My wife’s airline ticket vanished, then Hawaiian Airlines charged me an extra $575

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James Phillips did everything by the book. He booked two first-class, round-trip tickets through the Hawaiian Airlines app, one for himself and one for his wife Linda, purchased one after the other on the same credit card. Within minutes, he had written confirmations for both. Then they got to the Honolulu airport. The agent told him his ticket was fine, but Linda’s, confirmed and paid for, had simply been voided. No one could say why. Her seat had already been sold to someone else. To get her on a later flight, Phillips had to buy a brand-new ticket that cost $575 more than the one he had already paid. The airline first hinted his card had been declined, then tried to pin it on a third-party booking channel he had never used, even though he booked directly and had the confirmation to prove it. Who should eat the cost of a mistake the passenger did not make, and what it took to get a straight answer, is where this case turns.

Line-art cartoon of an annoyed woman standing on her front steps with a hand to her head, watching a delivery van drive away down her suburban street.

Shein sent my package to my old address after I requested a return. Can I get a refund?

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Alyssa Klenotich placed a $153 Shein order, then realized the site had autofilled her old address. She tried to fix it on the Shein website, but it was too late for the company to change anything. So she went to the carrier, SpeedX, and asked it to return the package to the sender so she could get a refund, and SpeedX accepted the request in writing. Then it delivered the package to the old address anyway, and her items were gone. SpeedX kept sending her form responses telling her to talk to the merchant, and she could not see why a loss the carrier caused was suddenly her problem to chase. Here is the principle worth knowing when a shipment goes sideways: you almost always go back to the merchant first, because that is the company you have a contract with and the one that hired the shipper, and the seller, not the carrier, is the party with the authority to issue your refund.

Cartoon of a shocked older couple sitting on a couch staring at a phone showing the Princess Cruises app, reacting to news that their booking has gone wrong.

He paid $2,369 for his cruise, but Princess canceled the reservation anyway

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Robert Battaglia paid $2,369 for a Panama Canal cruise with Princess, booked through a travel agent, and he and his wife Norma paid the final balance a day before it was due. Two days later, he opened the Princess app and the reservation was gone. When his travel agent called, a representative said the couple were in default for nonpayment and owed roughly $2,000 more, though no one could say where the charge came from. It eventually traced back to a Princess Plus upgrade his wife had tried to add online, only for the website to report that the purchase failed and tell her to handle it later. Princess canceled the booking anyway and kept $1,298 as a cancellation fee, even though the account showed no balance due and the agent could see no pending charge. Here is the principle worth holding onto before you accept a cancellation like this: when a customer pays on time and the company’s own statement shows nothing owed, the burden is on the company to explain any later charge before it takes punitive action, not after.

Cartoon of a glum man standing alone outside a packed UFC arena as crowds stream past him to the entrance, illustrating a fan shut out of an event he paid for but could not attend.

StubHub’s FanProtect guarantee fails: The $4,606 ticket he never got

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Roland Nazariyan paid $4,606 to see a UFC fight, and he missed the main event. He had ordered three tickets through StubHub on the day of the fight, and when none of them arrived in time, he called the platform. It refunded the first two orders after he sent screenshots showing the tickets were never delivered. The third and most expensive order sat in limbo, marked as in final escalation, and then came back denied: a seller had claimed the ticket was transferred, and StubHub told him he had never even contacted the company about it, despite its own emails in the thread asking him for proof. Here is the standard worth holding any reseller to before you accept a denial like this. StubHub’s FanProtect guarantee promises that you will get your tickets in time for the event, and if not, comparable or better tickets or your money back. A guarantee, in other words, is only as good as a company’s willingness to honor the words it is built on.

Illustration of an unhappy woman holding up two pale blue dresses on hangers over an open cardboard shipping box, preparing to return the gowns she ordered online.

I returned $3,990 in designer dresses — then my refund vanished

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Debbie Rivet ordered the same evening gown from the London designer Safiyaa in two sizes, the Serendipity Pale Blue Long Dress at $1,995 each, planning to keep whichever fit and send back the other. When the dresses arrived, the fitted style was wrong for her occasion, so she requested a return authorization, shipped both back by FedEx, and kept the receipts proving delivery. Then she waited for her refund. And waited. Her follow-up emails went unanswered, the phone line dropped to voicemail and disconnected, and when she filed a dispute with Capital One the bank reversed its initial credit, saying too much time had passed. There is a rule worth committing to memory before you give a silent company the benefit of the doubt: under the Fair Credit Billing Act, you generally have only 60 days from the statement date to dispute a charge in writing, and the longer you wait for a reply that may never come, the closer that protection slips toward expiring.

Illustration of a worried couple beside a yellow rental car with its hood up on a snowy Alpine road, the man on his phone for roadside help as a man in lederhosen inspects the dead engine.

Help! Alamo charged me $1,000 after my car battery died in the Swiss Alps

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Kjell-Erik Berggren rented a car from Alamo at Geneva Airport for a six-day trip through Switzerland, and it worked perfectly until the last morning. Staying in a mountain village at 1,500 meters, he and his group woke to a cold, frosty morning and a car that was completely dead: no lights, no starter, nothing. Roadside assistance told them to leave the vehicle and find another way to the airport, which they did at considerable expense. Then, two months later, Alamo charged more than $1,000 to his credit card with no prior agreement or warning, on two invoices showing different totals that did not even match what was charged. The company pointed to a roadside protection product he had declined and an insurance deductible he had chosen. But there is a principle worth knowing before you accept a charge like this: rental companies are typically responsible for mechanical and electrical breakdowns that are not caused by customer negligence or misuse, and a battery that dies on a cold morning after five days of normal use points to a defect in the vehicle, not a mistake by the driver.

Stylized illustration of a distressed traveler clutching his chest in front of a palm-lined hospital as medical staff wheel a patient on a gurney toward the entrance, evoking a vacation cut short by a family emergency.

The hotel refunded his money, but the booking site kept it anyway

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When John Moss’s stepfather was rushed to the hospital, he knew his Florida vacation was over before it started. He contacted Traveluro, the site where he had booked a nonrefundable $615 stay at the Hilton Melbourne Beach, and sent hospital records proving the family emergency. The hotel understood and agreed to cancel without penalty, releasing the money back to the booking site. All Traveluro had to do was pass it along. Instead, weeks of silence followed, until Moss filed a dispute with his credit card company and Traveluro suddenly made him an offer: drop the dispute, and we will send your refund. Here is what every cardholder should understand before saying yes. A credit card dispute freezes the transaction while your issuer investigates, which means the merchant cannot touch the money until the matter is resolved. That is real, tangible leverage, and a company asking you to give it up in exchange for a promise is asking you to trade the one protection the law puts on your side.

Illustration of a worried man on the phone holding a credit card while a concert crowd watches performers on stage, representing a StubHub ticket refund dispute.

This StubHub rep’s “help” with Coldplay tickets cost me $3,000!

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Paul Avron’s daughter bought three Coldplay tickets at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami for $1,027, nine months before the show, as a birthday gift for her best friend and the friend’s dad. On the day of the concert, the StubHub app said the tickets were being released, but they never appeared. With the show already starting, the family called StubHub in a panic and asked for the tickets or replacements so the group could get in. The last representative refused to provide replacement tickets and said they had to buy new ones, promising StubHub would refund the original $1,027. The rep said he saw three tickets for just $1 more than the original purchase and sent a link. The tickets were actually $1,000 each, and StubHub charged the credit card $3,000. The family disputed the charge with their credit card company and contacted StubHub directly, but both representatives said they would not credit the account. The family never accepted or used the expensive tickets and never attended the concert. StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee promises valid tickets or your money back, and says StubHub will find comparable replacement tickets when possible.

Illustration of an Aer Lingus representative offering a voucher to a frustrated customer checking his watch, with the caption “One year later…”

Aer Lingus issued her voucher but ghosted her husband for over a year

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After a death in the family, Beatrijs Albarran and her husband Jorge had to cancel their Aer Lingus flights. The airline issued their refunds as vouchers, $938 for her and $925 for him, and emailed that both had been processed. But when Beatrijs called the next month to book a new trip, an agent told her Jorge’s voucher was never actually issued. The couple, who live in Buffalo, New York, wanted to fly from Toronto to Scotland because the fares are better, and asked whether the vouchers could be reissued in Canadian dollars. Beatrijs received hers in U.S. dollars within a reasonable time. Jorge’s never arrived. For more than a year she called repeatedly, hearing the same response that a supervisor was working on it, while automated emails said the case was under review. More than 15 months after Aer Lingus said it processed the voucher, it still had not appeared. Under Aer Lingus policy, vouchers are issued in the same currency as the original booking, so no conversion was needed to book from a Canadian airport, and the Department of Transportation requires airlines to process refund and credit requests promptly.