The hacker got in on the first try. She has been calling for a month. (Illustration by Dustin Elliott)
🎁 Locked out! — One of our readers got two emails from Amazon telling her that the phone number and email address on her account had changed. She hadn’t asked for either one. The A-Team picks up the case.
🇧🇸 Today’s new company contact: Bahamasair.
Over on Backchannel, Amy Robinson got $261.62 back from United Airlines after a night on a terminal floor in Grand Junction, and she wants to know whether that’s a fair number. Is it? I’ll have the answer.
Confidentially: The Federal Trade Commission has ordered Delta, United, JetBlue and six other companies to explain whether the price you see is built around your own data. Are you paying more than your neighbor?
By the way, you’re reading about half of this newsletter. A PRO membership unlocks the other half, starting with today’s report on the price that’s built around you. Here’s how to subscribe.
— Christopher Elliott
FEATURED ARTICLE
Amazon locked my account after a hacker stole my gift cards. Can I get my money back?
A hacker changed the phone number and the email address on Joanne Crissey’s Amazon account, then drained the $255 gift card balance she had been saving. Every agent she reached promised an escalation that would resolve in 24 to 48 hours, and a month of daily calls produced nothing. Then a package she never ordered arrived at her door. Can she get back into her own account?
OUR UNDERWRITER
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📌 Here’s what you missed this week
Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report
Amazon locked my account after a hacker stole my gift cards. Can I get my money back?
Joanne Crissey, a senior citizen in Tinley Park, Ill., got two notices that the phone number and email address on her Amazon account had been changed, and she had requested neither. Amazon restored the email weeks later but never the phone number, which left her locked out while a hacker drained her $255 gift card balance and a delivery she never ordered showed up at her door.
A blizzard canceled my flight. Why won’t Road Scholar refund my $5,999 trip?
Karen Carano, a registered nurse from Garrison, N.Y., let Road Scholar book the airfare for a 14-day program in Chile and Argentina, then watched a historic blizzard take out her departure. The replacement flights the tour operator found would have put her in South America three or four days late, and when they disappeared, Road Scholar kept the $5,999 program fee on the grounds that she had canceled inside 24 hours.
Amazon deleted his 25-year history. Here is how he got it back.
Rafael Guimaraes, a business jet pilot based in Brazil, lost a 25-year-old Amazon account, his Prime membership and an $800 Kindle library after his bank declined a $650 purchase in Costa Rica. Amazon’s American and German operations each told him the other one owned the problem, and the password recovery page demanded a phone number he had never had.
Holiday flights are packed. Board last anyway.
Air travel is heading for its busiest holiday season on record, with the average domestic Thanksgiving round trip at $402, up 31% from last year, and most major U.S. airlines charging about $10 more for a checked bag. Frequent fliers who board last and deplane last say rushing saves them nothing, because everyone ends up waiting at the same baggage carousel.
Look who decided your airline seat is big enough
The Federal Aviation Administration told Congress this summer that it sees no reason to set a minimum seat size, closing out a fight that ran through two congressional mandates, a federal appeals court and 26,100 public comments. Its own peer reviewers at the National Academies had already found that the research behind that answer can’t establish whether cramped seating slows an evacuation.
Let’s end the gotcha clause that’s making your hotel room more expensive
Hilary Azzaretti found the same rate on a Croatian hotel’s own website and on Expedia, with better cancellation terms from the booking site, so she handed her reservation to the middleman. A lawsuit filed in Seattle says Expedia’s lodging contract bars a hotel from selling for less on its own site, which builds a commission of 15% or more into the rate you pay everywhere.
Secret tunnels, breathing lamps: How Capella created a sustainable resort in Sydney
Anthony Metcalfe runs a 192-room hotel inside Sydney’s restored 1915 Department of Education building, where a shared tunnel between two heritage landmarks let the developer avoid a new excavation and the turndown gift comes from a female-owned business on Groote Eylandt. Seven years of restoration produced a luxury hotel that hands guests a QR code pointing them to somebody else’s coffee shop.
OUR UNDERWRITER
Faye Travel Insurance provides whole-trip travel coverage and care that brings out the best in each journey with industry-leading technology that enables smarter, faster, smoother assistance and claims resolutions. Our robust travel insurance covers your health, your trip, your stuff, and even your pet, via an app that provides real-time proactive solutions, quick reimbursements and 24/7 support from anywhere in the world. Wherever you go, we’re there too, taking care of the details so you can make the most of each moment, with the only travel protection that is by your side and on your side every step of the way.
💬 What you’re asking on Backchannel
United paid her $150 for the night she spent on the floor. The floor was free.
Amy Robinson’s United Airlines flight fell apart when the crew ran out of duty hours, and she spent the night on the floor in Grand Junction before landing at the wrong Bay Area airport the next day. Her trip had cost her $609.87 by the time she paid for the seat changes, the bag fees and an Uber home. Today we have an update on her case. Priceline pushed United into refunding $261.62 of it. Is that a fair number, or should she keep pressing? Here’s our team’s advice on Backchannel.
OUR UNDERWRITER
Flying Angels provide medical transport anywhere in the world on commercial airlines with a Flight Nurse or Doctor. A Flight Coordinator handles the logistics. The client receives care during the entire transport—bedside to bedside. Visit FlyingAngels.com or call 877-265-1085 to speak with a flight coordinator.
CONFIDENTIALLY
Information and insights for Elliott Confidential PRO subscribers
The price is the price. Unless it’s your price.
The FTC wants to know if you’re paying more than your neighbor
Nine companies — Delta, United and JetBlue among them — have 45 days to tell the agency whether the price you see is built around your own data.
Ever book a flight, then find out a friend paid less for the same seat on the same day? You probably chalked it up to bad timing. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wonders if something else is going on.
The rest of this exclusive report is for members only.
Behind this line: whether charging you more is even against the law, and the five ways to catch a price that was built for you. Plus, where to send the screenshots.
A Members Only story like this runs in every issue, along with Backchannel and the vault. Annual membership is 30% off through this link.
The agency has ordered nine companies to explain how they set prices and pay their workers. The list includes Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart. Each company has 45 days to show whether the price for a ticket, a ride or a grocery delivery changes from one customer to the next. The FTC wants to know if factors such as your loyalty program status or an algorithm’s read of your personal data play a role.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said consumers deserve to know whether companies use their web browsing habits or other personal data to figure out the most each person will pay.