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Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

Help! A three-hour delay returning my rental car cost me $650!
George Meyer paid $670 for a 27-day Europcar rental in France on a voucher that promised unlimited mileage, then hit traffic on the way back to Charles de Gaulle and reached the counter three hours late. The delay pushed the rental to 28 days, which under EU rules puts it in a different category with a 3,750-kilometer cap, and Europcar billed him $650 for the extra distance.

An arson attack in France doubled her car rental bill. Does she have to pay?
Marianne Piepenburg booked a five-day car from National at the Avignon TGV station for $434, and arsonists attacked the French rail lines on the morning she was due to pick it up. She reached the counter a day late to find her reservation canceled and a comparable vehicle priced at $837 for four days, with National pointing at Enterprise, Enterprise pointing at a local franchise in Avignon and the franchise answering neither its phone nor its email.

The reverse packing list: What should you leave at home?
A first checked bag now costs $45 on most major U.S. airlines, and American charges basic economy passengers $55. Travel advisors who live out of a carry-on have cut themselves down to one pair of versatile shoes and a merino layer that handles a 40-degree morning without the bulk, and one of them nominates the full-size travel umbrella as the most useless item in anybody’s bag.

Only 3 airline seats left? Prove it.
Joshua Clouette’s airline website said only three business class seats were left. A supervisor told him the site might not reflect what was available. Regulators in Britain and Hungary have gone after scarcity claims, but no U.S. agency has brought a case against a travel company over one.

Are tourist taxes fair — or are you being taken for a ride?
Edinburgh, Barcelona, Japan and Kyoto all raised what visitors pay this year, and Europe’s ETIAS fee nearly tripled before the system launched. Some destinations publish where the money goes, while others charge foreign visitors $100 more for the same view.

How conservationists and visitors are saving endangered wallabies in Melbourne
The Southern brush-tailed rock-wallaby went down to 39 animals on the Australian mainland, and a predator-proof fence an hour outside Melbourne now protects about 80% of what’s left. The foundation running the sanctuary has one request for the tourists and corporate groups paying for the recovery: stop calling the animals cute.

Can GE really send the same broken part eight times?
Paul Clarke’s GE Profile ice maker needed one component, and GE Parts shipped the same impeller motor and three-blade propeller eight times with the blades snapped off, inside a sealed bag that held no broken pieces. Four months in, the Assurant warranty that would cover the appliance still can’t start, because the approved vendor has no working part to install.

Amine Guessous lost access to a Facebook account he had kept for 18 years, with no explanation beyond a notice giving him 30 days to request a review. Every appeal path he has tried, across browsers, devices and old support addresses, loops him back to the same notice or bounces. What do you do when a company offers you an appeal it won’t let you file? Join the discussion on Backchannel.

Behind this line: the eight warning signs that you’re wiring money to a scammer, and what the FTC tells you to do in the first hour if the money is already gone. Plus, the one question to ask yourself before you fill out the form.

A Members Only story like this runs in every issue, along with Backchannel and the vault.