Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

Is there a way out of this Amazon account recovery black hole?
Henry Dickson’s iPad was bricked during an update, and when he reinstalled the Amazon app, the login asked him to approve a notification on the device he couldn’t reach. Amazon’s identity recovery page required him to sign in before uploading a driver’s license, a dozen representatives sent him the same broken link, and he lost access to his Prime benefits and his entire Kindle library.

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.

Edward Lannin signed up for Rivian Care, a new extended warranty that required no pre-inspection and no waiting period, and the first claim he filed was $4,900 in suspension work on his 2022 R1T. Assurant denied it as a pre-existing condition under Schedule 3 of the contract, without producing any mechanical evidence that the parts had failed before he bought the coverage. How do you prove a component wasn’t already broken when nobody ever looked at it? Join the discussion on Backchannel.