🛞 This one will drive you crazy — We’re in the middle of summer driving season, and today we’re featuring a trip no one wants to take. It’s about a driver whose Alfa Romeo dashboard is separating from the air vents. His service contract covers interior surfaces, but Mopar refuses to honor it. The reason made the A-Team blow a gasket.

Over on Backchannel, a reader found her credit card attached to her caregiver’s Amazon account. Amazon won’t remove it, and won’t tell her what’s been bought on it.

In our Members Only section, a woman in Yavapai County, Ariz., lost $4.3 million to people posing as FBI agents. The same script is being pointed at travelers now. I’ll explain how to avoid this horrible scam. This story is for subscribers only. Here’s how to get access to it. — Christopher Elliott

Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

My Alfa Romeo’s dashboard is falling apart and the warranty won’t cover it
A 2019 Stelvio with a dashboard pulling away from the air vents, and a service contract that covers interior surfaces damaged by wear and tear. Mopar denied the claim, citing an exclusion list that appears nowhere in the policy.

Help! Delta downgraded us and refused to pay for a place to sleep
Two passengers over 75 missed their connection in Atlanta and rented a nap room in the terminal on an agent’s advice. Delta denied the reimbursement, then downgraded the Comfort+ seats they had paid for.

Avis said she smoked in her rental car, but she had an alibi
A $450 deep cleaning fee for smoke damage, backed by photos of what looked like water spots. Both women in the car are breast cancer survivors, and neither smokes.

No-service summer: Why your vacation feels so cheap (but costs so much)
A first-class cabin with no meal and a $500 hotel room with no coffee maker. Companies cut service instead of raising prices after the pandemic, then found no reason to bring it back.

A child wouldn’t buckle up, so Porter Airlines canceled the entire flight
A crew found a young child standing on a seat after the plane pushed back in Victoria, British Columbia. The airfield closed at 12:30 a.m., everyone deplaned, and the airline still hasn’t said which category it filed the cancellation under.

States are doubling down on consumer protections. But why do airlines get a pass?
Washington has stopped fining airlines, so states and cities are writing the consumer rules instead. A 1978 law keeps every one of them out of the airport.

In Queenstown, tourism sustainability comes down to earth
Hotel food waste from 95 percent of the town’s luxury properties becomes 1,200 tons of soil a year. The produce goes back into resort kitchens, and the surplus sells from a roadside stand that runs on the honor system.

A credit card that won’t come off someone else’s Amazon account, and what a gate agent’s “might” is worth

Dorothea Cohen found her credit card attached to her caregiver’s Amazon account, and Amazon told her only the account holder can take it off. It also refused to show her what had been bought on the card. She needs those records because she’s going after the caregiver legally. Our advocate Dwayne Coward says that takes a police report or a subpoena, since a company won’t hand over another customer’s account details. Should Amazon have to tell you when your card turns up on someone else’s account?

Yesterday’s Delta story drew a lot of comments, and most of them came back to the gate agent. Dee Eagle thinks Delta did the right thing for goodwill but needs to train its agents on what to promise and when. Michelle S. was blunter, calling “might” a weasel word. A few of you argued the reader’s age shouldn’t have entered into it at all, and several more wished the United States had something like EC261. Should a gate agent’s word be binding?