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Barbara couldn’t get Temu to fix a problem with her account through the company’s boilerplate help page. So she turned to our list of Temu executive contacts instead. We publish them free on our site.

“I contacted the first named executive on your Temu list and I got a prompt response from a customer service rep,” she says. Not long after that, her problem was completely resolved.

“So thank you for having this service available. I’m sure I couldn’t have done it otherwise,” she adds.

We couldn’t help people like Barbara without you. Thank you for your support. Here’s how to get our assistance for free.

Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

When your Daryl Hall concert is canceled but the refund is out of touch
Robert Logan paid $489 for a pair of StubHub tickets to a Daryl Hall show in Denver, and after Hall canceled it he called six times and got the same promise to escalate the refund in four or five days. His bank turned him down too, saying the Fair Credit Billing Act’s 60-day window had closed because he bought the tickets in June.

Is it worth paying extra for a “risk-free” vacation?
Celia Dunlap paid $805 for travel insurance before a 40-day Southeast Asia tour, and when the operator cut the trip to 10 days the policy didn’t cover her cancellation, leaving her with a nonrefundable $4,500 ticket. The Atlantic hasn’t produced a hurricane all season, and Caribbean bookings through one insurance marketplace are running 21% ahead of last year anyway.

Have we forgotten the lessons of 9/11?
Gateside by TSA PreCheck lets vetted travelers without tickets clear the checkpoint at 13 airports, and it arrives alongside the end of the shoe rule and a review of the liquids limit. A 2019 GAO audit found that none of nine vulnerabilities identified through covert testing had been formally resolved.

Pace the frontier? In travel, AI is already making our lives miserable
Air Canada’s chatbot told Jake Moffatt he could claim a bereavement discount after he flew, which wasn’t the airline’s policy, and the airline argued to a tribunal that the chatbot answered for itself. Algorithms already set your airfare and rank who gets the last seat out of a meltdown, and nothing requires anyone to tell you where you stand.

Is travel insurance useless in a crisis? Here’s what you need to know
Janice Lintz filed a claim after civil unrest in Nepal closed the airspace and canceled her flights, and her credit card policy denied it because no one had classified the protests as terrorism. Security memberships are absorbing the demand that insurance won’t, with one provider reporting nonmedical evacuation requests up 31% in a year.

Rover left my dog home alone for 17 hours, and now it refuses to pay the vet bill
Luke Gilbertson’s Ring camera caught his Rover sitter shut into another room for 17 of the 24 hours she was booked, while his dog, Stewie, vomited and later needed care for a swallowed object. Rover denied the $5,272 claim as an illness of undetermined cause and sent him $276 for the sitting.

Can Princess Cruises charge you more after you paid in full?
Deborah Keck paid $1,449 to upgrade to a suite on the Star Princess and got a confirmation marked paid in full with a zero balance. Princess added $3,967 to the booking months later, then told her to pay it, give up the cabin or lose the cruise.

Airfares, hotel rates and rental cars are climbing faster than general inflation heading into the holidays, and the explanations on offer don’t agree with one another. I’m working on a story about what a vacation costs now and who is responsible for the number, and I want to hear from you. Give me your feedback on Backchannel.