Without a paper trail, there's no case. (Illustration by Dustin Elliott)
🎙️ The case I couldn’t take — Dirk Shearer lost $15,000 in what he says was a fraudulent money transfer, but my team had to send him away. Today we're relaunching the Elliott Confidential podcast with an episode about another case we couldn't win that had a shocking ending. You can read the full story today and listen to the new podcast, which, I have to admit, Iden and I had way too much fun recording.
On Backchannel, Tab Stone can't find an annual travel insurance policy that waives the pre-existing condition exclusion. We can help.
For Members Only: Did you know that tech-help scam had an anonymous accomplice? Well, not anymore. I’ll tell you what it means for your next credit card purchase in our Members Only section. Plus, a Forbes exclusive story about the Antarctic. — Christopher Elliott
FEATURED ARTICLE
Why I turned down a $15,000 case
A carpenter from Glen Rock, Pa., wrote to us about a $15,000 money transfer he says was fraudulent. He had reference numbers and a police report, and he asked us to check Western Union's records ourselves. We don't have that kind of access, and once law enforcement is involved my team is out. So when should an advocate walk away?
THIS WEEK’S PODCAST
Opening the F-Files on our most spectacular advocacy failures
For the past few weeks, we brought you the consumer cases we successfully resolved. Today we look at the cases we completely failed. Welcome to the F-Files. These are the spectacular pile-ups and disasters that we could not fix. This episode contains explicit language and adult themes, so listener discretion is advised.
ELLIOTT CONFIDENTIAL
Opening The F-Files On Our Most Spectacular Failures
OUR UNDERWRITER
Travel Leaders Group is transforming travel through its progressive approach toward each unique travel experience. Travel Leaders Group assists millions of travelers through its leisure, business and network travel operations under a variety of diversified divisions and brands, including All Aboard Travel, Andrew Harper Travel, Colletts Travel, Corporate Travel Services, CruCon Cruise Outlet, Cruise Specialists, Nexion, Protravel International, SinglesCruise.com, Travel Leaders Corporate, Travel Leaders Network and Tzell Travel Group, and its merger with ALTOUR. With more than 7,000 agency locations and 52,000 travel advisors, Travel Leaders Group ranks as one of the industry's largest retail travel agency companies.
📌 Here’s what you missed this week
Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report
Why I turned down a $15,000 case
A Pennsylvania carpenter says a fraudulent Western Union transfer cost him $15,000, and my team couldn’t take the case. It’s also the peg for our relaunched podcast, which opens on another file we lost and the twist that brought it back two years later.
JetBlue, Southwest and a week that changed everything
JetBlue announced a domestic first class cabin on Sept. 1, and the next morning Southwest said it’s opening airport lounges in four cities. For 25 years these were the two airlines that did it differently, and that ended in about 24 hours.
How to find $4,762 when Comcast says it’s gone
A San Francisco reader meant to pay her credit card and sent $4,762 to Comcast by mistake. The refund came back on a prepaid debit card, and by the time she checked the balance it read $82, with no transaction list anyone could produce to explain it.
Banned by JetBlue after booking through the wrong website
A caregiver who flies Hartford to Fort Lauderdale twice a month paid $468 through a site called Farehub. JetBlue’s records show the ticket was bought with someone else’s travel voucher, and an agent stopped her at the gate.
Do you have a high travel IQ? Here’s how you can tell
A behavioral researcher watched one traveler come apart over a gate change in Tokyo while another passenger walked away and solved it. Travel IQ is the gap between what you think you know and how the world works, and there are seven signs yours needs work.
Americans are tearing down surveillance cameras. Then they’re lining up for one at the airport.
Americans spent the summer packing city council meetings and cutting down license plate cameras, and last week the company behind them rewrote its privacy rules. A lot of those same people drove to the airport, walked up to a checkpoint and let a machine photograph their face.
Can you turn tourists into conservationists? How one tour operator is trying to close the “say-do” gap
RealNZ raised $270,000 for predator control and replaced invasive pines with about 30,000 native trees across the lake from Queenstown. Its chief executive says the hard part is getting visitors to care once they start comparing prices.
OUR UNDERWRITER
Surf Air Mobility is a California-based air mobility platform. With its AI-enabled SurfOS software and electrification programs, Surf Air Mobility provides technology designed to support the modernization of air operations and the adoption of next-generation aircraft. Surf Air Mobility currently operates one of the largest commuter airlines in the United States by scheduled departures, which provides operational scale and real-world operating data to validate and deploy its software.
💬 What you’re saying on Backchannel
Tab Stone shops for annual travel insurance and can’t find a policy that waives the pre-existing condition exclusion. The usual waiver hangs on your first trip deposit, and an annual plan has no single deposit to measure from. Does the waiver exist at all on a multi-trip policy? Here’s what our team told him on Backchannel.
OUR UNDERWRITER
Southwest Airlines is dedicated to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. We are committed to providing our employees with a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth.
Subscribe to Elliott Confidential PRO to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber of Elliott Confidential to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. You'll be a smarter traveler!
UpgradeA subscription gets you:
- Full access to our members-only content.
- The key to our private community on our Backchannel forum.
- All my books.