The first disturbing incident concerns the daughter of a woman who is aged 75 and suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She was persuaded to buy an anti ageing device and some lotions at a store in a shopping mall to the tune of $15,000 approx. She maxed out her credit card for half of it and withdrew the balance from her bank account the next day. The daughter was upset and tried to reverse the transaction to no avail. The store said the mother was very interested in looking younger. Here are some ways to prevent something like this from happening to you or someone you know. Which of them will you do if you have not already done so. Please comment about any additional suggestions.

This second situation is about Electronic Fund Transfers (EFT), E-Transfers or whatever they call them where you bank. Typically someone is selling an item or paying for a product or service and wants to transfer funds digitally from the buyer to the seller. In one situation the buyer "paid" over $4K for something and showed the seller that payment had been made using the app on his phone. Thinking the transaction was complete the product was delivered. Only later did the seller discover the money had never been deposited. His bank said there was nothing they could do and the media blamed the bank. Since this type of transaction is now very popular, here are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Which of them will you follow if you don't do so already?

No matter how enjoyable your dream vacation has been, it can go off the rails on the return home when you find your return flight does not have you on it. I have seen three examples of this in the past week. One of them involved one carrier switching the passenger to another carrier on the outbound flight and finding there was no seat on the return flight. The 2nd involved a switch of boarding passes that neither the passenger or any airline employee noticed even though all parties actually looked at it. Looking does not mean seeing apparently. This resulted in the passenger being on the wrong plane and arriving in the wrong country. The 3rd example was similar to the first one only this time the passenger was actually shown as being on the return flight but the ticket number given by carrier one was not in the same computer format as carrier two. The airline refused to print the boarding pass and showed the passenger as a no-show (so that they could sell the seat) Huge costs were incurred to pay to get home on a one way ticket full fare and none of the carriers accept the blame. Here are some suggestions that MAY prevent this from happening to you. Which will you follow?

When there is a car crash and blame has yet to be determined, the insurance companies will often settle the claim with the customer and work out which insurer pays what later and without customer involvement. (never say anything if in a crash that admits to being to blame - your insurer might not pay if you do). Airlines should do something similar. When it is obvious that one or both airlines are to blame for the mix up, then they should be obligated to get the passenger on the plane home and they can work out the details amongst themselves later. We should lobby politicians and do whatever else we can think of to make this happen. Agree?

This just in the morning after I submitted the survey to TW. This is another example of consumer abuse that has now resulted in us cancelling a $8K " trip of a lifetime" we were planning. There are too many things that can go wrong these days and the airlines have no interest in fixing them. I will do whatever I can on surveys, travel blogs etc. to get these companies to behave better and hope other consumers will do the same rather than just excepting it, or causing a scene at the airport. Will you do the same? (https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/another-bc-couple-reports-being-denied-boarding-then-listed-as-no-shows-by-airline-10733078)