You’ll want to remember his case so you don’t forget something on your next ride.

Arthur Weiss’ 45-mile Lyft ride from San Jose International Airport to Nob Hill in San Francisco started just fine. 

He loaded his bags into the trunk of his driver’s car and they headed north, just like hundreds of other trips he’s taken.

“All my rides were pleasant,” Weiss said. 

But when this trip ended, Weiss was at a loss. Literally. 

”As I got out to remove my baggage from the back of the vehicle, the driver took off,” Weiss said. 

He chased the driver up the street, then messaged him to tell him his bags were still in the trunk. 

“[I]got no further response, I had to go to a dinner after and there was still no response, and I kept sending texts,” Weiss continued. 

Weiss messaged Lyft, too. 

It told him to file a police report. He did. 

Later, Weiss says Lyft told him the driver claimed the bags weren’t in his trunk. Lyft also said it doesn’t insure rider’s belongings. 

“My problem has been what I think is a lack of good customer service and not really working to make the customer happy or to resolve their issue,” Weiss said of the situation. 

Arthur estimates he’s out $3,000. So he contacted NBC Bay Area Responds for help. 

When airlines find lost bags and such, they store them — and eventually, sell them at a clearinghouse if they’re unclaimed. Same for BART, forgotten stuff is cataloged, held, and eventually sold if no one claims it. 

So, what happens to lost items at Lyft? We asked. 

Chiefly, we wanted to know what Lyft requires drivers to do if a rider leaves something behind? What happens if they don’t follow that policy? Or ignore riders like Weiss? 

Lyft said the same things it said to Weiss and noted its drivers are independent contractors — different from BART and the airlines’ staffing. 

Lyft also said, “If the police reach out to us with the proper paperwork via email, we’ll assist them in any way we can.”

San Francisco Police Department only said Weiss’ case is still open. 

So, still no bags, even with our intervention. 

“I do appreciate everything you have done and NBC has done to support me through this journey,” Weiss said. 

We wondered what Uber’s policy is. But it didn’t respond to us for this story. 

Like Lyft, Uber’s website says you can message your driver, though it’s not responsible for items you leave in a vehicle. 

But Uber does track those forgotten things and even publishes a yearly “Lost & Found Index.”

The most common items forgotten include clothes, phones, backpacks, and purses. Uber says it got more lost item reports on April 5 than any other day, more than 1,000 of them.

Besides many other curiosities in the index — like 40 pairs of dentures reported lost in Ubers last year — there’s some useful info to help you, too.

In 2022, Uber found people were most likely to lose stuff on Saturdays and Sundays. So, be extra mindful of your stuff when ridesharing over the weekend.

Weiss has a parting practical tip for you too. 

“Moving forward, if someone is getting in and they have something of value and it’s in a purse or a briefcase or a tote bag, I would highly recommend they take that with them to the back seat so their hands are on it at all times,” Weiss said. 

Two more things we want to drive home: 

• Consider a WiFi tracker like an Apple Airtag for your bags. In some well-publicized cases, airline passengers located their lost bags that way. 
• See if your insurance will cover you. Some phone protection plans cover loss. Try your travel insurance if you’re on a trip. If your ride is local, consider a claim under your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance. Arthur considered that, but ultimately just moved on and wrote off his three-grand loss. 

Have a consumer complaint? Let us know, so we can help.

“Simple things,” she said. “Basic things that I knew I had paid an additional amount to cover.”  

Cris says the service department billed her about $140. She pushed back because she expected her Honda Care service plan to cover the full cost.

“They said, ‘Oh, we’ll look into it,’” Lozano said. “And then they said they didn’t see anything, that they didn’t find anything in the system.”

Cris said she showed Envision Honda its own contract from the day it sold her the Civic. It shows she prepaid $1,995 for Honda [Care] Sentinel. A Honda Care brochure says the Sentinel plan does cover things like oil changes, tire maintenance, and more. 

Here’s the hitch: “They said it was never activated,” Lozano said. “And that they didn’t see it in the system. So, they couldn’t honor it.”  

What We Have Here is a Failure to Activate

Whose job was to activate it? The dealer, Envision. Cris wanted to cancel and get her two grand back. She says she filed a cancellation form. Six months later: nothing. 

“I got silence,” she said.  

This isn’t Cris’s first problem with Envision Honda. In 2022, a few months after Cris bought the same Civic, her paper tags expired. Cris says Envision didn’t register the car and stopped responding to her. 

“Who’s the next email I sent? To you,” she said at the time. “And then, all of a sudden, within eight days… my tags actually ended up in the mailbox!” 

Cris contacted NBC Bay Area Responds again– about her service plan.

We contacted Envision Honda and Honda corporate.

Honda & Dealer Take Action

Honda headquarters told us Cris’s troubles were not ”representative of a typical experience.” 

Honda said dealers should activate service contracts within 48 hours of selling a car. Then, two to four weeks later, buyers should receive their contract in the mail. 

Neither of those things happened for Cris. Why?

An Envision rep pointed to a management swap. He said Cris, “purchased a vehicle the day after we bought Honda Milpitas.” He noted all “new processes and people.” 

All Fixed (With a Bonus)

Envision said it took action for Cris as soon as NBC Bay Area Responds called Honda corporate in February. Envision gave her her $1,995 back, plus a bonus for the inconvenience. 

“$100 more,” Lozao said with a chuckle. “I finally won, but I still feel as if I was so frustrated. I shouldn’t have gone through all that… twice!”  

Service contracts and extended warranties can be lucrative for car dealers.

100% Markup?

An Auburn University at Montgomery Economics Professor wrote about an “average markup of 100 percent.”

So, it’s no surprise that some car salespeople might come on strong — pushing a service contract.

A car dealer consultant isn’t shy about it. Its website tells dealers: “There are countless ways your dealership could boost its profitability. One of the easiest is to simply offer vehicle service contracts to your customers.” 

If you cave under pressure from a car salesperson, here’s some good news: you can change your mind if you bought a service contract and regret it.

You Can Cancel & Get Your Money Back. It’s the Law.

“California law gives you an absolute right to cancel a vehicle service contract for any reason,” said Deputy Insurance Commissioner Michael Soller. “We call it a ‘free look’ period.”   

Soller says you get all your money back, minus any claims you made, if you cancel during your “free look” period. For new cars, it’s 60 days after you receive your contract; 30 days for used cars. 

But wait! There’s more!

“Even if you go past that period, you can still get some of your money back,” Soller said.    

After the “free look,” you can still cancel and possibly get a partial refund. Soller said the seller might prorate your refund by time or miles. They might also charge a fee, but no more than $25.

Exactly how much you’ll get back should be in your contract. “The contract is the ultimate guide,” Soller said.   

If you buy an “extended warranty,” “service contract,” “protection plan,” or whatever they call it, make sure you get your contract. If you don’t, follow up. Honda, for example, told us Honda Care buyers who don’t get anything in the mail within 30 days of buying a car should reach out. 

Extended Warranty Problem? Open a State Investigation

If you’re spinning your wheels with a service contract, you can ask the California Department of Insurance to investigate.

The number is 1-800-927-4357. Or visit its website.

McVoy said he’s been without electricity, “just under 20 twenty-four-hour days” since Jan. 1. 

You might logically assume that with the power going out so much, McVoy’s electric bill would be much lower. 

“You would think so, but not so much,” he said, with a laugh. “They charged us the full amount in January when we have 16 days of no power.”

He’s not alone. The NBC Bay Area Responds team is hearing from others with confusing electric bills. Our Telemundo Responde team is logging similar complaints. 

So, we asked PG&E: What is going on? A rep declined a request to speak on camera. 

By email, they said, “When PG&E is unable to collect an actual read for any reason (Example: Non-communicating meter, power outage), the system will estimate based off of historical usage.”

PG&E told us when it can’t read a meter at the end of a billing cycle, that’s when people like McVoy might get a monthly bill demanding payment for “historical” electricity they never actually used. 

So, what happens to fix that bad estimate? PG&E said two things. First, “once power is restored and a read is obtained, the system then uses the read.” 

Second, PG&E said it automatically adjusts your next bill to charge you only for your actual electricity use. McVoy said his recent bill was lower, though he’s unsure of the math.

“I got maybe $150 bucks back,” he said. 

PG&E declined to discuss McVoy’s account with us, but recommended he contact them so a billing specialist can take a look. PG&E offered the same advice for anyone else who’s puzzled. 

We asked the state’s utility watchdog, The Public Advocate’s Office at The Public Utilities Commission, about people’s billing confusion. “At this point, the Public Advocate’s Office does not yet have any insights on this,” a rep said.

If you want to see how much electric PG&E’s billing you for in real time, log into the PG&E website, pge.com. Once in your account, click the link that reads “Energy Usage Details.” 

A daily bar graph should load. Solid blue lines are days where PG&E got a reading; shaded blue lines are those “historical” estimates. 

Want to dig deeper? Click a bar. It’ll break down your electricity use — real or estimated — hour by hour.

Back in the mountains, McVoy’s generator is finally off. And his power’s back on. He recommends double checking your electricity the old-fashioned way.

“If I could do things over again, what I would do is figure out what their billing cycle is, and at least go out and look at the meter,” he said. Read it yourself. Write down the numbers or snap a picture– to later compare to your bill.  

“Keeping records is a good thing,” McVoy said.     

If you want to challenge your bill, PG&E said you can call them. The number is 1-800-743-5000. Press three, then four. When we called around noon one Friday, the wait to speak with someone was nine minutes.

So, should we expect a sequel for the holidays?  We found some signs of airline improvement. But there’s also some drama, and good reason to buckle up in case it gets bumpy again. 

Now boarding? Nonstop trepidation. 

“I think there’s some hesitation going into this holiday season,”  said Emily Thornton of Insuranks.com.

Insurance comparison site Insuranks.com recently surveyed 1,000 people about flights. 

“71%, nearly three in four people are worried about delays and cancellations for upcoming trips,”  Thornton said. 

And justifiably so!

Rewind back to summer. 

Airlines delayed or cancelled thousands of flights. 

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Passengers saw long delays and found themselves waiting at the airport and on hold with customer service for hours. 

So is flying any better now for the winter holidays? We turned to flight tracking company FlightAware.

“There’s just tens of thousands of aircraft we’re tracking around the globe every day,” said Kathleen Bangs of FlightAware.

Over the summer, Uncle Sam found upwards of 30% of all flights arrived late. 

Recently, FlightAware found 17% delayed and the amount of time passengers are stuck has shortened. 

“This summer, delays were reaching about one hour on average,” Bangs said. 

“Now, that’s winding down to about 45 minutes, which we like to see,” she continued. 

Best on-time record between September and November: Delta.

Worst? Frontier and JetBlue. 

Frontier did not respond to us. 

JetBlue said 70% of its flights go to or through “the congested weather-prone northeast [U.S.] corridor, [so] JetBlue in particular feels these impacts and downline delays.”

JetBlue noted that it’s recently cancelled zero San Francisco International Airport flights. 

That’s way better than the summer. 

In June: airlines overall cancelled 3% of all flights. 

Now: FlightAware data show one 1.2% are getting grounded. 

“Some days, less than one percent of flights are cancelled in the U.S.,” Bangs said, “Actually, we’ve seen it get down to half a percent”

The wait for help has improved too. 

Our intern Amelia and Consumer Investigator Chris Chmura made test calls over the summer. It took them hours to get an agent to call them back.  More recently, they were able to reach a human within five or six minutes. 

Over the summer, passengers paid the price for an airline staffing shortage. Since May, airlines have hired eleven thousand additional workers. But some personnel problems persist.

Picketing pilots say airlines are overscheduling with too much reliance on overtime. 

“We’re not striking,” one pilot said, “we’re just doing an informational picket.”

Right, no strike. But some pilots are refusing overtime shifts. That can cause delays and cancellations with less wiggle room than legroom. 

“There are fewer airline routes, in terms of options, than there once were,” said Kevin Brasler, editor of Consumers’ Checkbook.

“And the planes are a lot fuller,” Brasler continued. “So, when there’s even a small disruption there’s a ripple effect for days.”

Consumers’ Checkbook recently published 60 travel tips. 

Here are a few:

• Pack some essentials in your carry on just in case your trip takes longer.
• Hunt down information in advance about the next few flights to your destination — in case your flight gets grounded. 
• Download the airline app and subscribe to alerts. Be first to know if there’s trouble. 
• If there’s a problem, react immediately because you’ll be competing with everyone else on your flight to rebook a seat. 

“Those passengers get spread out across several flights, and there are just no empty seats to accommodate them,” Brasler explained. “That’s really been the big problem, and I don’t know when that’s going to go away.”

Kathleen Bangs at FlightAware recommends everyone check the forecast before flying. 

“Have an idea a few days in advance: What are the big weather fronts?” Bangs suggested. 

When there’s trouble on the radar, airlines often issue fee waivers in advance. They might let you go earlier, later, or to a different city at no extra cost. 

“If they see there’s a weather impact to your flight, they’ll actually want you to proactively contact them,” Bangs said. 

Do that on the phone. Or try social media. 

Over the summer airlines answered our direct messages on social media faster than they answered our phone calls. 

What about lost luggage? Uncle Sam says 99.3% of bags made it in August. 

Still, more than 200 thousand bags are lost or mishandled each month. 

To track your luggage, consider a WiFi tracker like an AirTag.  You drop it in your bag, and if it’s close to WiFi wherever it goes, you might be able to pinpoint its location on your smartphone wherever you are. 

If you need a co-pilot to navigate a consumer issue, get in touch with our team. 

Have a consumer complaint? Let us know, so we can help.

It did. And the winner is?

San Francisco. 

“San Francisco tops the list, really both per density and per capita,” said Apartment Guide Senior Managing Editor Brian Carberry, “It really had the perfect score.”  

San Francisco needs that perfect coffee score because a different dataset shows the city is getting imperfect sleep.

More coffee, less sleep in SF

The CDC asked adults around the country a bunch of health questions, including this: “Do you get fewer than seven hours of sleep each night?”

Our team pulled answers for the Bay Area. First, by county. The most people are sleepless in San Francisco, where 33.3% of people told the CDC they get fewer than seven hours of sleep per night. Alameda was next, and almost a tie at 33.2%. Sleep improves a bit in Contra Costa (32.5%), Santa Clara (31.5%), San Mateo (29.8%), and Napa (29.2%) counties. The best resting Bay Area counties are Sonoma (29.1%) and Marin (27.3%).

We also zeroed in by ZIP code. We found the fewest winks in the Bay Area on Treasure Island, 94130; around Bayview-Hunters Point, 94124; and Oakland’s 94621, near the Coliseum. 40% of people in those ZIP codes told the CDC than seven hours of sleep nightly. 

“Most of us need seven to nine hours every single night,” said Terry Cralle, R.N., with the Better Sleep Council. “We really have to give sleep a chance.” 

We also spoke with Dr. Emerson Wickmire, Ph.D. at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he heads the Sleep Medicine section. 

“Sleep is a nutrient,” Wickmire said, “And our bodies and brains just need it.” 

Best rest: Rural Sonoma

The CDC data show the people who sleep the most around the Bay Area live in rural Sonoma, 96497; Lafayette 94595; and Portola Valley, 94028.

The survey didn’t determine why. But, no matter where you slumber, we asked the experts how to get more – or better – sleep. First, they said: schedule seven to nine hours. 

“Rule number one to optimize our sleep experience is to allocate — or set aside — enough hours to get the sleep we need,” Wickmire said.  

Consistency= more sleep

Next, set a nighttime routine. “Bedtime routines are not just for children,” Cralle said.  

Empty the trash. 

Do the dishes. 

Check the door locks.

Whatever. 

Just repeat it, nightly. 

“Complete those activities in the same order,” Wickmire said. “This will prepare our bodies and minds for sleep to follow.”  

Change your toothpaste?

And when you’re doing your routine, get a relaxed vibe going. “Keep things calm, keep things quiet,” Cralle said. To keep really calm, Cralle said she even avoids “minty” and “extra refreshing” toothpaste.

“I literally have a different brand of toothpaste that I use at night,” she said. 

Cralle and Wickmire both said proper lighting is key around bedtime, especially in the bedroom. If you have light bulbs that can change color, shift them. Move away from blueish daylight hues; choose dusky orange and yellow hues, instead.

“The sun gives a pretty good example,” Wickmire said. 

Also: go minimal in the bedroom. “Physical clutter equals mental clutter,” Wickmire said. 

Declutter your room + your mind

If your mind races about tasks in the day ahead, don’t fear. Cralle says to write down tomorrow’s “To-Do” list. “Just put it on paper, the old-fashioned way,” she said. “And then, you’d be surprised… how things look manageable.” 

Consistent exercise is helpful for snoozing, too. 

Yes, it’s all work: the routine, the lights, the list. But the experts say better sleep pays off when you’re awake, with productivity you can only dream of.

Now, let’s get back to where we started: coffee. What’s its connection to sleep?

“It’s like a cat chasing its tail,” Wickmire said.  

Caffeine Crutch? Consult a physician

Wickmire and Cralle agreed that some caffeine is OK. Just don’t let a morning craving for a jumpstart of Joe morph into a daylong caffeine crutch.

“If you need caffeine to get you through the day — all day — something’s not right,” Cralle ssid.  

If you’re still not sleeping well, ask your doctor. 

“I wanted to take my family to Israel,” she said.  

Googled ‘United,’ Got A $3,000+ Mystery

So, Klein logged onto the United Airlines website and booked six tickets. She got a receipt in minutes, but found she made a name typo. No problem, though: Airlines mostly allow ticket changes in the first 24 hours with no fees.

“I did a search on my phone for United Airlines,” Klein said. “And I called the number that came up.” 

Buckle up. This is where it gets bumpy. The agent cancelled Klein’s reservation and booked a new one. But, they also made changes she didn’t request. Then, they charged extra.  

“It was $2,000 or $3,000 more,” she said. “And, I didn’t realize until later that I had not been speaking to United Airlines.”

Nope. Klein unknowingly connected to a travel agency. 

How Impostors Can Buy Consumer Confusion

Here’s how: when she Googled “United Airlines” on her phone, she clicked the “call” link. But, that “call” button can be bought. When a company pays Google for an ad at the top of a search page, it can also put its phone number in the “call” button. 

Google said that’s what the travel agency, Virago Travels, did. Virago paid so its phone number appeared first when folks searched for “United Airlines.”

“When I say, ‘Call United Airlines, I want them to call United Airlines,” Klein said.

She is not alone in feeling fooled.

“They lied on Google. They lied to us on the phone,” said Ed Slanina, who lives near Chicago.

Slanina said that he had booked United and needed to call. He said he then Googled “United Airlines,” clicked “call,” and got the same travel agency, Virago Travels.

“We asked, ‘Do you work for United?’ He goes, ‘Yes, we work for United,’” Slanina said.  

Slanina said a real United representative later told him the impostor made changes that didn’t warrant a service fee. And yet, Virago Travels charged him a $450 service fee.

“The fee was ridiculous,” he said.

Tracking Down The Travel Agency

NBC Bay Area dialed Virago Travels a few times. A computerized voice answered first, with no company name. Then, when a human picked up, they only said “reservations.”

Slanina said, “It’s not like he goes, ‘Virago Travels, can I help you?’”

Many Google reviews of Virago Travels involve Delta Air Lines, too. One said Virago was “someone posing to be Delta reservations.” Another reviewer said Virgo “fraudulently represents itself as Delta.”

Most reviews included the words “scam” or “scammers.”

Google Takes Action, But You’re Still On The Hook

We asked Google about Virago Travels’ “call” button advertisement. Google investigated, then said, “Upon review, we found that the ads in question violate our misrepresentation policies.”

It also said that “these ads have been removed.”

Our “call” button warning goes beyond airlines.

NBC Bay Area Googled other big-name businesses, such as a national carpet cleaner, a huge insurance company, and so on. Often, what turned up was a “call” button for a small-time competitor instead of the household name we had searched for. 

Google puts the onus on you to avoid being fooled. Google said, “Consumers should clearly read all information on the listing before clicking on a call button.”

United Calls Security

NBC Bay Area also alerted both Delta and United about Virago Travels. 

Delta did not respond. United did. A rep said, “We escalated this to our corporate security team.” United explained that Virago Travels never should have modified Alice’s or Ed’s bookings. Virago Travels only should have referred them to the real United — and hung up.  

After our calls, Slanina said his credit card refunded the $450 fee Virago Travels charged. While United fixed Klein’s typo and rebooked her for free, that wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. 

United also found $3,900 dollars in Virago Travels’ charges for her to dispute and get back.

“It’s the sale of our own personal data that really needs to be questioned and protected,” said Pavan Kochar, CEO of the company Certree in San Mateo. 

Outsourcing & Automation

Let’s look at how all those pay stubs get uploaded. 

The way it was, any time you’d apply for a car loan or mortgage, you would have to fork over paystubs on paper or by fax. Then, the bank would call your boss to verify your income. Not anymore. 

Today, payroll and data companies automated those steps, online. All your boss has to do is share every worker’s pay stub… every pay period. Millions of companies do.

“This is all a very hidden process that has not really been talked about,” Kochar said.  

Zero Loans; 150+ Paystubs in Cloud

So, what does this invisible exchange mean for you? Look at me. I haven’t applied for a loan in years — and I don’t plan to. Yet, every two weeks my paystub gets saved on a third-party server — where I have zero control to opt out or delete my data. As of last check, there were more than 150 in my file. (More about how to see it later.)

Several Bay Area companies are now challenging the current pay stub cloud. Certree is one of those disruptors. “We’re proud to be a Silicon Valley company,” Kochar said. One of her main concerns is ID theft. “The reason for that is because the individual is not in the loop,” she said. 

The biggest pay data service is called The Work Number. Its owner, the credit report company Equifax, says only people like loan officers are supposed to look at your pay data. However, it also lets debt collectors in. Equifax said it does audits to catch imposters. Kochar sees a weakness. She says the solution is giving you control of your pay data.

“Really, should be issued to you directly,” she said. “And now, it can be.”

Disruptors Develop Digital ‘Vault’

Certree says it’s reinventing the pay stub cloud. Here’s how: a service that puts each worker’s pay info (and more, if you wish) into a ‘personal vault.’ Kochar said, iIt’s like a bank safety deposit box at a bank. Where the bank has a key, you have the other key, and without your key the bank could never open the lock box. It’s a very similar construct.”

Certree’s says its secure ‘vault’ gives you total control. Its user agreement even lets you opt out and delete your pay stubs from the cloud. 

Equifax, which says it has pay data on more than half the U.S. workforce, says it offers some control. You can view your file online and see who’s accessed your pay stubs. (See our How-To video step-by-step instructions.) But Equifax told us it will not opt you out. 

Some companies are switching away.

Why One Employer Switched

“We partnered with Certree to provide that extra level of protection,” said Chantel Byrd, Vice President of Shared Services at Manpower Group — the large staffing company.

Manpower used to share pay stubs with a big data company. But now, its workers’ info goes into those safe-deposit-box-style data vaults at Certree.

“Private data and just your P.I.I. is just so critical these days. So, that really was the primary underlying reason,” she explained.  

Certree says it’s signed up 36,000 employers. Other start-ups, with different ideas to give workers pay data control, told us they’ve enrolled tens of thousands of other companies.

But millions more employers are still sharing pay stubs in bulk. Kochar says workers must speak up.

CEO to You: Tell Your CEO

“This is something they should and can be vocal about,” Kochar said. “Let your CEO know. Let your HR organization know.” 

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Bob Sabouni and his friends chose the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco for a weekend enjoying baseball. When they checked in, their room wasn’t ready. So, they gave their bags to a bellman and went to the game. A few hours later, Sabouni returned to the Marriott.

“Everyone’s bags were there but mine,” he said. 

CHECKED BAGS GIVEN AWAY

Sabouni’s two bags had been stolen – and pretty easily. A San Francisco police report says the Marriott gave the bags to a thief who claimed he “lost his ticket.” The police report says the hotel security director “admitted his staff made a mistake.” 

Sabouni was astonished. “They basically handed over about $9,000 worth of my stuff,” he said. His bags included an iPad Pro and a MacBook Pro. 

Sabouni sued, but he ultimately only got $1,000 for his bags from the Marriott. 

Why so little?

OLD ‘TRUNK’ LAW APPLIES IN 2022

Let’s set sail back to 1872. That’s when the California legislature added a liability cap to the “Innkeeper’s” law. The innkeeper’s law is so old, it makes reference to a guest’s “valise” — aka small luggage. It also references steamer “trunks.”

“When’s the last time you saw someone show up at a hotel with a trunk,” asked Relani Belous, Sabouni’s attorney. 

“Valise” and “trunk” are outdated vocabulary. And yet, they are part of current law. We found just once in the past 150 years that the legislature tweaked the hotel liability cap, upping it to $1,000 in 1979.

“Dollars have changed since 1979,” said former Pleasanton assembly member Floyd Mori, who sponsored the 1979 bill. He says the law needs another tweak today.

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CALLS FOR AN ‘OVERDUE’ UPDATE

“More than 40 year later, it’s time to update that liability to a number that’s reasonable for people carrying bags today,” Mori said. 

California is not alone. In Nevada, state law indicates $750 dollars is the max a hotel has to pay when a guest’s stuff is stolen. A San Francisco judge sympathized with Bob, but said he had to apply California’s $1,000 cap from 1979 — even though prices have risen. The website Saving.org says $1,000 in 1979 is $4,188 today.

Bob says that’s where a new cap should start. It also “needs to increase with inflation,” Sabouni said. “To me, the only thing that is going to hold Marriott and companies like it accountable is if this law is changed and it has some real bite.”   

When a hotel is to blame for property loss, Belous said guests should be paid in full for whatever they lost. “There shouldn’t be a cap on that,” she said.   

ASKING LAWMAKERS FOR CHANGE

We asked Marriott about Sabouni’s case. Maybe it would reconsider his claim? We did not receive a response. “I’m hoping that some legislator sees this and says, ‘You know what? This is an easy thing for me to fix,’” Sabouni said.  

We’ve sent emails to local lawmakers to see if they’re interested in updating the innkeeper law.

For you: we wondered whether insurance might reimburse you for stolen luggage. The answer is yes. But not necessarily travel insurance. 

“Personal property is actually better covered under their homeowners or renters’ insurance — if they have it,” said Suzanne Morrow of InsurMyTrip.com. “Your personal property is protected worldwide [with homeowners or renters’ policies].”

PROTECT YOUR SUITCASES: PHOTOS & INSURANCE

Sabouni had not filed an insurance claim. We recommended he look into it. He said he will. 

One more piece of advice for you: before you give your bags to a bellhop, snap photos of your bags — and what’s inside them. Bob had to give cops and Marriott an inventory — item by item.  That list is much easier to write with photos to jog your memory.

“It’s the first time that the law has been changed since 1881,” said Federal Maritime Commissioner Louis Sola.  

Since 1881, the United States added 12 states, had 26 presidents, and fought two world wars. And yet, in the 141 years since 1881, Sola said there were no changes to The Passenger Vessel Act, which covers cruises. There were no tweaks, Sola said, until COVID-19. That’s when upset passengers virtually stormed the federal maritime commission.

“We got flooded with complaints,” Sola said. 

So did NBC Responds and Telemundo Responde. Folks all over the country said cruise lines cancelled their trips, then basically offered “store credit.” Not a refund.

“We felt like we were kinda being held hostage there,” said Chicago cruise passenger Joshua Smith.

Locally, Teresa in Menlo Park was out $7,147; Stephen in Morgan Hill, $6,338; and Bonnie in Palo Alto, $10,155. “I was not happy with that,” Bonnie said. 

The NBC Bay Area Responds team got Bonnie her money back. She called for change — for everyone else in the same boat. “I think there needs to be great transparency,” she said.

Well, Washington listened. 

“This is actually very exciting for a federal regulator like myself,” Sola said. 

Sola says the Federal Maritime Commission analyzed the wave of complaints and found a frustrating patchwork. “Almost every single cruise line had a different refund policy,” he said.  

So now, the commission is setting an industry-wide standard. New federal rules require a refund whenever a cruise that starts in the U.S. is cancelled or delayed at least three days. You can voluntarily agree to a credit. Otherwise, you get your money back. You also get back any ancillary fees you pre-paid. 

“So it doesn’t matter which cruise line you buy your ticket from,” Sola said. “You’re going to get treated the same across the board, you’re going to have the rights to get a refund.”

The new rules also require cruise lines to clearly post how to get a refund online. Seemingly obvious stuff. But, genuinely historic. 

We asked the cruise line industry association for its take. We did not receive a response. 

“I have a repo man knocking on the door saying, ‘I want the keys or I’m just going to take the car and charge you for the keys,’” Calhoun said. “So, I thought, ‘OK. Here are the keys.’”

Surprise Tow, Surprise Bill

How did Pat get here? He says his personal car needed dealer service for 40 days. The manufacturer arranged a Hertz rental with an open-ended contract. “They were putting a hold on my credit card every day,” Calhoun said “So, they had a valid credit card, as well.”  

Nonetheless, Hertz towed the car. Then, Hertz sent Pat a bill.

“It was a charge of $1,000 for the repo man,” he said. $1,070, to be exact. “They basically let me know that I am on the hook for paying. There is nothing they can do.”

Pat’s case pales compared to some other Hertz customers – who say their rental car got them arrested. “It’s about as shocking as it can be,” said attorney Francis Malofiy. 

Malofiy says he represents more than 200 Hertz customers.

His law firm has posted several testimonials online, including people like Bakersfield resident Howard Junious. “I was in jail 60 days,” Junious said in his testimonial.

‘Stolen’ Rentals Trigger Arrests

Court records show Junious was arrested and accused of “embezzling” a Hertz rental that he says his car insurance company had arranged. “I did not steal the vehicle. The vehicle was fully paid for,” Junious explained in the video.

Court records show Kern County prosecutors eventually dropped the charge against Junious.

Malofiy says his clients’ cases show that when Hertz lost track of a vehicle, it would sometimes just report it stolen – rather than look for it.

Malofiy said Hertz sometimes reported stolen cars that were parked on their own lots. “Often,” he said.  

Hertz CEO Responds

Appearing on CNBC to talk about something else, Hertz’s new CEO, Stephen Scherr, recently took a question about all this. 

“Hertz is going to deal, properly, with people who were affected,” Scherr said. He did not share specifics, but noted: “We have changed our policies to avoid the possibility of this happening,” he said.

Scherr continued, “I think, to put context to it, if you look at the several hundred people impacted, we engage in 15 million transactions a year. This is one one-hundredth of a percent of those transactions.”  

Malofiy, the attorney, rejected Sherr’s math.

“One is too many. And it’s probably thousands,” Malofiy said.  

A federal inquiry?

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal recently wrote Hertz a letter, calling its recordkeeping “abysmal.”

“We are demanding Hertz do the right thing here,” Blumenthal said in an interview with NBC Washington’s Responds team. If Hertz does not deliver on its own, Blumenthal signaled a broad federal inquiry. “The magnitude of incompetence here is eye-popping. It is nationwide,” the Connecticut senator said.   

Back in Sunnyvale, Pat just took an extraordinary step after a simple car rental.

“I did call the police department to see if there was an arrest warrant against my name,” he said. “They couldn’t find anything. And I hope it continues that way.” 

We asked Hertz headquarters about Pat’s situation and the $1,070 he owes. It responded right away. A rep said his rental car was not reported stolen. However, Hertz acknowledged it did a “recovery” of the car because there was “some miscommunication” with the auto shop that flagged the car “overdue.”

Pat’s Case: (To Be) Closed

Hertz told us it would “resolve and refund” Pat’s $1,070 towing fee.

“Well, I appreciate your help,” Calhoun said. 

Hertz says it’s making changes. Still, we want to help you protect yourself. Here’s what we recommend:

How to Protect Yourself

First, whenever you pick up, extend, or return a rental car, get your contract on paper and by email. snap photos of the paper contract as a backup. Then keep everything.

Then, when you return a rental car, do not leave until you have something from the agency that clearly states what car you returned, where, and when.

I’ve also just made an archive folder in my email and saved every old rental receipt I could find in my inbox. You should too, just in case you ever have to prove you did not steal a rental car.

San Francisco-based Yelp has rolled out programs to help prevent that. But the NBC Bay Area Responds team found cracks in one.

America is divided in many ways, but a November survey shows we agree on one thing: online reviews. A BrightLocal survey of 1,100 U.S. consumers found 98% read online reviews for local businesses. However, only 49% of the consumers surveyed said they trust consumer reviews as much as they trust a personal recommendation

Yelp created its Elite Squad in 2006: a select group of reviewers it calls “a trusted voice.” Elites get a badge that appears on their posts. The Elite web page boasts the slogan “Real People. Real Reviews.”

“I thought, well, you know what? What could go wrong?” a Yelp Elite we’re calling “PG” told us. He asked us to hide his identity.

PG reviewed a moving company on the Peninsula, giving the moving company five stars for driving long hours to help him.

But has he ever actually used the mover?

“I have not,” PG told us.

PG told us a middleman — a review “broker” — wrote a fake review, then paid him $30 to post it word-for-word, as his own.

“Well, it was COVID and you know, I’m a little behind on a couple of my payments, and I thought, well, you know what? I get paid for it,” PG said.

“It makes me actually angry about what’s going on, because it’s being allowed,” Kay Dean said of these paid reviews.

From the spare bedroom in her San Jose home, Dean has launched a crusade and a Youtube channel, spending countless hours outing reviewers she feels are fishy. This all began after she started questioning patient testimonials about one of her own doctors.

Dean says PG is not the only Yelp Elite who’s posting fakes. Far from it.

She pointed us to Instagram pages, Facebook groups, and other places where cash-for-review offers appear daily — in plain sight. 

“This is a public group!” Dean said, pointing to a Facebook group she had pulled up on her computer monitor with plenty of recent posts.

When our team messaged people in those groups, one former Yelp Elite told us he was part of an invitation-only online chat that included a few thousand Yelp Elite members who are paid $25 to $50 per fake review.  

We asked Facebook and Instagram about these groups. 

Instagram said, “we don’t allow people to post or solicit fake or misleading reviews.”

Facebook told us it removes content that engages in, promotes, encourages, or facilitates fake reviews.

We flagged several groups and pages for them. Facebook and Instagram then removed each one for violating their policies.

“These groups come and go, change names and I don’t see that there’s any proactive efforts by Facebook to deal with it,” Dean said.

We asked Yelp about its Elites — those “real people” with “real reviews” – some being paid to post fake reviews.

Yelp told us it “strictly prohibits offering payment for reviews”  and uses tech tools and “human moderation” to sweep for fake reviews. Then, “… if we catch a Yelp user (including Elites) writing (or removing) reviews for compensation we will remove their reviews and close their account.”

Yelp told us it’s “very rare” for Elites to leave compensated reviews, but didn’t say exactly how often that happens. It did say it has closed accounts that Dean flagged. 

Dean says that’s not enough. PG agrees: Yelp needs better “Elite” enforcement.

“I think they could do better vetting out reviews that are fake versus doctored or even like mine, where they spoof a check-in,” PG said, noting that he found a way to “check-in” on Yelp to places he’d never actually been to.

PG’s account is still active, still Elite.

After we contacted him, he says he voluntarily deleted some reviews. He expressed remorse, too. After all, his fake mover review remained up for six months.

“I feel bad being an Elite and betraying the community I helped build,” PG admitted.

The Federal Trade Commission told us fake reviews are considered deceptive and the civil penalty can be steep: up to $46,517 for each fake review.

“The FTC has the authority to hold companies responsible for anything they do related to false, fake, or misleading reviews, and they may be required to pay consumer redress or make consumers whole for that,” explained Amber Lee, an attorney in the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices.

The FTC recently sent a reminder to more than 700 big companies, advertisers, and retailers — including Yelp, ​Facebook, and NBC’s parent company, Comcast. It put them on notice that “fake reviews and other misleading endorsements” can cost them dearly.

Dean would like to see more aggressive action from regulators and review platforms.

In the meantime, she says the 98% of us who read reviews should scrutinize everything that’s posted.

“Don’t necessarily trust the reviews of a complete stranger that you’ve never met –and actually they may not really be a real person at all,” she said.

If you spot an online review you believe is fake, you can alert the federal government. Just go to:  https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

You can also watch our How To video on how to spot a fake review, which includes expert advice to help you decide what to trust.

Have a consumer complaint? Let us know, so we can help.

“The FBI was conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity in Rolling Meadows [Illinois] yesterday,” a spokesperson said. “Department of Justice policy prevents the FBI from commenting on the nature of any investigations that may or may not be occurring.”

In a statement released Monday afternoon, a CCC spokesman acknowledged the FBI’s involvement.

“Federal law enforcement agents executed a search warrant at the company’s main office,” he said. “Although we cannot provide specific comments regarding ongoing investigations, the company intends to fully cooperate with all government inquiries, and remains committed to providing the best service possible to our patients.”

Center for COVID Control operated at least three San Francisco Bay Area locations — one each in San Jose, Mountain View, and San Ramon. The company says they are closed indefinitely to re-train staff and ensure regulatory compliance. 

The FBI field office in San Francisco did not immediately say whether agents visited any Bay Area CCC locations. 

As NBC Bay Area has been reporting, some Center for COVID Control patients have complained about not getting their COVID-19 test results. Or, in some cases, getting results even though they never provided a sample to be tested. Federal Medicare inspectors who visited CCC’s lab partner, Doctors Clinical Laboratory, found myriad deficiencies: inadequate staff, improper sample handling, and failure to follow test manufacturers’ directions to read results. In some cases, samples had no identifying labels at all.    

All the while, CDC records show, the federal government has paid the CCC’s lab partner more than $100 million to conduct COVID-19 testing. 

Some patients have told NBC Bay Area that CCC staff instructed them to leave their health insurance information off intake forms. Doing so would trigger automatic billing to the federal government, not health insurers — charging taxpayers more than they should be charged. 

Last week, a company spokesman said that was not CCC policy. 

The FBI did not state the nature of its investigation. 

“Generally speaking, and not to be construed as a comment on the aforementioned, the FBI always stands ready to protect the American people from fraudulent and criminal activity,” the agency said in a statement. “If there is evidence that a federal crime has been committed, the FBI will work tirelessly with law enforcement and prosecutorial partners at all levels, across the state, and throughout the nation to safeguard the public.”

Federal investigators are not the only ones looking into Center for COVID Control. Last week, Minnesota’s Attorney General filed suit against CCC; several states moved to close CCC locations; and various municipalities have said they were looking into CCC’s operations. That list includes the city of Mountain View. 

A database of federal payments to test providers shows that CCC’s partner laboratory, Doctors Clinical Laboratory, has continued to receive payments — $17 million in the past week alone.

When whether those payments should continue, a Health Resources and Services Administration spokesperson said, “HRSA reserves the right to suspend reimbursements and take corrective actions to recover funds for any provider found out of compliance with the terms and conditions of the Uninsured Program, but we cannot comment on the status of any state or federal investigations or the impact of those investigations on any provider’s eligibility to participate.”

Congressman Ro Khanna, of Santa Clara, whose district includes at least two Center for COVID Control sites, said his office would make contact with the Health and Human Services department about the ongoing payments of tax dollars. “We’re going to flag it for HHS today,” he said. “These investigations need to continue. It’s a real concern.”