Home - Elliott Report

Essential Reading

Editorial cartoon showing a confused balding middle-aged man in a white shirt and tie standing on his front lawn looking up at a small light blue mini refrigerator that has been mysteriously returned to his porch steps after being picked up by FedEx, illustrating how third-party seller returns can fail in unexpected ways

Walmart told me to donate my broken refrigerator — then things got strange

Editorial cartoon showing a worried gray-haired man at an outdoor table at a tropical resort with palm trees and ocean in the background, looking shocked at his laptop displaying "YOUR CREDIT SCORE" with a red downward-trending arrow, illustrating how a timeshare upgrade dispute caused his credit score to drop 43 points despite following the company's payment hold instructions

Help! My Hilton downgrade has left me in limbo

Watercolor editorial illustration of a father in a white shirt and red tie standing with his young son who carries a backpack at an American Airlines departure gate, with an American Airlines plane visible through the window beyond the closed gate door, illustrating how families get separated when airlines pull passengers from boarding lines and document involuntary bumping as voluntary

American Airlines claims I voluntarily gave up my seat, but that’s a lie

Editorial cartoon showing an anxious traveler in a blue polo shirt grimacing as he stuffs a large purple roller suitcase into an open green airport trash can, with empty seating areas and large glass windows visible in the background, illustrating the increasing trend of travelers abandoning their luggage at airports to avoid baggage fees

The great luggage abandonment: Why travelers are ditching their bags at the airport

Editorial cartoon showing a man with glasses standing in front of a store shelf filled with bottles, looking up at a digital sign that displays "YOUR PRICE: $5.99" in red LED letters with a green arrow, illustrating how surveillance pricing creates personalized prices based on consumer data

Don’t ban surveillance pricing. Here’s how to fix it.

Cartoon of a distressed man in a Metallica T-shirt staring at his phone, which displays a glowing StubHub invoice for $1,782.

My buyer made a big mistake, so why did StubHub charge me $1,782?

Mark Christensen had sold tickets on StubHub for more than 20 years, so he knew the drill. He listed a pair of two-day Metallica tickets, found a buyer, and transferred them exactly the way StubHub requires. For this tour, a single transfer covered both nights. The buyer used the tickets the first night without a hitch. Then things went sideways. Instead of trying the same tickets at the gate the second night, or asking anyone, the buyer assumed they needed a separate transfer and bought brand-new tickets. And that is when StubHub dropped the hammer, on Christensen. It sided with the buyer, withheld his payout, charged his card for the buyer’s new tickets, and even clipped an unrelated sale, a total of $1,782 for a mistake he did not make. Here is the standard worth holding any marketplace to when its guarantee is supposed to protect sellers too.