You and your family have strong allies in the NBC 7 Responds and Telemundo 20 Responde teams when it comes to consumer complaints. Just ask Caroline Bedord from Carlsbad. She says she was at her wit’s end when she tried to get a refund after a failed trip to Florence, Italy.
It was part of a package deal offered by Road Scholar, a company that specializes in educational travel for people over 55. She gave them close to $13,000 for a six-week visit to Florence that included housing.
“You would go and study the language during that time, but you would live on your own, you’d learn to live there, buy your groceries, go to your apartment, go to school and go to a couple of activities during the week,” she said.
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The Italian city was wonderful in the first week, even though the company had given her a two-story apartment. Something that wasn’t ideal with her bad knee. She described her housing arrangement as going from bad to worse when Road Scholar moved her to a new apartment.
“It was very oppressive. It was very cave-like. There was no light in the bedroom. I was supposed to have a one-bedroom apartment with a separate bedroom," she recalled. “But that wasn't my big complaint. My big complaint was they put me in with a bathtub and no handicap rails, which I specifically had requested that I needed an ADA (American with Disabilities Act) compliant shower.”
She said she really wanted to stay and was willing to work something out with the company to complete the six weeks. However, they told her they had no other options for her. After the second week, she finally threw in the towel.
“I decided that I just needed to go home, I was just feeling sick to my stomach with how I was being treated by Road Scholar,” she recalled. "And they said, if you go home, you're on your own. We're not refunding anything back.”
NBC 7 Responds
This didn’t sit well with Caroline. She called and emailed the company several times, even sending a letter to its president. When she didn’t get an answer, she contacted NBC 7 Responds.
In an email, Road Scholar told us, “We located Ms. Bedord’s original letter and I am sorry to say that our response slipped through the cracks after some internal miscommunication. Our team reviewed it again today and contacted Ms. Bedford with a substantial refund of her program payment. She is satisfied with this outcome and is planning on taking another Road Scholar trip next year.”
Well, maybe, says Caroline. She explains that as beautiful as Florence is, she’s still feeling a certain way about the whole experience. Maybe someday down the road she’ll go on that last international trip she’s been wanting to take. For now, she says she’s happy for the check that arrived in her mailbox after contacting NBC 7 Responds.
NBC 7 and Telemundo 20 are proud to have surpassed the $2 million milestone. The team is honored to turn out tangible results for viewers and to live up to the trust placed by those who call us to share their complaints. At the national level, we have recovered or saved $71,996,845 so we’re inching closer to the $100 million mark. If you have a consumer complaint you’d like to share with us, click on this link where you could fill out a form to get the ball rolling. Remember to have all your documents such as contracts, receipts, emails, texts, and a timeline ready so that we can get to work right away.
