We recently published a post about a 7-year-old traveling as an unaccompanied minor who Delta handed over to the wrong relative. Families pay for extra supervision when kids fly unaccompanied, but what about unaccompanied seniors? A family in Colorado says that instead of escorting her to her Southwest Airlines flight, airport staff parked her wheelchair out of the way for hours instead of putting her on the plane. [More]
special needs
American Airlines Sent My Boss's Mom On Flight Headed In Wrong Direction
By 1.10.11
Jennie says she arranged for a ticket on American Airlines to have her boss’s mom fly from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. The passenger suffers from dementia and somehow ended up on the wrong flight, headed instead to Texas. Jennie says the airline admitted fault, refunded the ticket and even sent her flowers, but she says the efforts weren’t enough because the woman is terrified to fly now. [More]
Mall Skin Care Kiosk Hustles Mentally Disabled Man For $300, Refuses To Refund
By 8.11.10
Audrey’s mentally disabled uncle was snookered by a mall skin care kiosk worker into buying $300 worth of product he doesn’t need. When his niece found out, the kiosk refused to do a refund saying it was “against policy.” Now her special needs uncle has only $40 left to live on for the week and the kiosk manager is ducking her calls. [More]
T-Mobile Changes Mind, Lets Family Off The Hook For Stolen Phone Charges
By 1.8.10
Yesterday I posted about Zeb, a special needs guy whose phone was stolen shortly before Christmas. Between then and when his family found out about the theft and reported it to T-Mobile, the thief had made $6,000 in international calls and texts–and T-Mobile wanted Zeb’s family to pay $1,500 of that.
Today I received word from Zeb’s dad that T-Mobile has changed its mind and won’t hold Zeb or his family responsible for the bogus charges. His email is below.
T-Mobile Wants Family To Pay $1500 In Bogus Charges On Phone Stolen From Special Needs Customer
By 1.7.10
Jennifer wrote to us about the trouble a family in South Carolina is having over a huge T-Mobile bill: “Zeb, a special needs adult living with his parents, had his cell phone stolen just prior to Christmas. By the time the theft was discovered, $6000 in calls and text messages had been made to Honduras.” The good news is that T-Mobile hasn’t asked the family to pay the full $6,000. The bad news is that they do want them to pay a fourth of that. Update: T-Mobile has let the family off the hook. [More]
Health Insurance Kids Stick It To Special Needs Kids And Their Parents
By 7.1.09
An InjuryBoard blog shines a light on one of the more nefarious practices of the ugly health insurance industry — the tendency of insurance companies to deny needed treatment to kids with special needs:
Bus Company Abandons Man With Cerebral Palsy On Bus On New Year's Eve
By 1.2.09
The bus matron of a special needs bus owned by Outstanding Transport, Inc. has been charged with felony reckless endangerment, after forgetting about a 22-year-old passenger and leaving him strapped in his seat on the bus over New Year’s Eve in below-freezing temperatures. He was found yesterday morning at 10:30am and is in good condition, although his sister can’t imagine how he could have been overlooked in the first place: “He’s like 6’2 and hunches over, the seats are not even high.”
