When we first solicited reader stories of travel disasters, we immediately received four individual emails concerning Europcar, the rental car company that operates in 140 countries. Although anyone renting a car from any rental company on Earth might find themselves in the situations below, we felt that strength in numbers might be valuable here, so we packaged the disasters as a quartet and sent them to Europcar for comment.

In addition to (largely) resolving the complaints, Europcar emailed the following statement: “Europcar Mobility Group would like to thank The New York Times for bringing to its attention the various customer service issues. The company has responded directly to each of the customers concerned to resolve their queries and has taken on board where processes may need to be improved to deliver the best possible customer experience.”

Dear Tripped Up,

After arriving in Calgary for the annual Calgary Stampede, Europcar jilted us by failing to honor our rental car reservation. There was only car left in the entire place, at Avis, and soon we were driving off in a red Mustang convertible that cost 2,000 Canadian dollars more than the car we reserved. Because Europcar failed to honor my reservation, shouldn’t I be refunded for the difference? Ethan

Dear Ethan,

As a “Seinfeld” fan, it gave me great pleasure to email Europcar: “Why did Europcar take the reservation but not actually keep the reservation? Isn’t that the whole point of a reservation?”