Christopher Elliott is an award-winning consumer advocate, multimedia journalist and customer service expert known for his practical advice and creative solutions to customer-service problems. He’s the author of "Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals" (Wiley), a manifesto for empowering consumers and encouraging corporate responsibility, and "How to Be the World's Smartest Traveler (and Save Time, Money, and Hassle)" (National Geographic Books/Random House), the definitive manual for having a better trip.Elliott is a nationally syndicated columnist through King Features Syndicate, which distributes his work to publications from the Seattle Times to the Miami Herald. He also writes a weekly column for USA Today, which is widely syndicated. Elliott is the co-founder of Travelers United, a Washington-based advocacy group for travelers.Before he became an independent writer, Elliott worked for Dow Jones & Co., where he frequently wrote about the stock market and initial public offerings for The Wall Street Journal. He also served as a section editor for Travel Weekly, a travel trade publication.He completed seven editorial internships, including stints at the Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News and Reuters.Elliott is a 1990 graduate of the University of California at Irvine, where he majored in humanities. He earned a Master of Journalism degree in 1991 at the University of California at Berkeley and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1996. He's the American Society of Travel Agents' 2016 Journalist of the Year, the first time a consumer advocate and non-trade journalist has ever been given that award.