I left a tablet computer behind once on a plane. Easily done - slide down in the magazine holder etc.
I phoned the airline. They had found it. Getting it back was impossible. It was apparently sent to Helsinki, then back to Heathrow in London. The airline just say "we had it sent to London - ask there. We're done."
Fine, but if you go to LHR and ask where the lost property office is, you are met by blank looks. No one knows. There are 5 4?) terminals, all are huge. Someone says there might be something air side in T3, someone else says there might be something near the car park in T5. Others appear to find the very concept of lost property novel and confusing.
I found one place, but they only did lost property for select airlines, and even then it is not open to the public. WTF?
It pushes me off to know that my tablet was sold off to someone despite spending ages schlepping around LHR trying to get it, having been in contact with the original airline and having it sent to London.
Had a similar experience. Left an iPad on a flight from Paris to Stockholm. Also had to go to a bunch of different places at weird locations of the airports (both in Stockholm and Paris), had to knock on closed doors and ring door bells sometimes for more than 20 minutes, only to be finally told the office was closed that day. It was also super bizarre that a private company, separate from the airlines, was in charge of lost items. I ended up being able to file a lost item claim form on paper at one of the offices, and I also filed a complaint online, but of course nothing came of it. Big effort, zero reward. Very frustrating.
You needed to call the airline staff at the destinaton airport, not the airport itself. There's a phone number for the local team for the airline. They're not supposed to give it out, but if you ask enough different people someone will.
I didn't put my e-reader back into my backpack after passing security in Heathrow. Two days later I received an email telling em they had found an e-reader configured with my email address. They asked me to describe it, I mentioned which was the book I was reading at the time, and they sent it back to me. My only complaint is that the fee was quite high, almost as much as the reader itself. Still better and less wasteful than buying a new one.
I can leave my positive story here- on a trip from SFO > Maui I accidentally left my laptop in a luggage bin in the SFO security check.
Called the airport as soon as I realized it, in Hawaii, and they said they could hold on to it until I returned.
Picked it up from a strange, unmarked corner of SFO when I got back.
Ultimately, being deprived of a laptop for a week in Hawaii was probably a good thing.
I left my MacBook Air in the tray that passes through the x-ray machine at SFO airport. I called the airport and they had it in lost and found. I thought for sure it would be gone!
I left my Kindle on an Emirates flight to HYD. I thought it was lost forever, but on the last day of my trip, a coworker mentioned I should just get to the airport a little early and ask. It took maybe 30 minutes, but at the end of it, my Kindle was back in my hand!
Left my Kindle on a Southwest Airlines flight. Filled out a customer service form on the web, they sent back that they found it. I just had to pay shipping and they mailed it to my house.
> In 1992, Roy Hall, a 46-year-old minister, bought a royal blue Hickey-Freeman jacket at Unclaimed Baggage. When he took it home, he noticed the name “Whitey Ford” — a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Yankees — written inside of it. Informed of the find, Ford asked for his jacket back; Hall decided to keep it.
Who cares if it’s true; the minister is like, “return a lost article to its rightful owner? Nah.”
“Possession is 9/10th the law” has a lot of truth to it. The liability here should rest with the airline as bailee, but they disclaim liability beyond some trivial amount, so the bailor (traveller) is taking a risk by failing to “manifest the desire to exclude others” without adequate protection.
Surely an urban legend. I'm expected to believe Mr Hall wrote to Mr Ford (1992 was pre-email, pre-internet, pre-social media) to inform him that he'd found his jacket, but then refused to return it? I mean, who else but Mr Hall himself could have "informed" Ford? And how did the luggage store become aware of any of this, who told them?
In fact, given the improvements in luggage tracking, in recent years, I'd bet "Unclaimed Luggage" is mostly a lie as well. My guess is that a very small percentage of the store's inventory comes from lost airline luggage these days. Most likely, it's stuff left behind at hotels, abandoned storage units, "imperfect" textiles and goods, pawn store inventories, police confiscations, bankruptcy auctions, even lost/overboard shipping containers.
To be fair, if the airline has already recompensed you for your lost luggage, then you no longer have a right to it. Once you take the money, you're no longer the rightful owner. :)
I'm curious why they have their own online store [1] instead of just putting everything up for sale on eBay. People know to shop on eBay, most people have never heard of this store. I know eBay takes a 10% cut, but auctions result in surprisingly high prices, and you also don't have the cost of building and maintaining your own website.
I looked through the electronics category on their site, and many of the prices were outrageous—sometimes nearly twice as much as buying an item new.[0] You can’t really pull that off on eBay.
Most of their inventory appears to be comprised of clothing and accessories. I can’t really assess pricing there, but if it’s anything like the pricing for electronics, they’re preying on impulse buyers.
Presumably running their own website costs less than the 10% cut ebay would take. Given some of the numbers in the article this seems about right: if you've got enough cash flowing through the business to maintain a 40k sq. ft. warehouse then running a website probably isn't too much hassle.
How does the airline have the legal right to sell your items, and at a possibly lower value than the contents are worth? The article says a diamond rings and expensive watches were discovered. $3k in compensation likely seems insufficient.
It’s part of the standard terms & conditions, like burying it in software EULA, and because it is standard in the industry, they don’t have to call it out in any special way or get separate waivers. You agree to it when you buy your ticket.
I know of a few well known tourist attractions in the UK who accumulate a lot of lost property tend to hold onto it for a period of time and then auction off high value items and donate the money to charity. Otherwise things tend to rot away in lost property stores for years. The amount of space required to store lost property for those type of organisations is crazy too.
Better idea: Don't put wildly expensive things in your checked bags.
I'd wager most of those items are pre-TSA anyway as they have a pattern of stealing things. Years ago I visited the Microsoft employee store in Redmond where you could buy Xbox games for super cheap. They actually had a sign at the register warning people not to put them in checked bags because they disappeared.
The premise doesn't make sense: these bags are not "lost", they're being sold in a specific store, why aren't the owners looking for them there?
The title is misleading but it's explained in the post, these are "unclaimed luggage". Most likely the owner decided to take the compensation option when it was taking too long for the airline to find it.
The article does mention a case of someone finding his own item in that store, more by accident than by intentionally looking for it.
I'd have to have something astronomically valuable or personally significant to me in order to go all the way to Alabama and root around in a warehouse just for the off-chance of finding it.
Most people aren't flying with the sole manuscript for their novel checked in their baggage. How much time do you think they're going to be willing to invest in getting some old clothes back? They just claim on insurance and forget about it.
The airline holds luggage for at least 3 months; then there's the time taken to ship it to Alabama, pile it in the corner, sort it, price it, and put it out. I like Scottsboro, but hanging around for months on the off chance that Granma's sweater will show up is just not going to happen.
"The bags have already been screened at the airport, but things often slip through the cracks. Anything of an “illegal nature” (drugs, weapons, unmarked cash) is immediately turned over to the local authorities under lock and key."
Relatively recently (I don't go over there often), the store has had a small selection of firearms, I assume from lost checked luggage.
As an aside, you know those knives and such confiscated at airport security? States sell them. There is a warehouse in Austin with a bunch of related stuff, including collectible knives if you're interested in such things. It also disposes of retired state office furniture and things like what the GSA sells for the federales at gsaauctions.gov.
I worked at a summer camp in NE Alabama for two summers in high school and college. Weekend trips to Unclaimed Baggage were extremely popular excursion. Definitely worth a stop if you are in the neighborhood.
Am I correct in saying these goods are still legally owned by their original owner if ever discovered?
Meaning if I buy a rare musical instrument from this unclaimed baggage company, I have to live with the possibility forever that someone else might show up at my door with a sheriff and take my musical instrument because they were the original owner?
Yes, Last year I watched a video of someone traveling from UK to Germany to participate in an auction.
It was on youtube, searching for "Germany lost luggage auction" turn a lot of results, could not find the exact one.
[+] [-] mattlondon|5 years ago|reply
I phoned the airline. They had found it. Getting it back was impossible. It was apparently sent to Helsinki, then back to Heathrow in London. The airline just say "we had it sent to London - ask there. We're done."
Fine, but if you go to LHR and ask where the lost property office is, you are met by blank looks. No one knows. There are 5 4?) terminals, all are huge. Someone says there might be something air side in T3, someone else says there might be something near the car park in T5. Others appear to find the very concept of lost property novel and confusing.
I found one place, but they only did lost property for select airlines, and even then it is not open to the public. WTF?
It pushes me off to know that my tablet was sold off to someone despite spending ages schlepping around LHR trying to get it, having been in contact with the original airline and having it sent to London.
[+] [-] ta1234567890|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canada_dry|5 years ago|reply
The concierge from my hotel called the next day, and my headphones were reunited on my return to the airport.
Considering the volume of traffic that airport sees I was quite impressed.
[+] [-] paulsutter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fargren|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ssalazar|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PopeDotNinja|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wdr1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kleinsch|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikanj|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freepor|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] darrellsilver|5 years ago|reply
> In 1992, Roy Hall, a 46-year-old minister, bought a royal blue Hickey-Freeman jacket at Unclaimed Baggage. When he took it home, he noticed the name “Whitey Ford” — a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Yankees — written inside of it. Informed of the find, Ford asked for his jacket back; Hall decided to keep it.
Who cares if it’s true; the minister is like, “return a lost article to its rightful owner? Nah.”
[+] [-] voisin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] listenallyall|5 years ago|reply
In fact, given the improvements in luggage tracking, in recent years, I'd bet "Unclaimed Luggage" is mostly a lie as well. My guess is that a very small percentage of the store's inventory comes from lost airline luggage these days. Most likely, it's stuff left behind at hotels, abandoned storage units, "imperfect" textiles and goods, pawn store inventories, police confiscations, bankruptcy auctions, even lost/overboard shipping containers.
[+] [-] crazygringo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WrtCdEvrydy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jedd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazygringo|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/pages/shop
[+] [-] zenexer|5 years ago|reply
Most of their inventory appears to be comprised of clothing and accessories. I can’t really assess pricing there, but if it’s anything like the pricing for electronics, they’re preying on impulse buyers.
[0]: https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/products/geforce-gtx-1050-t...
[+] [-] remus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eatbitseveryday|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voisin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimlikeslimes|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caseysoftware|5 years ago|reply
I'd wager most of those items are pre-TSA anyway as they have a pattern of stealing things. Years ago I visited the Microsoft employee store in Redmond where you could buy Xbox games for super cheap. They actually had a sign at the register warning people not to put them in checked bags because they disappeared.
[+] [-] amadeuspagel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raldi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OmarShehata|5 years ago|reply
The title is misleading but it's explained in the post, these are "unclaimed luggage". Most likely the owner decided to take the compensation option when it was taking too long for the airline to find it.
The article does mention a case of someone finding his own item in that store, more by accident than by intentionally looking for it.
[+] [-] chrisseaton|5 years ago|reply
I'd have to have something astronomically valuable or personally significant to me in order to go all the way to Alabama and root around in a warehouse just for the off-chance of finding it.
Most people aren't flying with the sole manuscript for their novel checked in their baggage. How much time do you think they're going to be willing to invest in getting some old clothes back? They just claim on insurance and forget about it.
[+] [-] yuubi|5 years ago|reply
Some people live far enough from Alabama that it's inconvenient to visit the store every couple of days to check.
[+] [-] mcguire|5 years ago|reply
The airline holds luggage for at least 3 months; then there's the time taken to ship it to Alabama, pile it in the corner, sort it, price it, and put it out. I like Scottsboro, but hanging around for months on the off chance that Granma's sweater will show up is just not going to happen.
Oh, and it's "Unclaimed Baggage".
[+] [-] mcguire|5 years ago|reply
Relatively recently (I don't go over there often), the store has had a small selection of firearms, I assume from lost checked luggage.
As an aside, you know those knives and such confiscated at airport security? States sell them. There is a warehouse in Austin with a bunch of related stuff, including collectible knives if you're interested in such things. It also disposes of retired state office furniture and things like what the GSA sells for the federales at gsaauctions.gov.
[+] [-] timurlenk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcguire|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonofaplum|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raldi|5 years ago|reply
(Edit: misread)
[+] [-] londons_explore|5 years ago|reply
Meaning if I buy a rare musical instrument from this unclaimed baggage company, I have to live with the possibility forever that someone else might show up at my door with a sheriff and take my musical instrument because they were the original owner?
[+] [-] tshanmu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BogdanPetre|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamyarg|5 years ago|reply
Edit: found a website: https://www.kofferauktion24.de/
[+] [-] russfink|5 years ago|reply