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A company that sells lost airplane luggage
- ggm 3y agoA point is high value items, investment grade diamonds, expensive watches could reunite with their owner trivially because their sales are tracked. The point being insurance and compensation has been paid. So the closing ethical concern is perhaps overstated. It's the more personal effects, a treasured family memento, letters which beg questions.
- pessimizer 3y agoIf they didn't exist, the headline would be "The company that dumps your lost airplane luggage into a landfill."
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- behringer 3y agosounds good to me. Then nobody's making money off of stolen goods except the landfill.
- graphe 3y agoSo you want to buy stuff that the landfill owner sells?
- wvenable 3y agoI'm more worried about the perverse incentive structure.
- graphe 3y agoLike when high value items are "dumped" and when the "garbage" is stolen, or when landfill owners take a kickback?
- shkkmo 3y agoOr the bags could be donated to charity. Allowing profiteer off other people's misfortune is unethical and creates perverse incentives.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoI've been to Unclaimed Baggage in Alabama, just once, and it was no nicer than the nicest thrift stores in my hometown. An interesting concept, but it seems that the best items are priced-out.
- lifestyleguru 3y agoTo quote the man interviewed in BBC who was sorting "lost luggage" after Heathrow's Terminal 5 fuckup "don't you feel bad that it's someone's else possesion?" "no, that's why it's such a good stuff"
- Jun8 3y agoI'm a sucker for found antique/goods types of shows and bought & watched a few seasons of "Baggage Battles" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baggage_Battles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baggage_Battles) on Amazon Prime. It was OK but they very rarely discovered valuable stuff and even those were kind of meh. Still the art of the selection (should you go for the expensive bag, the heavy one, or the well-used one) was exciting. If I had the money I'd see myself attending baggage auctions just for the entertainment value; but doing it for flipping is not profitable I think.
- IshKebab 3y agoSurely someone in the chain goes through these bags for obvious expensive things beforehand. Why would that not happen?
- giarc 3y agoI suspect a show for entertainment would script it a bit and add some high end stuff. So the fact that even after watching you say it's rare to find good stuff tells me it's even worse than the show lets on.
- rnotaro 3y agoIn a related note, some canadian passengers found their Air Maroc luggage at a liquidation center in Québec, Canada in even 3 weeks after being lost this month. https://www.bladi.net/colere-royal-air-maroc-perte-bagages,106565.html#google_vignette https://www.bladi.net/colere-royal-air-maroc-perte-bagages,1... https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2024/01/28/saga-des-valises-egarees-adm-forcee-dentreposer-des-bagages-de-clients-de-royal-air-maroc https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2024/01/28/saga-des-valises-egar...
- KennyBlanken 3y agoSo basically, we're at the point where we need to uniquely mark our luggage and then if our luggage is "lost" have an agent who shows up at the liquidation center, identifies it, and then seizes the luggage?
- golergka 3y agoOr you could just put an airtag into it.
- tnel77 3y agoI put AirTags into my luggage and it just made me stressed for both legs of my trip. One of my family’s three bags didn’t appear to be moved to the next plane and I just had to sit there and hope that the AirTag wasn’t picked up for some reason. Everything made it to my destination and back home without issue, thankfully.
- akshayshah 3y agoLuggage is fairly expensive and easy to reuse - sizing isn’t personal, and most designs are fairly bland. I’m surprised that the bags themselves aren’t a substantial source of income.
- FireBeyond 3y agoProbably comes down to how difficult it is to gain access, and whether that's destructive.
- bdavbdav 3y agoI guarantee they have TSA keys
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoThey're for sale on the internet ...
- itishappy 3y agoYou can put whatever locks you want on your bags, but the TSA can and will cut anything they can't easily open. https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2014/02/18/tsa-travel-tips-tuesday-tsa-recognized-locks https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2014/02/18/tsa-travel-tips-tuesday-...
- FireBeyond 3y agoI absolutely get that. But this private company is not the TSA, either.
- itishappy 3y agoRight, but in order to lose your bag, it has to first pass through the TSA. I doubt a bag would make it all the way Unclaimed Baggage with the locks intact.
- magneticnorth 3y agoIf anyone in your life needs secondhand used underwear from unclaimed baggage, you can buy the "10 pc mystery underwear bag" or "women's lingerie mystery bag" online: https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/collections/mystery-bags https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/collections/mystery-bags
- chankstein38 3y agoIt's advertised in a creepy way and it's sold out. People will never stop being sketchy lol
- lifestyleguru 3y agoIt's absolutely missing dildos and erotic toys mystery bag, or the people opening suitcases take these for themselves together with more precious stuff?
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoIt’s explained in TFA. They don’t sell those.
- oh_sigh 3y agoHow does luggage ever get lost when they slap so many stickers on it?
- lifestyleguru 3y ago[flagged]
- MattGaiser 3y agoThey often don't. Most of the time my bag only has one sticker and many people don't put other contact info on there.
- happyopossum 3y ago> so many stickers on it I travel 30-40 times/yr and I can't recall ever putting more than one sticker on a checked bag...
- abeyer 3y agoMaybe it depends on the airline, but all of them I've gotten recently print the one long strip that has a receipt stub you keep at one end along with multiple separate copies of the barcode as detachable adhesive segments. The baggage check staff typically move at least one of the extra barcodes elsewhere on the bag. (I presume to make it easier to scan from different orientations if the strip through the handle isn't easily accessible.)
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoIn those days of ubiquitous information, these kind of stops have lost all interest, because the prices are not better than the average second hand item.
- swozey 3y agoSpeaking of unclaimed property, do any of you Texans know of a way to use this absolutely trash website to look for something more specific than your First/Last? https://www.claimittexas.gov/ https://www.claimittexas.gov/ I have a fairly common first name and there are literally 50 pages of results and "Your search returned 1000 unclaimed properties." One of my financial apps (mint/ck not sure) told me I had unclaimed money and I have no way to find my name on this without cdlicking through 50 pages. You can't even sort the rows.
- giarc 3y agoFrom the FAQ page. Providing your SIN/DOB etc will likely help. What can I do if I can’t find the funds I’m looking for on your website? If you are unable to locate your unclaimed property on the website, fill out our search form. Our Research Department will try to locate the property for you. Also see our Finding Money page for more information on unclaimed property not held with the Texas Comptroller.
- iJohnDoe 3y agoI would imagine the really good stuff is sorted through and sold via different methods. What makes it to the store is left over crap?
- acdha 3y agoI had a bag stolen a while back and was surprised to learn that SFO has no real security after you drop a bag off. The 9/11 crunch focused on bags going in, so they didn’t even have cameras in the baggage processing facilities and since the airline terms of service limit payouts to like $3/pound they don’t care, either. Everyone involved was very casual about theft being routine and expected, so I would be somewhat surprised if the lost luggage didn’t have a similar fate.
- KolmogorovComp 3y ago> Some say the store has an ethical duty to reunite people with their lost luggage — especially highly personal items, like jewelry inscribed with names and dates, or electronics with identifiable information. But historically, the store has maintained it has a business to run. I’m quite surprised by the opposition here, I’d assume that the high sentimental value could be converted in a much higher price than its off-the-shelf value. Now would it be more ethical than not contacting them? That’s up to debate, but at least the owners would have a choice.
- AceJohnny2 3y ago> Now would it be more ethical than not contacting them? That’s up to debate, but at least the owners would have a choice. There's the rub: luggage ends up at UnclaimedBaggage after the airline has exhausted all other avenues to try and find the owner. (this particular article doesn't focus on that aspect. Here's another I quickly found that does: https://www.afar.com/magazine/what-happens-to-airline-passengers-unclaimed-baggage https://www.afar.com/magazine/what-happens-to-airline-passen...) There are no contactable owners, so the ethical dilemna solves itself. This is why it's always good to put contact information inside the luggage, where it can't get ripped off in handling.
- newsclues 3y agoDo companies have a true incentive to do the work? Or can they provide limited token compensation minus the sale of the lost luggage, and come out ahead vs doing a good job at not losing luggage and returning it when found? If government/contracts limits compensation liability, then cut costs as much as possible and bring in some revenue selling luggage?
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago> Do companies have a true incentive to do the work? The article states "When they can’t find your bag, they are liable to compensate you for your loss (up to $3,500 for domestic flights and $1,780 for international)."
- McDyver 3y agoWhen it was founded 50 Yeats ago _maybe_ it made sense because technology was not that advanced. Now I'd say it's a company selling stolen goods. Airlines know who is the owner of that luggage. They have the sticker with flight, booking number, they have the contact details of the owner, and most owners put a tag with their contact info on the luggage. They were hired to provide the sole service of transporting the luggage and owner from A to B. It's their only job. And they fail and steal your belongings and sell it for a profit, to a fence
- pulse7 3y agoPlease read the article...
- McDyver 3y agoI did. Are you saying 25m bags have absolutely no information on them? Absolutely zero?
- handoflixue 3y agoDid you read the sentence right after that one? "Around 25m of them (5.7 per 1k bags checked) end up lost or misdirected. The 0.03% of bags that are still not reunited with their owners after 90 days are sold by the airline." 0.03% of 25m, and it's only after 90 days.
- cpncrunch 3y agoBut it doesn't explain why they can't use the tags to locate the owners. I did find the answer (see my other comment), but it wasn't from this article.
- McDyver 3y agoYes, although that doesn't seem correct. That would be 7500 a year. When they say the founder was buying 3k a month, either the RF ids are great at reducing the losses worldwide, or something is wrong with those numbers.
- jabroni_salad 3y agoAs someone who has been in a similar space, I guarantee you over half of those luggages do have identified owners who simply aren't contactable because they will not answer the phone, check a voicemail, read their email, or open any letter addressed to them. It takes two to tango and nobody knows how to dance.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoThis is a consequences of every communication medium becoming saturated with advertising. How many airlines refrain from ever using customer contact information for marketing purposes? And even if a few do, they exist in the context of a society where such behavior is pervasive. People who want to go about their lives without being hounded constantly to engage in unwanted economic transactions are often unable to fight back any other way other than ignoring communication attempts from entities with an economic desire to engage in commerce with everyone as much as possible.
- ncallaway 3y agoYep! Most of my email? Junk and spam that I didn't sign up for. Most of my physical mail? Junk and spam that I didn't sign up for. Most of my cell phone calls? Junk and spam that I didn't sign up for. Many of my SMS messages? Junk and spam that I didn't sign up for. Why won't he answer his phone? Or respond to an email email or a letter? Because the government has completely failed at maintaining a trusted and not overrrun by spam communication channel of any kind in our society.
- Aerbil313 3y agoI guess you live in US. In my country (Turkiye) every commercial SMS sender needs your permission to send advertising SMS. This usually happens when you sign up for a website/app, an optional checkbox to allow commercial communication via SMS and email. There's a second (mandatory) checkbox for an agreement regarding our version of GDPR. Every advertising SMS includes a shortened link or something like "text DENY to 1234" to be able to opt-out of them at any time. To date I've seen only one vendor which still sent SMSs after I opted out, which I promptly sent a complaint about to our presidency. No more texts after that. Every email is the same, with an unsubscribe link. I've encountered only one brand which didn't comply and I blocked them in the Mail app. Even when it is this simple to block spam most people I know still don't do it. They are in a rush, stressed, commuting, with kids running around, doing something else simultaneously. Too busy with life, checking all the boxes in a hurry, scrolling past all the advertising spam to find the one message/mail from their contact. For many, it needs to be literally zero effort, fully automatic. There are those SMS scams from foreign numbers which go like "Thanks for signing up for our job offer, please send your card details to get the $1000/day payment". But they are rare, once a fortnight at most IME. We don't get physical advertising mail. Maybe cultural? Not economical? No one bothers. Everyone gets calls from a fiber high speed internet company every once in a while. Since people are able to recognize the recorded voice so fast and close the call, now they added a several seconds delay before playing it. I don't know what makes fiber internet vendors special, since I only ever get those calls. Telecom-ISPs intentionally not blocking them? And those WhatsApp calls from third world numbers. Once a month maybe, but this is Meta's problem.
- sandworm101 3y agoYears ago I read some advice from a cruise company: don't trust your luggage to the airline, get it FedeXed to the ship. Cruise passengers are old. They are going away for many weeks or even months. So their luggage often contains large amounts of pills, which are easily identified by xray. So in order to avoid the gangs operating at airports, have your luggage sent by courier to the ship.
- tzs 3y agoTheir online store has iPhones. How do they get around the protections that are supposed to stop others from using a lost or stolen phone?
- technick 3y agoI've been told by people who work at Delta, if they lose your bag, tell them the bag contained the cremated remains of a family member. They will go the extra mile to find that bag instead of compensating you for it.
- gottorf 3y agoEnough people do this and they won't go the extra mile anymore, I suppose.
- olliej 3y agoIt's weird that air carriers can sell lost luggage, but if you find someones stuff and sell it, it's typically illegal. People report their missing luggage, definitionally air carriers know the passengers. Without explicit consent to sell the luggage why is this allowed? If an airline loses my luggage, and "compensates" me, they still have no right to sell it. It could include all kinds of personal information, or things of personal value, etc.
- philip1209 3y agoI wonder how they handle this in Japan. Does lost luggage get handled through the Police lost & found?
- ronaldwood 3y ago[dead]
- ronaldwood 3y ago[dead]
- RecycledEle 3y agoI suggest we ask everyone to put a piece of paper with their name, phone number, email, and street address in every piece of luggage. Then, after some period of time (maybe 7 days) of being unclaimed, an airline person could crack it open and ship it to the address inside, with a notification to the email and phone number.