The thrill of the bargain hunt at unclaimed baggage | Hacker News Reader

The thrill of the bargain hunt at unclaimed baggage

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65 pointsbookofjoe71 comments

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infinite captcha loop on ios safari

maybe its icloud+’s vpn relay thing

It is

I’ve had this issue for a while now. How do I fix it?

The only fix is to disable private relay. The people who run archive don’t like Cloudflare, for some reason, which is the service provider for private relay.

Yeah archive.* doesn't like DNS not telling it roughly where you are.

Avoid Cloudflare DNS, but other may also do the same thing.

After my luggage went missing for the first time recently, my key takeaways are:

- If at all possible, avoid checked luggage - it's overpriced, slow and unreliable. No news to pro travellers I guess

- Luggage reimbursement is capped at a relatively low figure that hasn't increased in decades (sources vary, jurisdiction unclear when international which just adds to the point). In any case, if you're traveling with a fancy Rimowa, the luggage itself is worth that... Never put valuables in checked luggage

- The whole process seems increasingly stupid to me. A lot of conveyor belts, tracking systems etc. just to get a bag that I can carry by my own, all because the space in the overhead compartments is limited - manufacturers are working on larger compartments recently

- Some airlines are nearly impossible to contact - you might be asked to call a number in <random country> and then wait in line for 2, 3 hours then the call drops randomly (looking at you, Aegean)

- I appreciate this might be unavoidable for families, i.e. when you carry luggage for multiple people, or when you need a set of suits etc. But still, keep the Rolex on your wrist

What if during boarding, you walked through the cargo compartment of the plane yourself, which consists of huge lockers you can store your baggage in, then proceed to the seating area?

Lockers would be an inefficient use of cargo hold space. The added weight would also be costly to fuel consumption.

The plane would never take off.

Do you know how the plane walls near the floor start to come back in? That is because the passenger floor is well in the bottom half of the tube. The photos I've seen of baggage handlers have them working on their knees or sitting on the sloping floor.

This shows the process: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hjV8xRdmzp4

The whole process seems increasingly stupid to me. A lot of conveyor belts, tracking systems etc. just to get a bag that I can carry by my own, all because the space in the overhead compartments is limited - manufacturers are working on larger compartments recently

On the contrary. Increasingly humongous bags being wrestled into giant compartments makes boarding and deplaning a stressful and lengthy process.

I totally get why travelers don’t want to check bags given the status quo, but the stupidity is that the system works so poorly that they don’t want to check rather than that there isn’t enough room in the passenger compartment for everyone’s belongings.

Cargo should be able to safely and efficiently travel separately.

Or people could simply not bring enormous bags when they travel.

You don’t need to bring your whole wardrobe, I can comfortably pack everything I need for two weeks in a small backpack. I’ve met some people who pack all their life belongings when they travel and it’s ridiculous, how can you even enjoy the destination when you are weighed down with so much random crap.

People across different stages of their lives for all different reasons. Some are healthy twenty-somethings looking for adventure and pictures for social media. Some are moving to a new home. Some are traveling with infants. Some are traveling for work and have equipment. Some need to travel with mobility devices or medical equipment.

Different strokes.

Apparently you’re not a bowler. And what if I’m a pro golfer? What if I suffer from needing to play a guitar? There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

You don't change your clothes?

You got a point there. Maybe I'm more annoyed by the implementation (cost, lack of reliability, absurd waiting times) rather than the idea itself.

Don't carry too many valuables on you because did you know? That civil asset forfeiture can happen at airports. If you're carry-on luggage during security inspection, encounter suspicious amounts of assets, the homeland security officer can tell the local police and the DA can decide to seize your valuables under the assumption that it's about to be used for drug transactions. Of course they don't need any proof to do this, and good luck getting it back from the courts.

As for baggage, at this point, I'm almost more tempted to send things ahead of time through USPS or UPS or another logical channel with a much higher reliability. But then again, I haven't really traveled in seven years because airports are such horrendous horrible places now, airlines are thicket of fees and other means to game ticket prices.

It's reasons that I really wish the car self-driving industry would stop concentrating so much on robo taxis and very difficult to drive cities, and instead concentrate on safely implementing self-driving over highways over long distances. That way I can just have my car drive me while I sleep overnight. I think this is a replace most air trips under 1000 miles.

I believe what you're after is high speed rail

I ship whatever I may need that's going to be needed. Got the habit from shipping equipment to onsite work sites. I figured hey, I'm shipping this expensive equipment to install and I'm going to be there a week+, might as well throw in the clothing, toys, etc I may need.

I travel light anyway and get by with carry-on unless it's a planned vacation then I ship to the destination.

YMMV!

Line drops could also come from your own provider. For example, Mint-Mobile kills the connection at one second after 59:59.

I've had good success with shipping luggage to my destination, instead of checking a bag for the gorillas to destroy, lose, etc.

I can also declare the value of my shipment, as opposed to the "we don't really care" compensation the airlines are forced to pay.

The common denominator for getting a good bargain is camping outside to arrive early or visiting regularly. While I like a good deal, I do not care for those style of deals.

If economists are to be believed that is inevitable. The only way to get true economic gains is by sacrificing something.

I will say a lot of bargain hunters have difficulty framing their hobby in a way that properly reflects the time investment when describing to others...

Indeed, this follows from "efficient market hypothesis", "TANSTAAFL", etc. and probably has some more solid theoretical grounding too: if you're getting a good bargain, someone is getting screwed. Quite likely it's you.

It may not seem like that to the bargain hunters, because they're being used indirectly (the bargain is there to get them into the store), longer-term (the bargain is there to form a habit), or stochastically (the bargain may screw over only subset of buyers, so while on average, the buyer is losing, you in particular may be winning this time around). Sometimes the scope is even larger (e.g. the vendor burning money to dig themselves into the market). Or, it may be just the buyer exploiting some corner case so obscure it's not visible unless your time is literally free.

It's a simple idea that's hard to swallow: the bargain benefits the dealer somehow, or else it wouldn't be offered.

For one off events you can have genuine bargains. I give away perfectly good computer hardware for free on Craigslist or at steep discounts.

You don't need anyone to get screwed.

That only applies if finding a buyer is free which it objectively is not.

Sometimes the effort to offload something for its value is more than that value.

> “The airlines do a great job” at reuniting most lost bags, said Bryan Owens, the store’s second-generation owner and CEO.

That is a very generous statement indeed.

I don't think I've had a checked bag permanently lost since the '90s, though it seems like half the time I return to my home airport with ski equipment, they fail to send it out to baggage claim. But then they deliver it to my house a day or two later.

Interesting! Why would the airline incur additional cost of shipping your ski equipment to your house, when putting it out to the baggage claim is... free?

Because they make a mistake. They obviously don't intend for that to happen.

I’ve taken my recumbent tricycle overseas five times now, and gone overseas without it on a number of other occasions, and I’ve never had a bag misplaced; I know my parents did once (I think it was delivered a couple of days later). In fact, losing my trike even for a short time would be extremely inconvenient, because I’m normally intending to cycle out of the airport and, if it’s not when I’m heading home, probably don’t even have an address they can reliably send things to, because I’m keeping on moving.

The one time I ever had a lost bag it was found by the airline and delivered to my house 40 miles from the airport.

> Cheap ski equipment, Rolex watches

All Rolex watches have serial numbers and there's an official database of stolen and lost rolexes. A police report should be filled and sent to an AD (authorized dealer).

Knowing this allow righful owners to find their watches, selling found Rolex is... theft?

FWIW when travelling the customs may ask you for the invoice of your fancy watch (I always have mine in my wallet).

Although it would be nice, nobody is under any obligation to go out of their way to return your lost property.

No legal obligation, but perhaps a moral and ethical obligation.

The law is there to support society...but in and of itself cannot create it. Only people can.

So perhaps it's an obligation to the kind of world you'd like to live in...?

> nobody

Nobody, no, but certainly companies which you entered an agreement with, and paid for the transportation of yourself and your property.

It's inexcusable that with the current existing technology companies "lose" your luggage due to anything other than bad-faith.

Appreciate the focus is on the US but for contrast in the UK, 'theft by finding' is a specific offence - whilst you can generally keep unclaimed lost property you should make some effort to find the owner before doing so. People have been prosecuted for keeping money they have found on the floor [1]. That said, these days the police don't have the resources to track lost property so it's unlikely most items would ever be reclaimed and after a certain period it does become yours.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-39...

Tbh I wrote my above comment in a state of barely-awake and missed the important point: by selling the item they are making a claim of ownership.

I was merely stating that nobody should be obliged to try to track down an owner of a lost item, but they equally shouldn't be claiming it as theirs either. You wouldn't just get on somebody's bicycle and ride off with it, so don't put on someone's watch and walk off with it either.

What's interesting is that if you buy a stolen item, even if you don't know it was stolen, you still don't own said item. Happens with cars. Would be interesting if a person who bought a Rolex from a place like this took it to a watchmaker who took it upon themselves to confirm the rightful owner.

>by selling the item they are making a claim of ownership.

Yes!

Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings:

>The test of whether or not you own something is if you can sell it.

By this measure eBooks, shows, movies, games, apps, etc., even though you've purchased them, are NOT owned by you: you've rented them and your access may revoked without notice unilaterally at any time.

Interesting. In this case however, it is up to the Airport authority to make every reasonable effort. Once they auction off the stuff, it is presumed the reasonable effort was unfruitful.

I’d be surprised if UK Airports didn’t do something similar with unclaimed/lost baggage.

I wonder if we could start adding tracking chips to absolutely everything all the way to each sock of a pair. And then you could register them to some online database and if someone found your lost sock they could return it, just like more expensive items.

The idea that customs might ask to see the invoice on your very fancy special watch sounds like watch company marketing to me. I've never even heard of that happening.

I can see it happening, similar things have happened to me with jewelry. Much more likely to happen if the place you are traveling from is known for selling that good, they want to confirm you don’t owe duty (usually you can get a receipt before you travel from customs that says you already had that item, if you don’t have the sales receipt).

It only really matters for very expensive things, they don’t usually bother pursuing anything unless it’ll be a big payday.

Been there. Novelty aside it's mostly just a department store.

Do they sell online at all? Would be a hell of a Shopify and Facebook Marketplace enterprise.

Edit: wow, site design is very good!

Yes: https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/

It’s an interesting business model to be sure. They source from pretty much anywhere people tend to lose things. Theme park with more items lost than found? Theater with a bin full of abandoned gloves and coats? Unclaimed Baggage will pay you for it.

There are rarely any bargains there, now it's a tourist attraction and everything is marked up much higher than it would be at a real fence, I mean used goods retailer like a flea market or thrift store

I suppose the alternative is a mountain of discarded clothes visible from space.

https://www.space.com/mountain-discarded-clothes-chile-satel...

So, this is basically a airline fencing stolen goods?

Yes, stolen through incompetence but not malice in this case.

theft == bargain

There are other places to purchase cheap stolen goods, too.

But they're not backed by DHS . . .

Yes, indeed, fortunately if you actually read even the first line of the article you'd understand that this isn't talking about theft.

right, not theft, just the seemingly legitimate sale of items whose rightful owner is unknown.

if you think this isn't used as an opportunity for fencing stolen items, you're deluding yourself.

Do you have evidence of this single named company engaging in stolen items? Or just felt like throwing out accusations?

Please don't imbue your assumptions about legitimate business models without providing proof. The guidelines here are to make the effort to maximally be charitable in our interpretations.

I mean you only have to ask yourself the first logical question about how any of this pays for itself to realize that it’s ethically questionable at best, so…

Who is doing the stealing? Are you claiming that the business in the article is getting part of their inventory from some place other than the airlines or lost luggage?

I think OP is right but hasn't fully unrolled what they mean. This seems like it creates a moral hazard [1], because it reduces the penalty to airlines for losing luggage.

If airlines were prepared to accept X in costs from lost luggage before, and now get paid Y, they can now accept about X+Y in lost luggage costs. Meaning more lost luggage! After the system dynamics resettle, from a certain angle this is basically stealing: customers pay the same ticket price, but are paying some percentage more in expected lost luggage.

And on top of that, this is just considering the financial cost - what is actually happening is that more travelers are being deprived of their personal belongings. These are worth more to people than insurance payouts! It's surprising, but when you zoom out this seems downright awful.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

I mean… the grocery store can make more money by double scanning an item I purchase, or McDonald’s can skim some money by giving everyone one less pickle. At some point the service quality has to be intrinsically motivated by the company wanting to preserve their brand, right? How much could they make off stolen luggage that they’d legitimately lose more on purpose? Surely the payout they have to make of losing luggage both monetarily and indirectly through brand devaluation is greater than the amount of money they’d make selling the luggage?

I agree in the abstract, but people and companies operate under bounded rationality. Customers can't easily price the expectation of lost luggage. Companies are made of subunits with independent budgets, each optimizing for incentives with short time horizons.

McDonald's is actually a good example, they did exactly this. IMO one reason their brand has been devalued is death by a thousand cost cuts. Each cut is imperceptible and seems like a win. But over several decades the net effect is a disaster. (IIRC Fast Food Nation documented some ideas about this process)

An airline owes you $2500 for lost luggage on domestic flights. They aren’t going to make that up by selling to places like this. It’s not like they tell the department responsible for getting your luggage back to you to go through the luggage and determine whether they can make a profit on you.

Anecdotally, every thing my wife and I own are in four suitcases that we take across the country 7 months a year making one way trips.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36306966

We have to take all of our personal belongings with us when we leave our home so our place can be rented out to cover our mortgage and expenses while we travel over half of the year.

For $2500 we could replace everything that we have in any one piece of checked luggage and have money left over. We keep anything of value in our carry on backpack.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B12SPPXV?

> On flights within the U.S., airlines are responsible for lost-luggage reimbursement up to $2,500 per person; on international flights, airlines owe you a mere $9.07 per pound, with a ceiling of $640. (That rate was set by an international treaty in 1929.)

> Beyond that, airlines owe you nothing for your most valuable items. Most contracts of carriage specifically exempt from compensation things like antiques, art, books, documents, money, cameras, collectibles, electronics, or "fragile or perishable items." [1]

Also this is not a guaranteed payout, you may need to provide receipts for your things [2]. In general I would prefer to keep the contents of my bag vs receiving "up to" $2,500. We're mostly working people here. The time and money cost of travel disruptions, replacing stuff, navigating bureaucracy etc. is not low. And my stuff has emotional value.

I agree that this setup seems reasonable in a perfect world. But knowing how large, complex companies function, I feel it is unwise to create any kind of loop which rewards airlines as a function of luggage lost.

[1] https://www.frommers.com/tips/airfare/the-bottom-line-what-d...

[2] https://www.peopleclerk.com/post/airline-lost-delayed-luggag...

The stuff you take in your suitcase when you travel has “emotional value”? What do you take with you when you travel?

Since our case is quite unusual, if I travel somewhere like a typical person and carry a weeks worth of clothes, that’s five- seven pairs of pants, 5-7 shirts, some underwear and some socks and maybe a change of shoes.

When I traveled for work, I also had some gym clothes.

That’s around $1500 - $2000 of clothes max. I fly mostly Delta and occasionally AA. Delta is not going to quibble about $2K for lost luggage. They claim less around .66% of luggage is lost or delayed.

This is how often the average person flies in a year.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/388484/air-travel-remains-down-...

The chance of the average person experiencing luggage being lost or delayed is slim.

The obvious solution to the moral hazard is to require that the company not profit from the disposal of the lost luggage. Unfortunately this is difficult to achieve, even imperfectly. “Give the proceeds of the lot sales to charity” sounds like a straightforward solution, but who’s charity? Whoever ends up profiting now has incentive to cause more to be lost; the further they’re disconnected from the airline industry and the specific airline the better. Anonymous donation of proceeds would be best, if it can be managed.

It is not possible. This is the same problem I had with government fines such as traffic tickets. People can't afford to spend time away from work fighting stupid tickets So they pay to settle When the district attorney says pay and we will let you go.

What happens when government lowers it's taxes and instead gets funded with fees and fines?

I'd say airlines should not be allowed to sell any luggage. It is not theirs to sell. If they are caught selling items that don't belong to them, Put the CEO and the entire board in prison for life.

Riddle me this. How was it impossible to locate any of the owners for these?

https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/collections/iphones

Well you won’t find apple devices being sold there. Because apple cares about its customers.

Made me laugh.

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