A company that sells lost airplane luggage
thehustle.co
thehustle.co
It takes two to tango and nobody knows how to dance.
+1 for practical paranoia!
Operators lie.
I am speaking from experience. I have tested this, and always got the same answer.
He didn't corrupt the BBC announcers, they just both worked for the government.
(..so also excellent time to scam me.. please don't. But also maybe more fruitful just to steal the baggage if you have access to that information.)
I think if you somehow have access to the lost baggage at a given airport, theft is going to me profitable than scamming. Aaanyway!
Tragic story
When I briefly was interested in precious metals, I found that a popular gold&silver bullion retailer had a breach, with attacker having customer contact info, and also able to email as the retailer.
This seemed like a situation with higher-stakes risks than the usual applications of consumer data breaches.[1]
So I felt obligated to alert them.
When I talked my way through the company's main phone number, the IT/security people came off as skeptical of me, and kinda doing a tough-guy thing (like they might be dealing with an attacker trying to social them, and didn't want to show weakness or look stupid), before they acknowledged/claimed that they knew about the compromise.
Then, when they realized I was legitimately alerting them, not trying to trick them, nor to otherwise get anything from them, they still sounded like I was a jerk for bothering them about this compromise they already knew about. (Though I don't think they disclosed it to affected customers.)
I suppose I should be understanding, that they might get BS calls all the time, but, even as a ordinary citizen trying to be helpful, the tone was annoying. I guess the FBI would be rolling their eyes even harder at companies that not only can't do their job of securing sensitive data and systems, but then act like jerks when you try to help them salvage the inevitable fudge-up.
[1] This was a vendor to the "if you don't hold it, you don't own it" physical gold&silver buyers fad at the time. If attacker also got the shipping addresses, it's a high-value burglary target list, of homes with high probability of untraceable stores-of-wealth, including ones that could easily be liquidated for (today) around $2,000 per troy ounce. Or the worse variant: target list for home invasion, where badguy threatens/tortures occupants until confident that the victim told them all the hiding locations, not just the decoy safe. Maybe a harder list to sell for that purpose, but more dangerous if it got used for that purpose (rather than, or in addition to, an email scam gold-for-Bitcoin special offer that appeared to be from the retailer and got past spam filters).
Prime example: everyone at my company received an email about some mandatory training and it was from an unusual source (compared to previous mandatory trainings). The VP that set it all up sent a follow-up email telling us that he was very proud of us for being “diligent,” but that the training was legit and indeed still mandatory.
Technically? All of them. The FBI rarely allows its agents to appear on TV shows.
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.
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.
I do!
> In my country (Turkiye) every commercial SMS sender needs your permission to send advertising SMS
Mine too! I report each violation to the FCC (the responsible governmental agency), but I still get lots of unsolicited SMS spam.
In fact, you'll note that SMS was the only one that broke my pattern and was "many" instead of "most".
SMS is the one medium where the rules are OK, but the enforcement is lacking.
Enough viewers makes this business also profitable.
So much for respect of personal privacy.
https://www.bladi.net/colere-royal-air-maroc-perte-bagages,1...
https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2024/01/28/saga-des-valises-egar...
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.
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-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.
> There are no contactable owners, so the ethical dilemna solves itself.
Er, that's a very... convenient excuse for absolving people of ethical responsibility. Geez, there's no contact info on it, how could I possibly reunite it with its owner?? It's not like we have any clue who's lost their bags or what those bags looked like, right??
The owners are still able to describe and recognize their bags and their contents... the fact that an airline doesn't provide adequate means to search through lost bags doesn't mean it's somehow impossible to pair some of the owners and bags correctly.
They also said that it ends up there once the airline has exhausted all avenues for contacting them. Once an airline does that and a large period of time has passed, what else can they do?
Surely, there is a shared level of responsibility for the owner of the lost bags to at the very least to try retrieve them. It's not hard for anyone to contact an airline or an airport to query lost bags.
Now if someone has been contacting the airline and the bags cannot be found and the airline continues to sell those bags whilst the customer has been attempting to retrieve them then that's a problem.
I would assume that this is the case for a non-zero amount of the bags sold. The article talks abot specific items where the owner was known but the item was not returned.
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?
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)."
Thus allowing a company to buy "lost" bags directly decreases the incentive the airlines have to find the owner of the bag.
It could be cheaper to pay the fines.
The PR nightmare from ransoming luggage back to the rightful owner would be catastrophic. Airlines would immediately stop working with this company.
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.
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
"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."
Second, as others have noticed, airlines have been caught dumping bags at clearance houses days after they were lost. I guarantee some actuary at the airline has figured out the cost of selling the luggage vs risk (zero, even though it's outright theft) vs cost of figuring out who the bag belongs to.
Third, "we can't figure out who it belongs to" is feigned helplessness.
Some airports and airlines are much worse than others, demonstrating that good tracking and low loss is perfectly possible. Nobody is holding them responsible, so of course they don't care.
The industry dragged its feet adopting RFID which is more reliable than barcodes for sorting and tracking. And really, the only reason airline are improving is because airtags and the like helped customers catch airlines out in lies.
From listening to a NPR finance show, the airlines now even know, automatically, when a bag isn't on a plane with a passenger.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/what-happens-to-unclaimed-lug...
Air Canada and Westjet both open the bags to look for identifying information so they can contact the owner. Then they donate the bags to charity or dispose of them if they can't locate the owner.
I think the moral of the story is to make sure your bag is well tagged. We have been putting an airtag in my bag for the last few flights, and it works really well. It's a pity there is no Android equivalent, as I have no way of locating my tags on my phone. (I just use an ipad).
On the way home from a trip in December, I dropped an AirTag in the pocket my 3-year-old's stroller and forgot to attach it securely before I gate checked the stroller.
I got the stroller back when we arrived but realized a day later that the AirTag slipped out. I could see it at the AirPort but an ~hour of time trying to recover it wasn't worth it.
I put it in Lost Mode mostly for kicks and when you place it in lost mode you can give people a way to contact you. I left my number.
I watched the AirTag go from my home airport to Scottsboro, Alabama and I knew the lost luggage store was there, so I was confused.
A week or so later I got a call from a service company that handles lost and found for Southwest Airlines. There were able to use an iDevice (presumably) to get my contact information since I had placed the AirTag in Lost Mode. They mailed it back to me for the cost of shipped. I assume if they don't find the owner it goes to the lost luggage store mentioned in the article.
Apple is pretty careful about preventing that, unless you put the airtag in lost mode and enter your phone number.
There are some news stories about people who have had success getting their bags back using airtags. Yes, the airline does give them the runaround, but with a little persistence, and finding local phone numbers for the baggage office at the airport in question, people have had success.
I think it's just useful for extra peace of mind or information when your bag does go missing.
I see Air Canada has launched a feature on their app which actually tells you where your bag is (based on scanning the regular barcode tags). It's really just the info that the airline has, but I think they did that in response to so many people putting airtags in their luggage. Strangely, passengers like to know where their bag is when it goes missing, and quite often the airline's staff aren't that helpful.
I should say that the only time my bag went missing, it was simply because our connecting flight had been cancelled, and the rampies were slow getting the bags off, so we had to wait for an hour and it eventually came out. I only fly about 5 times a year, so I guess people who fly a lot might experience it more often (or, they just have carry-on bags).
Tile does display the number of users in your area in the app. Not sure how reliable those numbers are but it's regularly in the hundreds in places like busy airports.
It comes with a hole, whereas AirTags require you to purchase an additional case accessory for that feature.
It has a button that can be used to find your phone (makes it ring, even if silenced) or launch custom routines (SmartHome actions like turning on lights, etc.).
They're cheaper than AirTags.
They don't seem to update their location quite as often as AirTags, maybe because there are less Samsung devices walking around, compared to iOS devices.
"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.
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.
"Imagine this: An airline loses your checked bag. After an extensive search, customer support comes up empty-handed. They compensate you and life goes on."
It seems bizarre to call this stolen goods when the airline has tried to resolve this for 90 days AND compensated you for your loss
Some bags had valuable artifacts, a camera used by NASA, etc. I’m sure the airlines didn’t compensate for this sort of items.
Regardless, the company selling this is not at fault for selling “stolen” items. They believe the airline has done its due diligence in trying to find the owner and are now reducing waste by giving the items a 2nd home.
> But historically, the store has maintained it has a business to run.
"I see this iPad or this laptop has your info, and I could contact you but hey... Tough luck"
Airlines know EXACTLY who was on every plane. It isn't unknowable how a particular bag wound up somewhere.
It's not that it's impossible. It's that the hoops required were always more than the compensation.
It's theft.
Now the question is what happens to the bag floating in the ether. Option 1 is sending it to a landfill. Option 2 is cracking it open and reselling/reusing the stuff in it. There are plenty of ethical arguments in either one's favor, but it isn't as obvious as everyone is making it seem.
https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2014/02/18/tsa-travel-tips-tuesday-...
This company can't sell bag contents without gaining entry into the bag.
"don't you feel bad that it's someone's else possesion?"
"no, that's why it's such a good stuff"
I travel 30-40 times/yr and I can't recall ever putting more than one sticker on a checked bag...
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.
Think I have a new side gig
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.
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.