A company that sells lost airplane luggage

https://thehustle.co/the-lucrative-business-of-lost-airplane-luggage/

by Anon84 • 2 years ago

120 134 2 years ago

ggm• 2 years ago

A 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• 2 years ago

If they didn't exist, the headline would be "The company that dumps your lost airplane luggage into a landfill."

behringer• 2 years ago

sounds good to me. Then nobody's making money off of stolen goods except the landfill.

wvenable• 2 years ago

I'm more worried about the perverse incentive structure.

shkkmo3• 2 years ago

Or the bags could be donated to charity. Allowing profiteer off other people's misfortune is unethical and creates perverse incentives.

ProllyInfamous• 2 years ago

I'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.

lifestyleguru2• 2 years ago

To 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• 2 years ago

I'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) 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• 2 years ago

Surely someone in the chain goes through these bags for obvious expensive things beforehand. Why would that not happen?

giarc2• 2 years ago

I 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• 2 years ago

In 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,1...

https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2024/01/28/saga-des-valises-egar...

KennyBlanken2• 2 years ago

So 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• 2 years ago

Or you could just put an airtag into it.

akshayshah• 2 years ago

Luggage 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.

FireBeyond3• 2 years ago

Probably comes down to how difficult it is to gain access, and whether that's destructive.

bdavbdav• 2 years ago

I guarantee they have TSA keys

itishappy2• 2 years ago

You 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-...

kylehotchkiss• 2 years ago

You can get a new suitcase at Ross for $50 if you dig around at a few locations. Why buy a used one?

magneticnorth• 2 years ago

If 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

chankstein38• 2 years ago

It's advertised in a creepy way and it's sold out. People will never stop being sketchy lol

swozey3• 2 years ago

Maybe someone buys them for a few bucks and dropships them for $25 as a vtuber?

Think I have a new side gig

lifestyleguru2• 2 years ago

It's absolutely missing dildos and erotic toys mystery bag, or the people opening suitcases take these for themselves together with more precious stuff?

KolmogorovComp4• 2 years ago

It’s explained in TFA. They don’t sell those.

oh_sigh• 2 years ago

How does luggage ever get lost when they slap so many stickers on it?

MattGaiser• 2 years ago

They 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• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

Maybe 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.)

swozey3• 2 years ago

Speaking 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/

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.

giarc2• 2 years ago

From 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.

swozey3• 2 years ago

Thanks, I missed that. It'd be nice if I could do this myself and not need to send them a form. I'll continue to try to find a way to de-paginate the results.

iJohnDoe• 2 years ago

I 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• 2 years ago

I 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.

KolmogorovComp4• 2 years ago

In 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.

KolmogorovComp4• 2 years 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• 2 years 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-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.

newsclues2• 2 years ago

Do 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?

dataflow• 2 years ago

There's the rub: luggage ends up at UnclaimedBaggage after the airline has exhausted all other avenues to try and find the owner.
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.

KolmogorovComp4• 2 years ago

That’s because airlines don’t open the luggage. If you find a ring with Ms xxx written on it, is it difficult to find it?

justrealist• 2 years ago

I’d assume that the high sentimental value could be converted in a much higher price than its off-the-shelf value

The PR nightmare from ransoming luggage back to the rightful owner would be catastrophic. Airlines would immediately stop working with this company.

McDyver4• 2 years ago

When 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• 2 years ago

Please read the article...

McDyver4• 2 years ago

I did. Are you saying 25m bags have absolutely no information on them? Absolutely zero?

KennyBlanken2• 2 years ago

First off, this sort of comment is against HN rules.

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.

handoflixue2• 2 years ago

Now I'd say it's a company selling stolen goods.

"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

theturtletalks• 2 years ago

Exactly, but the issue is that a person might be willing to pay that compensation fee for the original bag back.

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.

blagie• 2 years ago

I have never successfully received compensation for lost or damaged bags.

It's not that it's impossible. It's that the hoops required were always more than the compensation.

It's theft.

jameshart3• 2 years ago

The airline can compensate you, and they can sell your bag, but they can't put two and two together and give you your bag back?

Airlines know EXACTLY who was on every plane. It isn't unknowable how a particular bag wound up somewhere.

paxys3• 2 years ago

If the contents of the bag are worth $500 the airline isn't spending >$500 worth of effort to track it down and return it to its owner. It makes sense to just reimburse them and move on.

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.

plasticchris2• 2 years ago

I once had my check bag lost and it arrived a couple of months later via a courier. This was in ‘08

Sohcahtoa823• 2 years ago

The current top comment says:

"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."

guappa4• 2 years ago

Mail the luggage to their address

jabroni_salad• 2 years ago

As 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.

cm2187• 2 years ago

Statistically, a small portion of those customers may have died shortly after their flight...

sandworm1014• 2 years ago

And a slightly higher percentage may have been arrested prior to retrieving their luggage.

Mountain_Skies• 2 years ago

This 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.

ncallaway2• 2 years ago

Yep!

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.

rdp36• 2 years ago

I mean how hard is it to recognize you lost your belongings? Pretty hard for a segment of the population. SIGH!

Towaway69• 2 years ago

There are YouTube channels where people open lost luggage as entertainment.

Enough viewers makes this business also profitable.

So much for respect of personal privacy.

sandworm1014• 2 years ago

I was at a convention once listening to an FBI agent talk about contacting companies that had been hacked. They would not reply to emails or even open letters labeled "FBI". The likelihood of a scam was just too high. So they asked the room what it would take for us to believe that an unsolicited communication came from the real FBI. In short, the room wanted Mulder and Scully at the front door, in suits, with badges/guns, and even then many calls would be make before believing a believe a word. That is what the constant stream of online scams has done to people.

irrational• 2 years ago

I think I’d blame it more on entertainment media. How many tv shows and movies have there been with fake FBI communications and agents?

morkalork2• 2 years ago

Reminds me of a story about an allied sabateur working in occupied France during WWII. They were trying to convince someone that they were indeed the "real deal" and nothing was working until they agreed on a coded phrase to be played on the BBC radio. Only after hearing the message on the radio the next night was their identity trusted.

tpurves• 2 years ago

Yep, try running a marketing contest sometime and then trying to notify people by phone or email that they have won the grand prize.

neilv• 2 years ago

And if you do finally get through to them, they can still be kinda jerks.

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).

OJFord3• 2 years ago

But if I have actually lost my baggage, and I receive an email about lost baggage..? Scam is not going to be front of mind?

(..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.)

technick2• 2 years ago

I was forced to deal with an FBI agent last year. I authenticated him by calling the local FBI office and asking the person who answered to authenticate the agent. I got the number of the FBI office off way back machine.

iudqnolq• 2 years ago

The German spy who came off a U-Boat and wanted to hand their team in wasn't believed on the phone and had to show up in person at FBI headquarters.

tnel772• 2 years ago

My question would be “is this good or bad?” To a certain degree, I feel like it’s good that people are learning to question this stuff.

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.

RecycledEle4• 2 years ago

This is why we should be arresting scammers that we can arrest, and targeting the rest for air strikes.

ijhuygft776• 2 years ago

too bad they force you to hand them your luggages

sandworm1014• 2 years ago

Years 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• 2 years ago

Their online store has iPhones. How do they get around the protections that are supposed to stop others from using a lost or stolen phone?

technick2• 2 years ago

I'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• 2 years ago

Enough people do this and they won't go the extra mile anymore, I suppose.

olliej• 2 years ago

It'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• 2 years ago

I wonder how they handle this in Japan. Does lost luggage get handled through the Police lost & found?

RecycledEle4• 2 years ago

I 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.

A company that sells lost airplane luggage

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