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A company that sells lost airplane luggage

thehustle.co

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Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#81

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

McDyver wrote: post #31

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 l…

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."

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#82

Post by sandworm101 »

irrational wrote: post #80
sandworm101 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

>> How many tv shows and movies have there been with fake FBI communications and agents?

Technically? All of them. The FBI rarely allows its agents to appear on TV shows.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#83

Post by newsclues »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #78
newsclues wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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)."

What is the cost to improve the system so that it is an exceedingly rare occurrence?

It could be cheaper to pay the fines.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#84

Post by NoPicklez »

dataflow wrote: post #54
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... ) Ther…

> 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…

I don't think it's worth cherry picking what they said.

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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#85

Post by morkalork »

sandworm101 wrote: post #77
jabroni_salad wrote: post #56

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.

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…

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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#86

Post by ncallaway »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #70
jabroni_salad wrote: post #56

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.

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 fig…

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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#87

Post by tpurves »

sandworm101 wrote: post #77
jabroni_salad wrote: post #56

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.

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…

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

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#88

Post by aed »

seb1204 wrote: post #58
cpncrunch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the article as well, as there is no info on this at all. After some searching I did find the information in a different article about Canadian airlines: 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.…

Will an air tag help the airline to identify you? That would be rather bad in a privacy sense. I don't think it is easy for you to call the airline and say my bag is in this building etc please give it back to me. my point is that the airline needs to be able to contact you.

Actually, yes -- if you enabled Lost Mode. I have some experience with this situation directly.

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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#89

Post by neilv »

sandworm101 wrote: post #77
jabroni_salad wrote: post #56

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.

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…

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).

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#90

Post by OJFord »

sandworm101 wrote: post #77
jabroni_salad wrote: post #56

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.

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…

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.)

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