Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A company that sells lost airplane luggage

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 141 posts

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#121

Post by guappa »

fbdab103 wrote: post #118
morkalork wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would find it unlikely that a low level guy would have the connections to slip a phrase into the BBC and would think they have to be a spy with high level connections.

Perhaps his boss told him the secret in advance?

He didn't corrupt the BBC announcers, they just both worked for the government.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#122

Post by guappa »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #81
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."

Mail the luggage to their address

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#123

Post by guappa »

blagie wrote: post #73
handoflixue wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

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.

I did get compensation. It was so low… I had a couple of expensive university books in there, so I'm fairly sure it just got stolen.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#124

Post by KolmogorovComp »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #32
KolmogorovComp wrote: post #29

> 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…

> 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…

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?

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#125

Post by Doxin »

itishappy wrote: post #13
FireBeyond wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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-...

Mind that "TSA approved" locks are trivially easy to open too. You can just buy the TSA keys for most of those.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#126

Post by morkalork »

guappa wrote: post #121
fbdab103 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would find it unlikely that a low level guy would have the connections to slip a phrase into the BBC and would think they have to be a spy with high level connections.

Perhaps his boss told him the secret in advance? He didn't corrupt the BBC announcers, they just both worked for the government.

It was pretty well organized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Londres

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#127

Post by j000 »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #119
ncallaway wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

I 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…

What I find amusing as the owner of several vanity numbers (NPA)777-0000, 888-0001 and similar is that I receive no spam calls or texts. I wonder if the spamming/robocalling software has a restriction on these numbers because they seem fake.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#128

Post by ncallaway »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #119
ncallaway wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

I 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…

> I guess you live in US.

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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#129

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

guappa wrote: post #122
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Mail the luggage to their address

The address on file could be out of date.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#130

Post by tnel77 »

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…

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.

Post reply on HN