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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

#111

Post by shkkmo »

pessimizer wrote: post #8
ggm wrote: post #2

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.

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

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

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#112

Post by hindsightbias »

technick wrote: post #95
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 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.

I wonder how many field office numbers have changed…

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#114

Post by NoPicklez »

shkkmo wrote: post #109
NoPicklez wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> 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.

Exactly as per my earlier point, because the owner may have been known and the airline may have exhausted their avenues to contact them. In which case after a period of time, what is the airline to do but get rid of the bags

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#115

Post by ijhuygft776 »

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.

too bad they force you to hand them your luggages

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#116

Post by golergka »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #63
rnotaro wrote: post #6

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...

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?

Or you could just put an airtag into it.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#117

Post by Towaway69 »

rdp36 wrote: post #71
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 mean how hard is it to recognize you lost your belongings? Pretty hard for a segment of the population. SIGH!

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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#118

Post by fbdab103 »

morkalork wrote: post #85
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…

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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#119

Post by Aerbil313 »

ncallaway wrote: post #86
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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 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.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#120

Post by J_cst »

swozey wrote: post #35
giarc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Scrape it?
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