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Sharp warning to leave your luggage


Pelle
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people should check they have THEIR bags before leaving the terminal

Some people pick up a bag that might look like theirs but never check the luggage tag

We had that happen at FLL someone took our bag ..we wasted 30 mins looking for it then DH noticed some guy slip a bag under the roped off area ..it was our bag

 

The woman who stole the bag is responsible for returning it to you

it was her fault that you are without your bag

 

JMO

contact Lost luggage & make arrangement to have it sent to your address hopefully on the bag then send the bill to the thief

 

 

Since she , the thief, ( and yes she was a thief) is a us resident and you know her details I would press charges and contact both the police in your and her town of residence as well as retain a good lawyer and ask for damages.... There is no excuse for her and dumping the bag in LAX is totally a cop-out. She has not taken responsibility and is acting as a criminal .

 

Again press charges for felony theft because she transported it to LAX and dumped it in the USA to avoid being arrested in possession of stolen property,

If it was over $1000 in value that is a felony and she needs to be charged as a felon. She had the option of taking responsibility but opted to dump the evidence of her crime to avoid being arrested.... She had no interest in returning it to you only making things right.

Edited by Hawaiidan
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Since she , the thief, ( and yes she was a thief) is a us resident and you know her details I would press charges and contact both the police in your and her town of residence as well as retain a good lawyer and ask for damages.... There is no excuse for her and dumping the bag in LAX is totally a cop-out. She has not taken responsibility and is acting as a criminal .

 

Again press charges for felony theft because she transported it to LAX and dumped it in the USA to avoid being arrested in possession of stolen property,

If it was over $1000 in value that is a felony and she needs to be charged as a felon. She had the option of taking responsibility but opted to dump the evidence of her crime to avoid being arrested.... She had no interest in returning it to you only making things right.

 

plus 1 and beautifully stated.

It is time that somebody looked at the person who is at fault.

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Since she , the thief, ( and yes she was a thief) is a us resident and you know her details I would press charges and contact both the police in your and her town of residence as well as retain a good lawyer and ask for damages.... There is no excuse for her and dumping the bag in LAX is totally a cop-out. She has not taken responsibility and is acting as a criminal .

 

Again press charges for felony theft because she transported it to LAX and dumped it in the USA to avoid being arrested in possession of stolen property,

If it was over $1000 in value that is a felony and she needs to be charged as a felon. She had the option of taking responsibility but opted to dump the evidence of her crime to avoid being arrested.... She had no interest in returning it to you only making things right.

 

You are so right. We tend to give "older" folks a pass and label them forgetful, slight dementia. etc. Maybe, but it ain't always true.

 

An older woman tried to steal my boarding pass while I was talking to two other woman. She at first began subtlety stroking my suede jacket draped across my carryon. (maybe she needed some tactile stimulation, so I thought). She then began easing out my boarding pass that I had folded the two lapels over. I stopped her and said nicely, "that's not yours, what are you doing,? She mumbled something about not having her ticket and then moved to another bank of seats and sat down next to an older gentleman.. The woman I was talking to chuckled that chuckled when you think someone is possible senile.

 

Getting off the plane, the older man took someone else's carryon ...the owner loudly shouted excuse me as he squeezed though the people cued up to deplane running after the couple. Young thieves ...become old thieves. Older doesn't mean cute, nice and honest.

 

Ramona

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Sure, there are thieves out there. Of all ages. But I do think it's going a bit too far to ASSUME that this person was a thief. If she were, she wouldn't have contacted the proper owner, would she??? And where is HER luggage?

 

I agree that we should all check the luggage tags on what we think is OUR luggage. It has been at least 30 years since anyone asked me (when I was leaving an airport or a cruise port) to prove that the luggage was mine. We have pretty common looking luggage, with only a few personal identifiers, so we always check the tags to make sure. Everyone should do so.

 

I'm just not as eager to call this woman a thief as some of the rest of you are.

 

I also agree that since she caused the error, she should have done what she could to get the luggage returned to the owner ... that is, MORE than just telling them what had happened.

 

Hope this never happens to me ...

 

We usually leave the ship as late as possible so there isn't much luggage left at that time ... and so far all of our luggage has still been there! But we're going to have to leave the ship very early in Venice on May 25th in order to get to the airport, and so we will have LOTS of luggage to search through ... Wish us luck.

 

And that we don't take someone else's suitcase destined for Moscow when we're going to NYC.

 

Mura

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Sure, there are thieves out there. Of all ages. But I do think it's going a bit too far to ASSUME that this person was a thief. If she were, she wouldn't have contacted the proper owner, would she??? And where is HER luggage?

 

I agree that we should all check the luggage tags on what we think is OUR luggage. It has been at least 30 years since anyone asked me (when I was leaving an airport or a cruise port) to prove that the luggage was mine. We have pretty common looking luggage, with only a few personal identifiers, so we always check the tags to make sure. Everyone should do so.

 

I'm just not as eager to call this woman a thief as some of the rest of you are.

 

I also agree that since she caused the error, she should have done what she could to get the luggage returned to the owner ... that is, MORE than just telling them what had happened.

 

Hope this never happens to me ...

 

We usually leave the ship as late as possible so there isn't much luggage left at that time ... and so far all of our luggage has still been there! But we're going to have to leave the ship very early in Venice on May 25th in order to get to the airport, and so we will have LOTS of luggage to search through ... Wish us luck.

 

And that we don't take someone else's suitcase destined for Moscow when we're going to NYC.

 

Mura

 

 

You're assuming that she didn't have her own luggage. Whose to say she didn't have her own plus someone else's? I also believe the word "thief" was used because the only thing she did was to contact the owner, she didn't do anything to get the luggage back to the owner. She needed to contact the cruise line and the airline she flew into. Because of that the owners luggage is being looked at as abandoned.

 

Ramona

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Sure, there are thieves out there. Of all ages. But I do think it's going a bit too far to ASSUME that this person was a thief. If she were, she wouldn't have contacted the proper owner, would she??? And where is HER luggage?

 

I agree that we should all check the luggage tags on what we think is OUR luggage. It has been at least 30 years since anyone asked me (when I was leaving an airport or a cruise port) to prove that the luggage was mine. We have pretty common looking luggage, with only a few personal identifiers, so we always check the tags to make sure. Everyone should do so.

 

I'm just not as eager to call this woman a thief as some of the rest of you are.

 

I also agree that since she caused the error, she should have done what she could to get the luggage returned to the owner ... that is, MORE than just telling them what had happened.

 

Hope this never happens to me ...

 

We usually leave the ship as late as possible so there isn't much luggage left at that time ... and so far all of our luggage has still been there! But we're going to have to leave the ship very early in Venice on May 25th in order to get to the airport, and so we will have LOTS of luggage to search through ... Wish us luck.

 

And that we don't take someone else's suitcase destined for Moscow when we're going to NYC.

 

Mura

 

First, we also try to get off as late as possible, and relax that final morning, as best we can.

... which means... there was more time for someone else to grab one of our bags (in error or otherwise), and it would be way too late by the time we wandered down there and found... "not our bag".

That's one reason why one of the high contrast ID features is on the *handle*. It looks "different", and it also feels "different".

And there are also several pieces of high contrast tape on each bag.

 

I agree that it isn't clear this person was a "thief".

If "stealing" was the intended goal, then why in the world did she go to the trouble of calling the rightful owner?

Why not take the bag home, rifle through it at one's leisure, and also keep the suitcase? And say nothing about it, unless perhaps to brag about the catch with one's cronies...

Leaving the bag and calling the owner doesn't match up with what a thief would do, or it doesn't seem like it to me.

 

GC

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Why didn't the woman do everything should could to get the suitcase back to the people who owned it. Telling me that you did something but not rectifying what you did is ..well useless. We need to be responsible and fix our messes. Informing and fixing are two different things.

 

Ramona

 

Ramona

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Just seeing this story, but expect the woman who took the OP's bag by mistake is probably experiencing her own set of frustrations & issues trying to get her own bag back from the other side of the world, while at the same time feeling horrible about her mistake and what it means to the OP and whether she is really losing it and isn't going to be safe to travel again.....

 

SO -- why not give this woman a chance to redeem herself and feel a little bit better about it all??!!!

 

Totally agree with the earlier post :

 

"Could you not just sacrifice the suitcase at this point and have the person who took your suitcase box up your possessions and mail them to you?"

OP, you could ask her to go back to the airport in LA and package up the things you want and send them to you! What do you have to lose by asking her?

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Seems to me that the perpetrator, whether confused or not, showed her true colors when she decided NOT to offer help in the first place. :mad:

Aside from that, I doubt very strongly that the authorities would give the suitcase back to her after she turned it in as "not hers".

Offering solutions is one of the finest aspects of Cruise Critic, but they need to be based in reality.

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I'm going to go back several years when my now 40 year old son was 16 and involved heavily in musical theater/theater in a Theater ensemble and in High School, LaGuardia High School for The Arts and Performing Arts. The Theater Company he was involved he committed 100% and helped with load-in, set painting, strike and load-out ever since he was 10 yrs old. He gained a great work ethic being involved with theater.

 

One day coming home from the theater helping out, one hour subway ride, someone pulled out a gun and demanded his money ...Between the time of the "attempted" stick-up and a couple of seconds of regret, the man (not a young man) had a moment of regret, or for me, an angel of protection stepped in, the man apologized and gave him back his $5.00. Now tell me, with the interaction between the gunman and my son ...because of the final outcome was this a "crime." I already know what I think ...for those who don't think this was stealing because of her contact with the owner, how do you read what I still call a crime.

 

Did it impact my son, yes!. Very much so ...he left something he loved ...join the Marines, specifically the infantry so he could learn how to fight. Although he benefits from both his theater and military experience ...he is a gun owner (not saying anything against responsible gun ownership).

 

By the way two people you may know who were in the same Theater Company as he was ...Jordan Peele (Get Out; Keagan & Peele) and Kerry Washington (Scandal)

 

Ramona

 

Ramona

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I had a similar situation in Iceland, where my dark purple suitcase was picked up from the line waiting to be placed in the shuttle bus, and another dark purple suitcase left. The "thief" discovered the mistake that day and brought it back to the airport the next day. Luckily I got it back and nothing was missing, though I spent the day after arrival touring without my warm shoes and had to wear my 70 yo mother's clothes (great pictures, there!)

 

Now, every suitcase I buy is a very bright color or crazy print.

 

I'd assume the lady that took the luggage assumed that the airline had means to return it, as even the OP had no idea it would be so hard to get it home. That's frustrating for the OP, as we also had a piece of luggage disappear on our way home this summer. Different circumstance, but we had to write off the whole thing. At least it was just 12 yo ds's clothes, nothing we couldn't replace.

 

I think a luggage service might be helpful, but wouldn't they need something to claim it to prove it's the OP's? Right now the airline tag states it belongs to the old lady.

 

There may be no perfect ending here. Sometimes life isn't fair.

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Seems to me that the perpetrator, whether confused or not, showed her true colors when she decided NOT to offer help in the first place. :mad:

Aside from that, I doubt very strongly that the authorities would give the suitcase back to her after she turned it in as "not hers".

 

Maybe this could work if the actual suitcase owner, the OP, provided some letter of authorization???

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Maybe this could work if the actual suitcase owner, the OP, provided some letter of authorization???

 

I'm not sure if you've read the OP's original post. If not go back and read it or reread it. After 9/11 suitcases CANNOT be places on a flight without an accompanying owner, or at least the person. If it is shipped freight, there has to be an inventory of the items in the suitcase. OPs live in Sweden ...so there is a cost benefit analysis. The cost of a round trip to LAX from Sweden or chalking up the loss with no recompense. I don't even know if travel insurance would cover this ...

 

One of the things people need to do when a mistake is made or someone is wronged is make the person whole. If you don't or are not thinking about that ...then your apologies are of no effect or impact.

 

Ramona

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I'm not sure if you've read the OP's original post. If not go back and read it or reread it. After 9/11 suitcases CANNOT be places on a flight without an accompanying owner, or at least the person. If it is shipped freight, there has to be an inventory of the items in the suitcase. OPs live in Sweden ...so there is a cost benefit analysis. The cost of a round trip to LAX from Sweden or chalking up the loss with no recompense. I don't even know if travel insurance would cover this ...

 

One of the things people need to do when a mistake is made or someone is wronged is make the person whole. If you don't or are not thinking about that ...then your apologies are of no effect or impact.

 

Ramona

 

Maybe, but it happens all the time, either by mistake or when your luggage misses it's connection. It seems to me airlines can bend this "rule" when they need to.

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Ramona, I did read the Original Post, and updates. This suggestion posted earlier by someone else seemed reasonable, as it doesn't require a suitcase to go anywhere:

 

Could you not just sacrifice the suitcase at this point and have the person who took your suitcase box up your possessions and mail them to you?

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Regulations put in place regarding luggage; travel; security, etc... has nothing to do with the airlines ...so no they can't bend the rules. Those regulations were put in place by the government, the Federal Government.

 

Ramona

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Regulations put in place regarding luggage; travel; security, etc... has nothing to do with the airlines ...so no they can't bend the rules. Those regulations were put in place by the government, the Federal Government.

 

Ramona

 

Can you point these rules out to us? I know with a certainty that my luggage has flown without me on multiple occasions since 9/11, and not as cargo.

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domestic or international. The key word is international.

 

Ramona

 

Oh, I never noticed you mentioned international, just said flights. I do realize this post is about an international situation though.

 

Still curious where I can find this law to read it?

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Oh, I never noticed you mentioned international, just said flights. I do realize this post is about an international situation though.

 

Still curious where I can find this law to read it?

 

If I said "law" it was a mistake; it's not a law but a regulation implemented after Lockerbie Scotland bombing, before 9/11. It's called PPBM (Positive Passenger Bag Match) and it's done on International Flights. Of course you can check a bag and go eat/bathroom/shop and miss the call and the door closes on you. Or the Baggage handlers can misdirect the bag.

 

From Flyers Talk: https://insideflyer.com/forums/threads/positive-passenger-bag-match.41106/

 

Pubsonline: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/opre.49.2.181.13529

 

 

Just enter PPBM into a search engjine you'll find a lot said about it.

 

Ramona

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Can you point these rules out to us? I know with a certainty that my luggage has flown without me on multiple occasions since 9/11, and not as cargo.

 

I'm not sure about the wording, but the way this functions is that they don't "allow" a passenger to knowingly/purposefully fly such that the luggage is on a separate flight.

This typically happens on international and also on domestic flights.

 

The actuality of "luggage on a separate flight"? Sure... happens all the time.

 

With a short connection, the luggage may arrive later, having missed the connecting flight.

With a nice long connection, the luggage may arrive on an earlier flight and already be there, waiting, when the owner arrives.

 

Or, of course, luggage ends up lost, on a flight without the owner.

 

But try asking if you can change your flight, if the luggage cannot be retrieved to "go with you"?

Nope.

 

We encountered another example of this, flying a domestic route when there were frequent flights.

We got to the gate, and there was still something like 45 minutes to go for the flight *before* ours to leave.

We asked if we could get on the earlier flight (prepared to have our bag arrive late, on the original flight, or perhaps they could switch the bag to the earlier flight, which we figured near impossible).

 

Nope, "You cannot fly on a different flight from your luggage" (or similar wording).

 

We arrived on the *next* flight, quite a bit later, went to baggage claim and... no bag.

We went to the office, and the rep cheerfully chirped, "Oh, you bag came in on the earlier flight!"

 

They just couldn't allow *us* to make that type of arrangement, for obvious reasons...

 

Meanwhile, for the OP... what about asking a Concierge Service to claim your bag (with letter of authorization, list of contents for ID purposes), and have them either ship it with a luggage forwarding service or box it up and send as a parcel?

The former would allow the suitcase itself to come back to you.

 

We don't know the motives of the so-called "thief" (which attributes motives that are not known). Do we even know if OP knows how to reach this person back?

But the focus should be on getting the belongings back, not on trashing the person who, it seems to us, made a *mistake* and took the wrong bag.

Why she handled it the way she did, we'll probably never know. Confusion? Ignorance? Thoughtlessness (my best guess)? Fright (of being labeled a thief, perhaps, when she'd made an embarrassing mistake)?

The "thoughtlessness" of many people is often grossly underrated.

 

GC

Edited by GeezerCouple
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OP, why don’t you just put in a quick trip to LAX and get the luggage? Flights ARN-LAX-ARN can be had starting from $400... Granted, it’ll take quite some time but you’ll have it in hand eventually.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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Regulations put in place regarding luggage; travel; security, etc... has nothing to do with the airlines ...so no they can't bend the rules. Those regulations were put in place by the government, the Federal Government.

 

Ramona

 

I'm correcting my own post. No, the Government was planning on putting something in place, a law; however, the airlines put regulations in place without prodding by the Feds. Sometimes laws are not needed. All that is needed is the Insurance Companies demanding changes to limit what they have to pay out. i.e. Lockerbie Scotland bombing. Airline was sued.

 

Ramona

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At this point you do not want the case returned to you, it is NOW Evidence and the police agency having authority will take it into custody, from there, proper charges can be developed against the criminal who took it. Jim and Stan were most correct in that the person showed her true colors bu attempting to get rid of the evidence of her crime( multiple ( Theft, transporting stolen goods, obstruction of justice attempt to destroy evidence. for starters.

 

This is a law enforcement problem investigation now. Contact Intpol if living abroad and then the LAPD and let them take it from here. Also get a good lawyer to sue for damages in addition to pressing criminal charges. Make this person an example and others

Quit trying to figure out how to get the bag back and focus of turning this over to law enforcement...They will and should take it from there not the OP.

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A Concierge Service -- good idea GC!

 

A service would probably be more reliable for addressing this than the person who picked up the bag mistakenly, and certainly more professional!

 

Here are a couple of airport concierge service companies I found online:

https://www.airportconciergeservices.com/about-airport-personal-concierge

http://www.royalairportconcierge.com/los-angeles-lax-airport-vip-services

 

Both seem to service LAX as well as other airports.

 

OP, it might be worth checking with them!

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