Don't lose it at the airport!

[swee'pea99]

Managed to lose my glasses at Stansted on the way out to Italy. I was as delighted as you might imagine to hear they'd been handed in, and an £8.50 fee seemed reasonable. Till I emailed asking how I could pay, to be informed that sending them back to me would cost not £8.50, but £8.50 plus £26.37 for 'shipping' a glasses case. All told that's more than a third what it cost me to fly to Italy and back, to send a small leather pouch 30 miles.

 

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 4480894, member: 9609"]I don't even think the £8.50 fee is reasonable, what a horrible nasty company trying to profiteer out of someone else's misfortune. Can they not just post them out to you FOC like any decent person would do without question.[/QUOTE]
Was a certain Irishman involved, or am I being uncharitable?

 

[swee'pea99]

Was a certain Irishman involved, or am I being uncharitable?

No. I flew with him, and it wasn't fun, but it was good value.

No, this is a bunch of chiselling bastards called Luggage Point ("your trusted Airport Service provider..") owned by a company called Weigh-ahead Ukena Ltd, whose main business appears to be installing weighing machines to tell you how much you risk having to give to the certain Irishman and his ilk for your overweight bag, but who have clearly diversified into what is surely a highly profitable business: ripping off people who need their own property returned to them. The shameless, chiselling bastards. Specifically, according to Companies House, one Mr Gerard James Stewart and his doubtless charming wife Carole-Ann. How do they sleep at night? Counting their money, I imagine.

 

[slowmotion]

The certain Irishman's business model seems to be increasingly aped.

I feel your pain.

 

[Beebo]

You are not the first person to complain about this. I understand that they charge on the trains too.

I once left my lap top on the train but with an urgent phone call I managed to intercept it at the end of the line before it went to the lost property depot, so the conductor just gave it back to me.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...Passengers-charged-to-retrieve-own-items.html

 

[screenman]

Looking at it with my business head on, say they find 100 items a day that would cost a lot of money to deal with. I think the £26.37 is excessive, my postal charges are £4.45 on most items and £13.50 on large tool boxes. Obviously these are on items purchased not lost.

 

[coffeejo]

I'd be happy to pay P&P and a reasonable admin fee but £30+ seems ridiculous. No, it is ridiculous.

Years ago, I flew back from the US, with one connection. My luggage didn't make it and the airline delivered it for free. Given that I lived in West Wales at the time, and had to get three different trains once back in the UK, it was actually a relief to have someone else do all the heavy lifting. No idea what it cost them but it was definitely way above the value of my luggage!

 

[gavroche]

We live in a world where money comes first, service is an added extra.

 

[NorthernDave]

I accidentally dropped my phone getting off a train and didn't realise until I was half a mile from the station and the train was long gone.
Cue major panic.

However, I rang the phone and after what seemed like an age a woman answered and once I'd explained offered to hand the phone to the guard.
The guard advised that the lost property office was in York (20-odd miles from home) which was going to be a pain, but at least I'd get the phone back. He then asked if I could get back to the station I'd used earlier. I said that would be no problem and he happily advised me that he'd leave the phone with the ticket office staff when he passed back through on the return journey later that morning.

At lunchtime I walked down to the station and got my phone back no problem. A simple use of common sense but great customer service.

 

[Globalti]

Most decent humans would do the same thing, all over the world. Few are miserly and avaricious enough to want to turn others' misfortune into a money-making opportunity.

 

[T4tomo]

I left a coat on a train on my morning commute, and just realised as it pulled out of the station heading back up the line. A quick conversation and a precise idea of which carriage it was in meant a member of station staff at my local station 20 minute up the line retrieved it for me a I collected it that evening. I had nothing to pay, but he got a pack of beer for his trouble.

 

[marinyork]

I was always impressed how long and safely my old company kept lost property for and for free despite the space required.

That was until one day I found out if lost money was handed in the company pocketed it itself and was written in their procedures. Fortunately many people ignored this and was stored temporarily or put in the charity box. Since this happened I saw other people complain about the same thing in other sites.

 

[Salad Dodger]

I left my credit card at the garage when i picked my car up from being serviced.
The garage phoned to say they had it and had put it in the safe, but they were now going home for the night and they hoped i could manage without it until the morning.
I picked it up on my way to work next day, grateful that it had been stored safely, and that i had avoided the faff of cancelling it and waiting for a new one.

And i took in a bag of donuts for the guys in the garage, as a small "thank you".

 

[screenman]

Maybe the firm that charges is only trying to teach people to take more care.

 

[srw]

In the context of a plane trip you're getting for free - £90 or so won't even cover the cost of processing you through two airports twice, let alone fuel, plane maintenance and insurance, issuing a ticket, contingencies and profit for the airline, or even the environmental cost of your cheap flights or the disruption and suffering to the poor buggers who live near the airports - £30 to give you back glasses which probably cost ten times that seems like a bargain.

If you want to pay less for your own forgetfulness, start paying what the basic service actually costs.