Maybe you’ve always suspected it: somebody is profiting from lost airline luggage.
Now the evidence is right there on the internet.
There’s a business devoted to selling off the contents of suitcases that never made it down the luggage carousel at the right airport at the right time. And it now has a website.
At Unclaimedbaggage.com, you’ll find laptops, jewelry, handbags, shoes and much more -- all offered at steep discounts from the original price. Right now you can get a “full coyote pelt quiver with arrows” for $100.
The company says their unpackers never know what they’ll find when abandoned luggage arrives in their warehouse. One suitcase even had a live rattlesnake in it.
Unclaimed Baggage makes clear that the business is legit. They’re not selling stolen goods.
“[A]irlines use sophisticated tracking technology to reunite over 99.5% of bags with their owners right away,” Unclaimed Baggage states on its “About” page. “If a bag is truly lost, airlines pay out a claim to the passenger. It’s only after an extensive three-month search that an unclaimed bag is deemed truly orphaned, a fate realized by less than 0.03% of all checked luggage! That’s where we come in.”
Unclaimed Baggage buys the “orphaned” luggage from major U.S. airlines and other carriers. Employees then process the contents, and the company sells some of it out of its store. (They insist all electronic equipment is “cleared of personal data.”)
The company actually has been around for 50 years. It has a 50,000-square-foot store in the small city of Scottsboro, Alabama, reports Business Insider.
“Our customers have long requested an online version of our in-store shopping experience,” Unclaimed Baggage CEO Bryan Owens told reporter Thomas Pallini.
The company says it adds hundreds of items to their Alabama storeroom every day.
Among the finds they’ve plucked from lost luggage over the years, according to the website: an aluminized fire suit, an Egyptian burial mask, 19th-century wooden opium scales, and a “medicine-man stick adorned with a shrunken head.”
The company says it once even came upon a specialized 1980s camera from the Space Shuttle -- one of only three ever made. The company says it sent this extremely rare item back to NASA.
-- Douglas Perry
Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
"sold" - Google News
June 18, 2020 at 11:46PM
https://ift.tt/2Cm3mdB
Lost airline luggage items are being sold online at super-cheap prices -- and it’s all on the up and up - OregonLive
"sold" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3d9iyrC
https://ift.tt/3b37xGF
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Lost airline luggage items are being sold online at super-cheap prices -- and it’s all on the up and up - OregonLive"
Post a Comment