Lost Property update please ...

[whole diary]

[johoare]

Jo, I trust our property far more in your hands that theirs  ... I'll forward the email with which I originally registered the property with FGW^▸ (First Great Western), including the picture and if you get a chance - great.   Then we'll meet up some time and I'll owe you pint or three (whether or not you find the illusive bag!) - THANKS!

Thanks Grahame. I popped into the Left Luggage/Lost property at 6.30pm today to be told that the Lost property part of it was only open from 9am to 5pm.. I won't be able to get there during those hours tomorrow but I can hopefully do so on Thursday so will go in again then with the printed off e-mail and hopefully they will be able to tell me if they have it or not at the very least 

[johoare]

I've been to lost property Grahame and they say your bag isn't there.. I learned whilst I was there that there is only one person dealing with Lost Property and the other person there for some reason wasn't qualified to do so so just sat and watched the queue 

If you are in London yourself there would be no harm in you also asking as either there isn't much Lost Property at Paddington or they didn't check very thoroughly in my opinion..

[grahame]

Jo, Many thanks ... I'm not now expecting to be in town at the end of this week, so it's really helpful that you checked for me; in reality, have accepted that it's unlikely that we'll get the bag back and thank goodness it's not a vital item.   It has highlighted for me the difficult issues involved in property left behind, and the problem it must be for the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) to reunite as many items as possible, and yet to keep the costs down.   They are updating systems in some areas, I understand; good news, but I don't have a handle on what is v what could be achieved, nor on how much difference changes will make.  And I don't intend to keep leaving stuff on trains to enable me to give ongoing reports and stats 

[grahame]

Further call from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) ... who have closed the case (property not located, presumed to be lost for ever) after 14 days.    Many thanks for trying and letting me know.   I asked the chap on the phone what proportion of calls are "closed, not located" and he couldn't / wouldn't tell me.   He did assure me that "sometimes we can get property back to people" and I would judge for the tone / wording that he was indicating that a significant majority of lost property reports don't result in a re-uniting.

Many thanks to all of those who have helped / advised.   Our silly fault in the first place for loosing the property, but it's provided the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the system first hand.

[bobm]

The whole process does seem a bit haphazard at times.

A couple of years ago I left my wallet on the train.  Several phone calls to Lost Property yielded no sign of it.  However literally minutes after the last phone call - where again no trace had been found, despite identifying the contents, train, seat number etc - a card dropped through the letterbox advising me that it was being held at Bristol Temple Meads for my collection.  They had taken the details from my business card in the wallet.

As has been noted, it is hard to criticise the system however as all they are doing is clearing up after other people's inattention/carelessness after al. 

Sad to say it hasn't made me any less inattentive or careless.  Managed to leave my wallet on a train once more since and in a car on the day of the TransWilts launch in December.  On both occasions I was speedily re-united with it.  First time after it had made a return trip to Paddington with the train manager and the other time with the help of one of Santa's helpers. 

[LiskeardRich]

The whole process does seem a bit haphazard at times.

A couple of years ago I left my wallet on the train.  Several phone calls to Lost Property yielded no sign of it.  However literally minutes after the last phone call - where again no trace had been found, despite identifying the contents, train, seat number etc - a card dropped through the letterbox advising me that it was being held at Bristol Temple Meads for my collection.  They had taken the details from my business card in the wallet.
 

I had a similar experience with Tesco. I left my wallet in a Tesco store about 1/2 mile from my home, after contacting that store telling them exactly which check out it was left on, from my receipt they said no its not here, no sign of it etc.

About 2 days later I was contacted by a different Tesco store advising me my wallet had been found there. They contacted me from the details connected to my Clubcard that was in my wallet. They told me I had to collect within a set number of days, which was near impossible for me as it was at a store about 30 miles away, I didn't have a car at the time, and had no way of accessing my funds to use public transport to get to it. In the end I told them to destroy all the cards inside, as it was far more convenient to get them reissued than to somehow get to a store 30 miles away.