Hello All

New user here so bear with me.

My parents travelled on a National Express coach to London Gatwick for a holiday in October, and gave the driver a bag (Hand luggage containing medication and a laptop), which when they arrived at London Gatwick, was found to be missing.

This was reported to the driver and also to the National Express office at London Gatwick, and they continued to check in for the flight.

On return to the National Express office, the agents recognised my parents and said straight away that the driver had found the luggage but as had moved on, my parents could not be reunited with the luggage before the flight.

After many phone calls, it turned out that the bag which had been identified as being found and belonging to my parents, actually belonged to another passenger who had been allowed to take my parents luggage.

I tmade the point that as my parents handed the luggage to National Express, it should be expected that National Express be responsible for handing the luggage back, but they have taken a very hands off approach as below.

Each item of luggage is loaded into a separate compartments depending where the customers are travelling from, in your parents case they boarded the coach at xxx which is the same location as Mr xxxx

The driver has no way of knowing which luggage belongs to individual customers, the driver offloads the luggage and expect each customer to identify and claim their own property.

We cannot be held responsible for another customer actions.

As they now knew who the customer was who took the luggage, National Express asked for permissiton to hand my contact details over to the customer who wrongly took the luggage, so we could basically work this out ourselves.

After not hearing anything, I am losing faith in national Express and to see the luggage returned. I asked National Express on the 30th October to chase up urgently, and if they could provide the details of the customer who took that luggage.

Today, I received a very unexpected text message from National Express, containing the customer's mobile number who took the luggage in errors. Also suggesting that if I don't hear anything back, I contact the police. I will be honest, I was not expecting them to hand out personal information.

Rather than act in haste and repent at leisure by phoning the number immediately, I have sat back for 5 minutes and asked a couple friends for advice, and remembered the stories on here I had read about people in similarlaat situations.

So I have the person's number who has my luggage. National Express have washed their hands of this. The simple answer is phone the person who has my luggage who has been ignoring any attempt by National Express to contact me, so I have to be wary of who I am dealing with and how this could escalate.

Not looking for excuses, but I am recovering form serious illness, been off work for 8 months and am just about to start reduced hours work, so this is going to add uneeeded pressurs on me at at very important time of my life. Basically, I want National Express to pursue on my behalf as they allowed the luggage to be taken, including contacting the police if it is found the luggae has been stolen.

I am going to contact National Express to disclose what personal information they sent to the customer who took the luggae, but looking for advice in my next steps, bearing in mind I think National Express shopuld be progressing this case to closure as the luggae was handed to them and they then allowed someone else to take the luggage. It looks to me like a process problem by National Express which sounds really easy to fix, but I can't acceopt that they can't take any responsibilty in this situation.

Thanks for any replies and hope to hear from someone soon. Any questions please ask.

Hi and Welcome to CAG

I have moved your thread to the appropriate forum...please continue to post here to your thread.

Regards

Andy

It seems to me that as the driver accepted the bag, he or rather his employers then become responsible for it. Have you put it all in writing to them? I think you should.

Is the telephone number that you have of this other person a mobile number or a landline number? In any event, I don't see anything wrong with using the number and to phone up very politely and say that you believe there has been some error and you would like to exchange the bags. If the number you have is a mobile phone number I would then follow it up with a text message so you then have a written copy of your communication.

I hope that it is not the case that the third party has preferred to own your laptop then his/her own luggage.

If it is the case that National Express have handed out your details to this other person then I would say that they are certainly in breach of the GDPR and that gives you an additional leverage over them.

Start off by telephoning the other person. Write a full account of your complaint to National Express including the fact that as they have handed your details out of the third party you consider that they are in breach of GDPR. Include a quotation for the replacement value of the laptop and also any other luggage.

You should decide now what kind of action you are prepared to take. If you're prepared to see them in the County Court then this would probably be a small claim – very easy very cheap and pretty well risk-free. On the basis of what you say, I estimate your chances of success at better than 90%. If you are prepared to take an action then send the letter in the form of a letter of claim giving them 14 days or you will begin a claim against them and without any further notice. Don't bluff. If you're not prepared to do this then don't send the letter.

National Express may then say that they are going to put it in the hands of their insurers. That is a matter for them. I would expect that if it goes to the hands insurers it will take several months to be resolved if at all. Their negligent handling of your belongings is a matter between you and them and I would expect that they will ignore your letter of claim but that they will sit up and take notice when they receive the court papers and I can imagine that they will put their hands up at some point before the hearing.

 

If it is the case that National Express have handed out your details to this other person then I would say that they are certainly in breach of the GDPR and that gives you an additional leverage over them.

 

I'm not sure NE have done that as arpcov says "As they now knew who the customer was who took the luggage, National Express asked for permissiton to hand my contact details over to the customer who wrongly took the luggage, so we could basically work this out ourselves." If arpcov gave that permission then no breach of GDPR.

It's a reasonable assumption that the only way NE could know who the other customer was is because they too contacted NE to say they had the wrong bag. Which suggests to me that before considering other routes arpcov calls the other person and sees if its possible to meet up and swap the bags. If the other person really wanted to keep arpcov's bag presumably they wouldn't have contacted NE to say they had the wrong bag.

And hopefully they live somewhere nearby and not the other end of the country....

Yes your right, it would certainly need checking out to see whether the details have been handed over to the third party.

In terms of the third party contacting National Express – yes, I hadn't thought it through. It seems fairly good evidence that they're not trying to snaffle the laptop

Wow. Thanks for quick replies. Wasnt exoeoting that.

Itt is right that NE asked my permission to pass over my details (mobile) which i agreed to as nothibg was happening and i just want the stuff back asap. Mu parents are still abroard without their stuff. I just want it back.

I have emailed them asking for confirmation of which details have been passed to the other party in case my address has neen given out and will follow up with a call

So frustrating that NE in their emails appear to have washed their hands of it. I sumply exoect that if i hand you sonething, then you hand it back to me rather than just allow anyone to helo themselves to whatever they take a fancy to. Could be an genuine mistake, but its not my problem to fix NE’s processes. I give you a bag, you give it back, simple. Dread to think what would haooen should yoyr passport be in the bag, saying that i wiuldnt let that out if my sight.

Whatever i will follow up with a call to NE to find out what details they gave to the other customer first.

Thsnks again for the great advice so promptly as well.

Typed on mobile so excuse any mistakes

Good point about the 3rd party contacting NE to say they had the bag which made me confident, but they have possible they have had their stuff returned and are not responding to NE, for whatever reason hmmmm. Been about a week since I passed my details over.. I have also asked NE to confirm how they have tried contacting the other passenger.

’m not sure if the other passenger gave their details( mobile only) in the knowledge it was being passed to me, rather than a contact to get their luggage returned.

That’s not something that I need to worry about now, I will follow up with NE when I get home.

Again thanks for the advice and I’ll post updates.

Hello All, and a very Happy New Year to everyone.

Firstly, sorry for the time it has taken to update the thread. I'm embarrassed after the unbelievably quick responses I had to my post. I'm not organised. In fact I've only yesterday just filled out my forms to send to AXA to claim for the time I spent in hospital in August for my transplant. I must have been paying into the thing for 15 years religiously, and only claimed for a couple dentist appointments so quite important to get something back from them.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I contacted NE and explained I had heard nothing from the other passenger, and asked if NE could take ownership of the issue. Had a positive conversation where the adviser said, "yes they would take ownership and contact the police." Hearing that, I said "Let me try the other passenger first, then if nothing I will pass back to NE" COntacted the customer who picked up immediately who said "Yes, I have the bag, but hadn't dropped it into NE, as it was at his Mum's house and that he would get it and drop it into the office". I asked out of interest if he had received the right bag for his Mum, and he said yes but said there were some items missing.

Contacted NE, to ask them to contact the other passenger to make sure everything was going to go ahead, and was put onto a manager who agreed that something had gone wrong with the process as it had taken so long to get to this stage. He said that, yes the other passenger had been in touch and agreed to drop into the office the folowing day, but if he didn't, then it would be up to me to contact the police. Obviously I disagreed, but wasn't the time to argue, and we could come back to that should the bag not be returned.

Bag was dropped off the following day, and all items were there as my Mum had packed them, so very happy to get this all resolved at last. I must say the wind was knocked out of my sails as I was gearing up for a battle with NE, but I've never made a complaint to this stage, and being realistic, it isn't going to happen. There is truth in the saying that, you will hear more from a customer who has a complaint, than a customer who is happy, or words to that effect.

Anyway, thanks for the rapid responses and sory for the late response, and a Happy New Year to all.

(Didn't really cut a long story short )

Well done.

Get well soon