How Often Do Lost Items Get Returned?
Dec. 22, 2005 — -- It's what every commuter and holiday traveler hopes to avoid -- leaving the cell phone in the cab, the wallet on the train or the BlackBerry on the plane.
Laura Begley, an editor for Travel + Leisure magazine, says with our hectic lives filled with devices and gadgets, it's increasingly common to leave things behind.
"These days you've got so much that you're carrying around -- you've got your cell phone, you've got your iPod, you've got your PDA."
So what are the chances of getting anything you lose back? Two "Primetime" producers set off on a cross-country trip, losing things along the way. The goal was to see if anyone returned their lost items.
The losing spree began with a cell phone left in a New York City cab. Next, a Palm Pilot left at Pennsylvania Station -- a major train depot. Each item was labeled with a contact number.
They left behind more: a red wallet stuffed with cash on an Amtrak train; a CD player at the 30th Street station in Philadelphia; a BlackBerry on an airplane to Chicago; and an iPod at the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago.
A month ago, Los Angeles taxi driver Haider Sediqi found $350,000 worth of diamonds left behind in his cab after dropping a passenger at the airport. Haider immediately turned in the diamonds to airport police, and the stones were reunited with their grateful owner -- a Texas jeweler who gave Haider a hefty $10,000 reward.
Are there other good Samaritans out there?
"I'd say there's about a 50-50 percent chance of getting something back when you lose it," Begley said.
About 18,000 items a year are turned in to the lost and found department of New York's Grand Central Station.
Mike Nolan, who runs the lost and found department there, said he sees lots of lost shopping bags this time of year. And while most people misplace common items like cell phones or glasses -- some leave behind the strangest things.
"We've had a life raft we've recovered, a basset hound we recovered," Nolan said. "We've had artificial limbs."
The Grand Central lost and found system is state of the art, and still, the return rate is only 60 percent.
"Primetime" made several other drops -- a diary on a plane bound for Las Vegas, a purse with a tracking device in the trunk of a rental car, a leather whip and furry handcuffs in a Vegas hotel, and, finally, a stuffed Tigger doll also fitted with a tracking device in the back of a cab in Hollywood.
In all, "Primetime" producers left 22 items around the country.
Eventually, the producers got a call from a good Samaritan about the wallet left on the train to Philadelphia -- though the cash had been taken.
Begley says time is of the essence when trying to track down lost items, and that you will have to do most of the work.
"You've gotta make the calls, you've gotta do some research, you've gotta keep calling back," she said.
Very few people called trying to return the lost items -- even hotels, which have contact information on guests. Begley said they may be refusing to act out of discretion. "They don't know if you're there on business or you're there on a date, and they don't want to violate that privacy," she said.
When called, though, all the hotels had "Primetime's" lost items -- even the whip and handcuffs.
Airplanes and airports seemed to be the worst places to lose things. Only one item was found on an airplane -- a personal diary.
All told, of the 22 items "Primetime" lost, nine were returned -- about a 40 percent return rate. But the recovery rate could have been much lower -- contact numbers were on all the items and we knew exactly where we had dropped them.
Two of the lost items were fitted with tracking devices -- the purse left in the trunk of a rental car and the Tigger doll left in a Hollywood taxi.
Almost five days after it was lost, "Primetime" received a call from the National rental car company, saying a worker had delivered the purse to the lost and found.
"I believe that people are generally good and they want to return things, and if there's a way to return it they will," Begley said.
But that might be a charitable view. The Tigger doll has been bouncing all over Los Angeles for two weeks, and so far, it hasn't been found by anyone looking to send him home.
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