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Nevada-Las Vegas
vegasgroom
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My luggage was stolen from LAS airport!
Hey everyone, here's a long story but first, a travel tip regardless of airport; position yourself at the baggage claim so you can see your luggage come out of the baggage handling area. If you don't, someone could walk off with your bag. I'd also recommend making your luggage as bright and obnoxious as possible; if your bag is blue or black and blends in, less chance you'll see it and much higher chance someone will try to walk off with it.
So, now the story. Wife and I fly in on Southwest at 2:30 PM yesterday. Out comes the bags; we're on the first claim near where the Southwest missing luggage office is. We're on the external side of the building and luggage gets dropped onto the conveyor on the side facing the middle of the building, so we did not have a view of our luggage until it came around the corner.
Our first two of three bags come around in the first 10 bags off the plane, the third never appeared. We filed a claim, Southwest from yesterday through today had zero info. AND, even worse, apparently Southwest doesn't even scan their bags as they traverse one airport to another, so they had no idea if the bags were in our origin city, in the connector or in LAS somewhere.
Fortunately the bag that was stolen was only my dress clothes, so I wasn't without stuff to wear, but of course it was several thousand dollars in suits and my wedding tux which I had brought back to wear on this trip.
Here's where it gets weird. I was up till 5 gambling, came up to sleep, around noon I get a call from the owner of a local sandwich shop that they had my luggage tag and padlock (with the wire cut). She explained a weirdo was in their store last night so after he left, they watched the video to make sure he hadn't done anyhthing while they were in the back cooking what he ordered. They saw him try to secretly drop something in the trash can. Went in there, and my luggage tag, padlock and the same for someone else's were in the trash. They took them aside and called me and the cops this morning.
We decided to go down there, the cops showed up at the same time we were there, took a photo of the guy from the store's video camera playback and said they'd try to match the guy up to the video at the airport. Well that wasn't quite good enough for us. The store owner let me look at the video and I snapped some pics too with the intent on building a web page dedicated to identifying this guy, was going to post him on craigslist, etc. with reward offered. Then, we google mapped a few pawn shops that were close to this sandwich shop.
The first pawn shop said they dont' take clothes but gave us the name of a second hand clothing store. As we drove to the airport to file the official police report, my wife starts calling that place. They hadn't seen our clothes but gave us the name of two other stores that do the same thing. As I'm filling out the police report, the cop who was at the restaurant showed up so he was there. My wife is on her phone calling the third store name we were given and the person at the store not only recognized seeing what had been stolen in my bag, but they had his NAME AND NUMBER! Apparently the dumb bastard wanted more for the clothes than what they offered him and the lady said well leave your name and number and the manager will be here tomorrow and she'll call you to see if she can make you a better offer.
My wife hands the phone to the officer, he gets things set up with the store so that the cops will go there tomorrow and tell the guy they're the manager and to come on in with the clothes because they can authorize paying him more than the clerk working today could. When he shows up, he gets arrested.
So everyone keep us in their thoughts tonight and hope this greedy piece of sh*t shows up tomorrow with my stuff and ends up in jail. Hopefully I'll even get some of it back but we'll see what he still has.
And, if you're in Vegas, please go buy lunch or dinner from Hougan's Racing Sandwich Shop - http://hougans.com/ They're only about a ten minute drive from the strip resorts. This guy would have gotten away with this crime if not for their diligence; they even wanted to not charge us for the food we ate while we were there. They're incredible people.
So, now the story. Wife and I fly in on Southwest at 2:30 PM yesterday. Out comes the bags; we're on the first claim near where the Southwest missing luggage office is. We're on the external side of the building and luggage gets dropped onto the conveyor on the side facing the middle of the building, so we did not have a view of our luggage until it came around the corner.
Our first two of three bags come around in the first 10 bags off the plane, the third never appeared. We filed a claim, Southwest from yesterday through today had zero info. AND, even worse, apparently Southwest doesn't even scan their bags as they traverse one airport to another, so they had no idea if the bags were in our origin city, in the connector or in LAS somewhere.
Fortunately the bag that was stolen was only my dress clothes, so I wasn't without stuff to wear, but of course it was several thousand dollars in suits and my wedding tux which I had brought back to wear on this trip.
Here's where it gets weird. I was up till 5 gambling, came up to sleep, around noon I get a call from the owner of a local sandwich shop that they had my luggage tag and padlock (with the wire cut). She explained a weirdo was in their store last night so after he left, they watched the video to make sure he hadn't done anyhthing while they were in the back cooking what he ordered. They saw him try to secretly drop something in the trash can. Went in there, and my luggage tag, padlock and the same for someone else's were in the trash. They took them aside and called me and the cops this morning.
We decided to go down there, the cops showed up at the same time we were there, took a photo of the guy from the store's video camera playback and said they'd try to match the guy up to the video at the airport. Well that wasn't quite good enough for us. The store owner let me look at the video and I snapped some pics too with the intent on building a web page dedicated to identifying this guy, was going to post him on craigslist, etc. with reward offered. Then, we google mapped a few pawn shops that were close to this sandwich shop.
The first pawn shop said they dont' take clothes but gave us the name of a second hand clothing store. As we drove to the airport to file the official police report, my wife starts calling that place. They hadn't seen our clothes but gave us the name of two other stores that do the same thing. As I'm filling out the police report, the cop who was at the restaurant showed up so he was there. My wife is on her phone calling the third store name we were given and the person at the store not only recognized seeing what had been stolen in my bag, but they had his NAME AND NUMBER! Apparently the dumb bastard wanted more for the clothes than what they offered him and the lady said well leave your name and number and the manager will be here tomorrow and she'll call you to see if she can make you a better offer.
My wife hands the phone to the officer, he gets things set up with the store so that the cops will go there tomorrow and tell the guy they're the manager and to come on in with the clothes because they can authorize paying him more than the clerk working today could. When he shows up, he gets arrested.
So everyone keep us in their thoughts tonight and hope this greedy piece of sh*t shows up tomorrow with my stuff and ends up in jail. Hopefully I'll even get some of it back but we'll see what he still has.
And, if you're in Vegas, please go buy lunch or dinner from Hougan's Racing Sandwich Shop - http://hougans.com/ They're only about a ten minute drive from the strip resorts. This guy would have gotten away with this crime if not for their diligence; they even wanted to not charge us for the food we ate while we were there. They're incredible people.
Married in Vegas - June 2011
This discussion has been closed.
Re: My luggage was stolen from LAS airport!
Hope everything works out for you!!!
Awesome detective work
This actually happened to H at the Minneapolis airport a couple years ago, but we caught the douche before he tried to run out of the door with his suitcase. We are extra paranoid now and try to get as close to the area the bags first appear on the belt.
I hope they catch your douche. People suck.
Now I'm glad I have a bright purple suitcase (despite FI's protests
Also, this is another reason why I put my work address (a business card) with my cell phone number on my luggage tags, but not my home address. The last thing I want is some creeper thief knowing where I live. Scary stuff.
RSVP Date: 10/04/2012
Married in Vegas - June 2011
Married in Vegas - June 2011
Hopefully Southwest airlines will step up to the plate and replace the remainder of what wasn't recovered.
Could not have done it without Hougan's sandwich shop; we called to update them and they said they've had a few calls from people on here already, thanks for everyone giving them business, great bunch of people there and two criminals off the street as a result.
Married in Vegas - June 2011