Lost Property Shambles!

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Isn't there a big flaw with typing in a description to a Database though?

Yes ... but are we sure that's actually what's done?  Is it as simple / straightforward as that?  Surely there's bound to be some sort of categorisation - check boxes for keys, phone, sweet, umbrella, laptop, cuddly toy, food items, wallet, etc, with subsections therein which should quickly reduce the search; the call centre operator may indeed be typing in the description, but on a clever system keywords will result in other popup boxes popping up subsections, and a woolly match capability may come up with "it could be this" offers.  Just because the public facing interface doesn't look very clever doesn't mean there isn't a clever system based on decades of experience behind it - lost items have always been a nightmare for the railways after all.

Of course, there will be times even with sophisticated matching that things go wrong.   If thetrout left his laptop with that serial number on any train (or on the platform at Frome!) I suspect he might be offered any other laptops left on the 19:45 Paddington to Plymouth ...

[IndustryInsider]

2) Such money does exist in Zimbabwe

Not since 2009 it doesn't!

[johoare]

I've not lost anything (other than.. see below).. on a a train since the days when Reading had a lost property office also and they had a phone number too that took me direct to them.. I got it back the next day...I am hoping there might have been a lot less "festering" lost property in those days

Having said that.. (And just so no one digs up an old post of mine)... I did lose a bag containing my purse a couple of years ago on a Paddington to Maidenhead train.. and thanks to British Transport police at Reading (who rang me not long after I realised it was lost and had found my details) and the kind staff at Reading not sending it to Bristol straight away after that, I was able to pick it up the next day from Reading..

[Chris from Nailsea]

From London 24:

Toys lost on London Underground donated to Salvation Army

A mountain of children^s toys collected by Transport for London^s (TfL^» (Transport for London - about)) lost property office have been donated to The Salvation Army just in time for Christmas.

For the sixth year running, TfL have given over 300 lost toys to the Deptford branch of The Salvation Army as part of their Christmas Present Appeal. The charity will now work alongside Lewisham Council to distribute the toys to those who may otherwise have gone without this festive period.

All the toys, ranging from dolls and play sets, to board games and electronic gadgets, had been left on the London transport network and had gone unclaimed for over three months.

Paul Cowan, Operations Performance Manager of the Lost Property Office, said: ^It is a sad fact that many children go without at this time of year. It is great to be able to provide a little bit of joy and excitement for those who may not be as fortunate as others. It is also satisfying knowing that although the toys have not been given to their original owners, they will still be loved and enjoyed just the same.^

Captain Kevin Stanbury of The Salvation Army^s Deptford Community Centre, said: ^We work in the heart of the community and with the increase in the cost of living, many people that we work with were struggling to see how they would be able to give even the most basic gift to their children. This donation means that children who would have gone without this year will now have gifts to open on Christmas morning. It really does make a difference!^

The TfL lost property office has received over 15 million items since it was established in 1933. Last year, over 220,000 items were handed in with many strange items including false teeth, wedding dresses, a puffer fish, breast implants, an urn of ashes and even a parachute ending up in the office. Around a quarter of items found on the network are restored to their owner but items not claimed are donated to charities or sold at auction.

[thetrout]

The Puffer Fish intrigues me... Perhaps thetrout shall become BakerlooLinePufferFish

[GaryM]

Well it's now time to conclude this saga.

Following a PM on this board from Jo (FGW^▸ (First Great Western)) who offered to contact the station manager at Bristol Temple Meads on my behalf, I was extremely grateful for her offer of help and thought this would be the best possible avenue so I sent her details of the lost keys but that turned out to be a complete waste of time because I never heard anything back from her, not even an acknowlegement, so it seems that all of the FGW customer service areas are as unreliable as each other

I was about to take Chris up on his offer (thanks again Chris) but a trip to the region then cropped up so I thought it might be a good idea to take a detour and drop into Temple Meads station which I did today. What I discovered when I arrived at the lost property office was almost unbelievable and it's no wonder FGW end up with so much unclaimed lost property to dispose of. It's actually even more of a shambles than I originally thought it was.

On arriving at the lost property desk I asked the staff member on duty about the lost keys. He then just pointed to two large A4 folders and told me that if the keys had been found then the details would be in there somewhere. He opened one of the folders and to my amazement it was just packed to the brim with sheets of paper containing hand-written details of every lost property item that had been handed in. Slightly puzzled I questioned him about the so called database and asked why he couldn't just search it on the computer. He then proceeded to tell me that descriptions of all lost property items were just hand-written into the folders by the staff at Bristol and the A4 sheets then get periodically faxed(!) off to Plymouth where someone there then enters details into the database which the Indian call centre uses to search on. He said the Bristol office don't have access to the lost property database and they just have to manually look through the folders if someone comes to the office enquiring about a lost item! I almost had to lift my jaw off the floor. The words FGW, dark ages, arse and elbow spring to mind here.

Seeing some of the entries in the folders, not only were there hundreds of them for the past month alone spanning many pages but some of the hand writing wasn't that easy to read either, so factor in that plus the poor quality that you usually get on the receiving end of a fax, then someone at Plymouth trying to decipher the text from that and type something meaningful into the database that someone at the Indian call centre might be able to understand. Not to mention the fact that the descriptions entered all seemed pretty brief and nothing to really to help an owner identify some of the items as specifically being theirs. I must have seen at least 20 iPhones with the description simply being "iPhone". I'm surprised anything gets reunited with it's owner at all. God help anyone who loses an item on FGW property and good luck trying to get it back even if FGW do actually have it in their lost property stock room!

I have to give credit to the guy at the lost property office though because he was very helpful and spent a good 10 minutes pain stakingly going through hundreds of hand-written enties in the folder for the past five weeks but unfortunately he drew a blank so the keys either didn't end up at the FGW lost property or the hand-writing of any entry for them wasn't deciperable but it looks like that avenue is now closed anyway.

[johoare]

And the best thing is.. I bet they are there... They just can't locate them due to their (very archaic) system...

[GaryM]

I guess we'll never know I now seem to have exhaused every possible way of finding out

[johoare]

Maybe Ollie could help since Jo has already offered her help? They may have contacts...