Lost items-share your horror stories

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Sometime last night my cell phone seems to have walked away. After searching for it at every location I had been to, I've come to the conclusion that it must have been picked up and 'inherited.' Now, this, although a bad thing, isn't that bad in itself. The downer comes when you think about airtime. If someone did find it, they had approximatly 12 hours to phone any number they could think of. Local, a different provence, Siberia. To top off matters, my phone service provider refuses to screen my airtime charges before the monthly bill is released in over a week.

So, my question is this: have you ever had some seemingly minor snafu turn into an uber problem? That is, has something that costed you a negligible amount become a major financial issue? Such examples could include anything ranging from something like my phone incident, to, say, an experiment with file-sharing that became a $5000 settlement with the RIAA.

 

Never had anything major 'misplace' itself. Sorry. Though, for the giggle factor, I lost my pet cat when I was around 12 and Mom said, "Well, it didn't just get up and walk away."

 

I had my Siemens M46 repaired a few months ago, and I was given a Moto RAZR as a courtesy phone. I went to a beer-bash one evening, and when I woke up in the morning, the RAZR was nowhere to be found. Struck with panic (This IS an *expensive* phone, after all), I frenitically searched everywhere I remembered passing by last night. After many hours, and finding no RAZR, I went back home. Just when I got my hands on the phone to call Rogers and told them I had lost the phone, I heard the familiar Motorola ringer. Intrigued, I finally found the phone lodged between the outer and inner shells of my leather coat. My pocket had a big hole in it, and the phone fell inside. Needless to say I was releived not having to pay them the price of the phone...

I was reunited with my Siemens a week after. It... has never been the same ever since.

 

Hmmm...I have Delta Airlines to thank for my story.

This happened when I still lived in CA; we were in UT visiting family. On the return flight back to CA, the flight had a layover at Las Vegas for approximately 1 hour. When we finally got to LAX airport, we went to the baggage claim to get our stuff and head home. We waited for about an hour and thirty minutes at the baggage claim, but not one of our bags came out. It turns out that when we were at Las Vegas, our baggage somehow made its way on to a plane headed for Florida. Worse yet, my dad had put his keys in his suitcase, as he had no use for them while in UT. Without them, we couldn't get in to our car, which was parked in the 'Long Term' parking lot, nor could we get in to our house *if* we were able to get a ride home.

He filled out a claims form and we were told that our baggage *should* find their way back to LAX within two business days. They told my dad that they would be willing to pay for an "Airport Shuttle" van to take us all home...but that still leaves us locked out of our own home.

We finally got home (LAX was about 20 or so miles away from our house, which in CA driving time took about an hour or so...). My dad was so mad to begin with, he walked around back and broke my bedroom window and climbed in (my bedroom was the only room on the ground floor that faced the backyard.) So after all that had happened that day, I had to sleep on the couch.

 

I had a new cell phone and during my holidays on kayak I dropped it in the water. Never talk when on water.

 

I had a strange lost luggage story; last year I flew to Ancona in Italy with 2 Colleagues to do some analysis on a new system the UK was going to write for Italy. We flew with that wonderful cheap airline Ryanscare (sorry Ryanair) and arrived in Ancona to find that we were among the about 30 people whose luggage had been left in Stansted Airport.
There was 1 person dealing with the claims (it's a very small airport) and after nearly 2 hours I had an Incident response report (IRR) in my hand. On the way to our final destination (Fabriano) I phoned my bank in england who provide me with free travel insurance to get the company's phone number so I could start the claims process. From my hotel I phoned the insurance company gave them the details and asked them what I was entitled to, they told me that I could claim up to £100 if the luggage arrived within 24 hours.
Our luggage arrived at 6pm local time and the insurance company had asked me to ring them when I got it, so I did and they said thank you and they would send me some forms for when I got back.
When I arrived home there was a letter from the insurance company saying that Ryanair had admitted it was thier fault and no further communication was necessary from me and a cheque fro £200.
Nice Huh get my luggage lost, found returned and end up richer, never known that before.

 

It's strange how the air companies allways manage to mess up with the luggage. Anyway I've lost my cellphone a couple of times and my keys but I have allways found them. The worst would have to be loosing my passport which was kind of bad since I was abroad at the time, but I found it later on my hotelroom bedtable. I'm pretty sure that I did not put it there since I would have noticed so it's likely that one of the cleaners found it and put it there. Luckily they were honest enough not to steal it.

 

The worst things that happen to me are losing vital keys/items in BG2

 

I "lost" my coat once...I was drinking at a friend-of-a-friend's house, then slept at home from 11 AM to about 6PM. When I woke up, I was still drunk as ****, and I found my coat was gone. I did some serious thinking, "Oh, I musta left it back there", went back, ploughed through the whole place and came back empty handed. The next day, at home, the old momma said "Your coat is still here in the bathroom. It's dry now."

Man, did I feel dumb. Had to keep a straight face and say, "Yeah, I know."

 

Funny, Kuemper!

 

A very old beat up leather jacket with holes in all the pockets went walkabout from the back of the car when I was moving in one year at uni.
And I lost a black denim shirt I lent to a very cold lass on one very wet evening down in Swanage. Too much alcohol and I forgot to ask for it back at the end of the evening. She was from Marlborough in Wiltshire I believe.

My cat disappeared for about 6 months when I was 14, but that was more to do with my Gran and her dog moving in with us temporarily.

 

Grgh!!! I lost my lucky battery. It's been more than a day now, and it's never been missing this long.

Short story: It was a AAA battery I carried around for no reason other than it amused me.

Long story: I don't remember how it came to be in my pocket the first time, but when I dumped out my pockets one night, that little triple-A surprised me with its presence. I vowed to check the charge the next day to see if it was still usable, but come morning I was in such a rush that I just scooped everything up and thrust it into my pockets. The pattern repeated itself for about a week straight until I wondered if I should just forget about checking it and just carry it around for "tradition's sake". The very next day, I woke up in plenty of time to have a nice, relaxed morning before heading to school, and it's been my "lucky" battery ever since.

 

I think this has to be the first time that I've heard of anyone who has a lucky battery.

 

i have a lucky battery aswell!!!

just about the same storie, i have just never taken it out of my jacket, and it is'nt gone.
it's also a triple A

 

Last christmas my mom bought two DVD movies as presents for a grandchild and a greatgrandchild. It christmas eve and we took a cab home from the mall. When we got into my house I was looking through our stuff and noticed that they were missing. My mom went outside to see if they had dropped in the parking lot or something and while she was there the cab we had been in came back. The really kind cab driver told her that he didn't know what house she had gone into so he had been driving around the area for 5 minutes hoping to spot us. She gave him a really big hug. I called the cab company and told them what a great person this fellow was and even though I didn't know his name they knew who it was from his description. His wife was due to have a baby within a few weeks and I hope everything went well for him because he has to have a lot of good karma coming his way.

:edit: Oops....it was supposed to be horror stories. Well it was kind of horrifying for my mom when she realized that she had lost $50 worth of presents on christmas eve and there would have been no way to replace them on time.

 

I just found my battery when I came home and moved the rug. I guess it just wanted me to pine over it a little.

@Balle:
You're man.
.
.
.

 

No worries Dragonfly, some horror stories are graced with happy endings(such as really nice cabbies). In fact, I've got my fingers crossed in hopes that my bill, which should come tomorrow or Thursday, only costs the usual monthly amount and not a gazoozle more. Mmm, happy ending pick me!

Heh, regarding other horror stories, I can think of one that just recently happened to my boss. Lets just say that losing a wedding ring at work isn't likely to go down well with the misses.

 

Felinoid - i know iv'e been atending Battery keepers Anonymous meetings the last two months... still having the battery

 

I was having fun on a jet ski at the beach. Blasting as fast as I could hitting the waves and crashing through them. I hit one a little sideways, came over the top and smashed into another wave a little off balance. My wife says it was the funniest thing she ever saw -- me cartwheeling through the air just above the water. My glasses came flying off when I hit the water (in spite of having the the stupid looking strap attached to them). I looked around and saw them slowly sinking in ~30' of water (in spite of the stupid looking strap being advertised as a floating strap).