Flatmate says I owe her £600

[Digestivesandcheese]

I was meeting my flatmate (who is also a good friend) in London recently and agreed to bring her weekend bag with me on the train (She was meeting her DM earlier in the day for a trip to the Theatre) I had a rucksack containing my things for the weekend.
I got off the train in London and realised I had stupidly left her bag on the train. I got back on the train but the bag was gone! It hasn't turned up in lost property. I have chased up several times.
My friend says I owe her £600 for the bag and contents. I agree it was my fault but can I claim compensation from the rail company as the bag hasn't turned up? If not, I will have to borrow money to pay my friend for her things

It isn't an entirely different situation but if anything the airline is more liable for lost luggage as it's clearly their fault and even then they don't have to pay that much. There's a limit on how much they have to pay for specific items and they don't cover expensive items like jewelry as you are not supposed to put them in the hold anyway. I would say the same for the weekend bag. The friend would have prove not only that the bag being stolen was entirely OP's fault and that the weekend bag contained stuff that was worth much more than £600 even if second hand and not including jewelry or specific valuable items. The friend would be the one taking a "big gamble" if she went to court IMO.

In her place I would not expect you to pay to replace my stuff. She asked you to bring it to her and it seems to have been stolen - you left it for just 2 mins.

Well given she's currently paying money she can't afford to lose anyway I'd say it might be worth taking that gamble.

If the friend has no proof of what was in the bag or how much it cost what's to say there was anything in there at all.

Maybe she filled the bag with padding, followed the OP and took it herself and it was all an elaborate plan to scam her for the money.

I'm not saying that's really likely before you start but the point is she has no proof of what was in there and I think a court would want that.

It is though, each case is considered on its own individuals merits within the framework of the law that governs that particular area. In the scenario you have mentioned involves a company and insurance policies, neither of which are factors present in OP’s situation.

You’re making a lot of assumptions based on your own preference when the reality may be very different to what you hope it is. The bottom line is that in this entirely hypothetical scenario she absolutely could be held liable and easily find herself further out of pocket than she would be if she just paid the £600 straight off. As such, ‘let her take it to court’ isn’t advice that couldn’t wholly backfire.

There’s a lot of things that ‘could be’ true, whether they are or not doesn’t actually matter because OP has given no inclination that she doesn’t intend to quickly resolve this, and may very well already have.

Like I said above, the bottom line is that yes, OP could find herself liable for an amount even greater than that which she already can’t afford to lose.

If you’re ever in this exact situation you can of course consult a solicitor and decide whether or not you wish to take that gamble.

I am so frustrated at how the vast majority of posts have completely misinterpreted the situation.

OP hasn’t forgotten the bag, or lost it, or broken it.

The bag has been stolen from the train at some point- it is a crime, and the one responsible is the thief.

STOLEN PEOPLE NOT MISLAID!

@Digestivesandcheese Just to say sorry there isn't a nicer/neater resolution to this. You were doing her a favour bringing her bag down, of course it's easy to forget if you're not used to carrying other peoples stuff around/train travel etc. It's happened to all of us at one time or another and I'm sorry for you neither of you have contents insurance, especially if she likes fancier stuff and asking friends to do her a favour with stuff worth that much. Really, you've apologised, if she makes more of it than that don't lose sleep over it, it sucks but you didn't do it on purpose and you've paid her back, it's not going to happen again.

It happened to my OH when he was travelling and he lost about £2k of work equipment but luckily not his passport etc. It happened to me once in a coach station with a pair of gorgeous trainers I'd saved up for. There's opportunists everywhere and it's so easy to blink and something be taken at transport hubs. Onwards and upwards and thank goodness for your mum having it to borrow and you being able to still enjoy the weekend.

As a result of negligence. It is well established that there is a high risk of thieves operating in train stations/on trains, hence why there are posters everywhere advising you to keep track of your belongings and not leave them unattended.

OP freely admits she carelessly left the bag unattended in this environment, which is negligent. Even without a written contract, when you agree to take responsibility for someone else’s belongings it is expected that you treat them with the same care as you would your own. OP did not leave her own items unattended, and was able to keep track of them as she travelled.

I’ve said previously but there are so many replies I’ll repeat-

When travelling on a busy train with large luggage, you have to put it in the luggage racks at the ends of carriages (not the overhead racks for small bags). It’s not an option- it is a direct instruction. There is no option to keep track of your own luggage and you are not allowed to keep it on the seat next to you.

It’s an imperfect system that is a thief’s goldmine.

I’d imagine travelling with her own bag and with friend’s weekend bag would make it impossible to keep both on her lap. Therefore, on a busy train, she will have had to leave the weekend bag on the luggage rack.

I’ve been in the same situation many many times and have nearly “lost” a bag a couple of times- fortunately the vast majority of people are honest, but there are a small minority who will grab on their way out of the doors and unless you’re leaving at that point and happen to be right behind them, there’s not much you can do.

Travelling long distance on busy trains isn’t remotely like travelling with luggage by any other transportation when it comes to “unattended luggage”.

She hasn’t said it was in an overhead luggage compartment. What she said is that she forgot her friend’s bag and left the train with just her own. She freely admits to forgetting about it.

Unless you were warned about the value, or it was obvious to you, £600 seems too steep for a weekend bag of old clothes, Why so much? However, legally and morally you owe her something for your carelessness with her things, which you agreed to look after.

Do either of you have insurance? Some credit card companies insure purchases, some house insurance covers things away from home.

The railway owes you nothing. They never offered to look after the kit, so why should they pay for a thief? Their CCTV might help you catch them, but you must ask politely.

And immediately hopped back on to find it gone. Stolen.

For what it’s worth, there are overhead luggage racks- easier to keep an eye on, but only for small bags- or the main end of carriage racks for larger bags, which are very difficult to keep an eye on. We don’t know which she used, but regardless, the bag was stolen- the fact that her feet hit the platform before she realised that is completely irrelevant. If she’d looked for it before stepping through the doors it very likely would have already been gone anyway.

Well, it was hardly a "bag of old clothes" in the sense we'd usually mean it!
She was going away for the weekend; it'll presumably have contained some of her best clothes, amongst other stuff expensive to replace.

It isn’t irrelevant at all. She admits to forgetting the bag and leaving it unattended. She demonstrably did not treat it with the same care as she did her own. She admits to this.

instead of giving her the cash can you see if you can replace some stuff by buying second hand or in the Black Friday sales

see if you can save some money

we don't know that she didn't leave both bags together, unattended, and the thieves stole the expensive one.

The main issue to me is the OP having no idea the value of the bag and contents was soo much (and yes i accept it can be if you add tons of stuff up)

We'd all take much more care if someone said HERE IS MY IPAD to bring to me, versus "here is a paperback". i don't generally see my weekend bag as worth much and i don't store phone/kindle etc in it.

if you give someone something to look after, you MAKE IT CLEAR if its valuable and then the other person can refuse responsibilty for it.

report it stolen to the police. Get a crime number then claim on your household insurance policy

It’s also the responsibility of the person accepting responsibility of someone else’s item to only do so if they’re willing to accept potentially being held liable in the event of such a situation arising. OP is an adult woman with capacity, if she was ignorant to this being a possible outcome that is on her. Again, she freely admits to treating the bag with a lower standard of care than she did her own.

Morally I believe she was right to pay. We can argue back and forth about that but ultimately that just comes down to matter of opinion. Legally, she could be held liable.

And morally I believe the flatmate was completely wrong to ask her to and that although legally she could be held liable she would be very unlikely to be. I think we've established we disagree but how someone who values designer bags over people they call their friends has the nerve to talk about morals I don't know.

The ops long gone!
Strong opinions here; some which have surprised me. My take out is that I will never be responsible for anyone's possessions on a train!
I hope op doesn't have to pay 600 pounds she clearly cannot afford. I know she has agreed to...

Yeah, I’m pretty sure we established that. Legally I don’t think OP being held liable is unlikely at all, based on what she has said here. Either way it’s by the by as it isn’t going to court.

Yes, I do think that morally if you lose someone else’s things through admitted carelessness then you should pay. I hold myself to the same standard. I wouldn’t consider someone that thought it wasn’t their problem to be of any value as a friend, and certainly wouldn’t consider their absence in my life to be anything other than a positive. Whether you approve of this or not isn’t something I need to be bothered about 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think you'll find most people are reserving their 'vitriolic fury' for those people who seem to think the flatmate is the one at fault for having the sheer audacity to a) ask her friend for a favour, and b) not dress exclusively in <insert cheapest item available>.

Not to mention, all the "I would never expect my friend to replace anything" are forgetting this is a weekend away, and just because a lot of you seem to think that £600 is Kardashian levels of bling (thanks whoever coined that phrase!), you're assuming that flatmate has got a weekend wardrobes worth of cash sitting about waiting to be spent. More than likely, she's now in an expensive city where she was expecting a nice time away, and now has to spend her food/drink/entertainment budget on new clothes and toiletries.

Not to mention your equivalent is completely irrelevant, because you'd be covered by your insurance anyway under those circumstances.

Yeah I thought as much @coffeeaddict77

Lucky for you, you're not in a city with no clothing, toiletries or anything else that needs replacing unless you're happy with sleeping and spending your days in one outfit? Arguing clothes don't retain value is just stupid, we all know that, it doesn't negate the fact that OP's flatmate can't run around London in the nip.

Any more assumptions that I've made zero reference to, that you want to reference to suit your point? Surely there must some more things you apparently know about me that you've whisked out of your imagination. That was quite a leap.

I would simply NEVER ask for money from a friend, I put in a difficult position, by requesting they do me a favour. That's all you know.

Learn how to construct your point with facts, not assumptions about people. It's incredibly lazy and borish.

“If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.”