To ask if you check your luggage

[CupidIsFired]

Just come back from holiday. I hear about people picking up wrong suitcases all the time but thankfully it had never happened to me.
Well when we landed home last night, we were waiting at the carousel for our baggage, I had DD 16 months with me and she was tired, so I sat on the bench with her while my DM and friends waited for the luggage. I saw my friend take a buggy off and it was the same as mine, my mum was insisting it wasn't. I went over and it was the exact same buggy as mine, only it was alot dirtier and it was damaged. Some rips to the hood and underbasket etc. Checked the label and it was someone else's. I waited for everything to come out and there were no more buggies just this one. My mum went through and had a lool around to see if she could see anyone with my buggy but she couldn't. I asked a member of staff and they said they would help me locate the other family.
We went through and the man was trying to find the contact number for the family when I spotted my buggy. I went over to the family with their buggy and said "hey I'm really Sorry, I think you have picked up my buggy instead, but here is yours" the woman didn't even check the labels she looked at the other women travelling with her who had a pretty miserable expression, took her bag off the buggy and sort of huffed a bit. Didn't even apologise or even look a little shocked. I bought my buggy recently so it's pretty new looking and theirs wasn't. It almost felt as though they knew they had the wrong one? They took their buggy and left without saying a word. They actually made me feel as though I did something wrong.
I always check the labels on my luggage and don't know why some people don't?
Also if I had picked up someone else's things by mistake, I would've at least apologised or said thank you for returning it? Or AIBU to expect that? I know travelling is tiring, especially with small children, I still returned their item to them aswell so a simple sorry, thank you wouldn't have hurt.

Think about it - it's highly unlikely that someone would intentionally steal your luggage. People wouldn't pay for a flight just on the off chance someone might have something valuable in their case - a very risky strategy! Slightly different with the buggy, but sounds like a spur of the moment cheeky gambit that didn't pay off.

In some countries (e.g. China) they have someone stationed at the exit from the baggage hall checking you've picked up the right suitcases. When they stick the tags on your passport/boarding card at checkin.... you have to show them those and they check them against the suitcases you have claimed. I like this.

We once took the wrong bag at a theme park after a ride. Luckily the person whose bag it was saw us and we managed to get our bag back.

Easily done with similar looking bags.

I once picked up the wrong case

I was at an airstrip which handled 4 flights a day in a remote area.

I have a generic black samsonite case, but I use a bright orange luggage strap and have plastic personalized Emirates tags and Etihad tags on from when they sent you them with your gold membership. And I had my international emirates priority tags still on it from the previous flight, not my random domestic one I was on.

I was 100% certain it was mine

A bloke came over carrying the identical case. Orange strap. Etihad and Emirates plastic tags with M Snails on them - the one is picked up said J Smith!

I ended up going hiking with him the next day after we laughed about the utterly weird coincidence (no, I didn’t marry him)

@PolaDeVeboise I thought it was unlikely too, but then thinking of it, if someone was travelling with just hand luggage then I guess they could decide to take a suitcase on the off chance it would have something of value inside?
I remember watching a programme, it was like storage wars, where they would have people bidding on suitcases that had been left behind or lost and never claimed back. Obviously these cases were expensive brands which suggested there may be something on value inside.
My suitcase is bright blue and I've wrote my name on it in black marker pen on top. So I usually don't have a problem with my suitcase. But my buggy may need some customising

I understand how taking the wrong bag can happen, and most time it is done purely by accident, but it can be avoided if you just check the labels/tags.
@malmi I also like the sound of this. Wish they did this everywhere.

This is why I avoid black, navy and grey cases.

So easy to muddle!!

I have a distinctive faded mark on my case, last holiday we arrived at our destination and I saw it come out but was round the other side of the loop, an old couple hauled it off as soon as it came out and I had to battle through masses of people to get to them as they headed for the exit. They didn't even apologise and headed back to the baggage belt. My suitcase is purple and hard shell. The one they eventually took was about a 20 year old fabric bottle green with a side handle instead of a pull handle. It was so bizarre I wondered if it was some sort of scam to get a newer suitcase.

Someone once took my case off the carousel, realised it wasn’t theirs and just dumped it on the floor. I was then faced with an empty carousel thinking my case had been lost until I walked around the other side in desperation and found it on the floor. Ffs, why, if you take the wrong case off would you just dump it on the floor and not put it back on the carousel?

My ex picked up the wrong case. It was after a long flight, a long, long time at immigration and was a new case he wasn't familiar with. I realised when we were stood outside the airport and sent him back in with it. By then airport security were unscrewing parts of his as unclaimed security risk.
Same ex collected someone from airport who realised he got the wrong luggage when he got to the hotel. Bizarrely he knew the guy whose luggage he had. Rang the other man (who hadn't realised). Ex had to drive to Birmingham to swap them back.

And this right here is why I send my luggage ahead of me ... No one can steal it and wrap the baby until it arrives.

They definitely knew though. There is no way they didn't and hoped to get away before you noticed waiting so long for yours.

The thought of this stresses me out so much - seems everybody always has the same case as me and to be honest its in good nick so i can't justify the cost of replacing it yet.
I put everything such as my shopping etc that can't be replaced by insurance in my hand luggage case just as a extra procaution... Obviously the worse could still happen but hopefully not.

I've done it! Only once and I was seriously sleep deprived, but I picked up a bag I genuinely thought was mine, opened it up for my fleece, panicked because I couldn't find it, didn't even register that I was looking at a big red handbag that I didn't own.

Fortunately I spotted a rather anxious looking woman by the carousel, and the truth dawned. I did indeed have her bag and I was very apologetic. I think she was too relieved to be shitty but she could have been.