[rassty]

I flew from Australia to London with QANTAS at the end of last year and I was lucky enough to sit on the upper deck of a 747 on a window seat with one of those bag lockers next to the seat. After sitting down I placed my mobile phone in a secure pocket in my carry on bag, which was in the bag locker next to my seat. The mobile was not touched and I did not move it again until I searched for it when I arrived in London. Where it was then discovered that it was missing. Retracing the events over the trip it became obvious to me that the only times it could have been taken was while in the stop over in Bangkok, or perhaps when I left my seat to go to the toilet. It would be hard to believe however that someone would climb over the person in the aisle seat next to me to open the locker during the flight and go through my belongings. It is also unlikely it was the person next to me as they were company executives. I am sure their toys were worth a lot more than mine. The only time it could therefore have reasonably happened is during the stop over in Bangkok.

You might be thinking what a dope leaving your mobile on the plane during the stop over... and I would normally agree, but here are some extenuating circumstances. The staff over the intercom clearly stated that it was fine to leave your bags on board for the stop-over as long as they were in the locker, nothing else was mentioned and a stewardess confirmed that it was fine to leave my bag where it was. What also didn't help was being in a sleepy befuddled state after having half slept and sitting in my seat for about 9 hours. So I left the plane with my wallet, boarding pass and passport, but no bag, laptop, mobile and my other electronic paraphernalia. Obviously after arriving in London the mobile wasn't there in the bag, it had disappeared.

The whole crappy customer relations starts after arriving in London. A baggage claims person in Heathrow was nowhere to be found and the phone was never answered at baggage claims when I called them. I therefore went to baggage claims upon return to Sydney to report the issue. The lady there was very kind to place a report. She also mentioned that they would get in contact with me. They did not. What I wasn't told was that I needed to make a separate claim to have QANTAS further investigate the issue. In other words make sure I have to go through maximum effort to get anything done. I contacted them about my report about a month later and was only then told to put in the separate claim. If it is deliberate policy to not inform clients of the procedures up front it makes it really difficult to feel that QANTAS in any way wants to deal with passenger issues and improve customer relations.

Anyhow the claim was made and it was stated that they would get in contact with me. I called QANTAS to find out what was happening with my claim and it turned out they had not even assigned it yet. It was not until I called again a week later that all of a sudden a person was assigned to my claim. After not getting called by this person I called them again to talk to my customer relations person. This customer relations person immediately stated she could do nothing for me. The only thing she cared for was that because it was a claim that she would not pay me anything to replace my mobile phone. Fair enough, no commercial company ever wants to take liability for these types of items. She refused to talk about anything else to do with this. I asked and finally received my first call from QANTAS and that was her customer relations manager who asked me to repeat what my issue was, which I explained to him. The first thing he said was we are not paying you anything. Again not a major element, but would have been nice in order to placate a customer with a serious issue. What they refused to acknowledge is what worries me. That there is a real likelihood that a staff member or contractor in Bangkok could have taken it upon themselves to go through passenger property and stolen from them.

What I would like to know is how often this happens. Are there more people for whom this has happened but have not reported it? ... and therefore it is QANTAS' rude method of fobbing me off and not facing up the possibility that this might be occurring that most concerns me.