Baggage damaged by airport security – what to do?

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 17:26:16 -0400 (Monika) wrote:

:I am looking for an advice on what I can do to get a reimbursement for
:the damaged laptop, which was taken away from me for inspection at the
:Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and sent back to me literally in
:pieces.

:Nothing I had tried so far had worked and I am hoping to receive
:advices from you on what else I can possibly do.

:Below is the description of my unfortunate adventure. You can view the
:description with pictures at:
:http://www.dov.pardes.pl/tel_aviv/

:My carry-on baggage was inspected by the airport security personnel
:during my check-in at the airport in Tel aviv on May 30, 2004. The
:laptop was taken out of my baggage by the authorities for an
:inspection.

Was it in your carry-on or in your checked baggage?

:I was told that the laptop would be inspected and safely sent to me on
:the next flight (I also received a claim ticket for the baggage.)

Why couldn't it be inspected on the spot?

I almost always fly with a laptop, and I go thru BG frequently.

Laptops are not at all "special" in Israel.

:I was also told that they were unable to inspect it at the airport and
:that the laptop would be sent off for an inspection to a remote
:location.

I fail to understand.

What is that unique about your laptop?

:I had received the laptop completely trashed and useless on June 3rd
:2004, that is three days after my arrival in US.
:The laptop was delivered in a grocery bag, wrapped merely in a couple
:of cushioned envelopes on one side. When I unpacked it, it came out
:that the laptop was completely trashed.

:The monitor was broken, the side panel torn off, the CDROM panel
:broken off, and several small pieces were broken off as well. When I
:tried to start up the laptop, my suspicions were confirmed - the
:laptop was not working and is now completely
:useless.

:From further inspection I could tell that the laptop must have been
:destroyed during the inspection, before it was improperly packaged and
:mishandled during the flight.

Fail to see how you reach that conclusion.

:Just today I had received an answer from the British Airways, in which
:they pretty much said they were sorry to hear about my misfortune, but
:there was nothing they were going to do about it. I have also written
:to Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, but I they had not responded.

Don't see why the embassy or the GOI is involved.

If luggage of mine got damaged in O'hare, I would not expect writing the US
embassy to do much good.

Ben Gurion is an independent corporation.

Why did security take your laptop? Why did you not object at the time?

--
Binyamin Dissen
http://www.dissensoftware.com

Should you use the mailblocks package and expect a response from me,
you should preauthorize the dissensoftware.com domain.

I very rarely bother responding to challenge/response systems,
especially those from irresponsible companies.

Binyamin Dissen wrote:


:From further inspection I could tell that the laptop must have been
:destroyed during the inspection, before it was improperly packaged and
:mishandled during the flight.

Fail to see how you reach that conclusion.

I suspect the packaging didn't appeared damaged, or did not appear
damaged enough to result in the damage down to the contents.