September 18, 2025 • 37 mins
How far away has your luggage been left behind never to be returned? Josh Bittker is a local Cambridge guy whose luggage despite containing an Apple AirTag with its exact location known, had his luggage left behind at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris by Air France, never to be returned. Despite persistent communication by Bittker and assurance from the airline that they knew where his luggage was and that it would be returned, the airline turned around and dubbed the luggage a total loss and it ended up at a Parisian thrift store! Josh shared his story with us as we invited listeners to also share your lost luggage stories!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WVS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh. I thank very much, Dan Watkins. As we move
into our nine o'clock hour, and this, of course is
the first hour during the program when you have the
ability to join the conversation. We had some interesting guests
tonight in that first hour, the eight o'clock hour, But
now we're going to talk to a gentleman from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(00:30):
I read my Boston Globe this morning, and I read
the piece by Sean Murphy, who's a great friend and
a great writer who follows in the footsteps of his dad,
Jormia Murphy, who wrote for the Globe for many many
years and was always very kind to me when I
was a young reporter growing up. The name of the
column in the Globe is in the D section the
(00:53):
well the business section is also the D section is
entitled tagged Out. When I France his luggage, he thought
his ear tag would save it. He was wrong with us.
It is Josh Bitker. Hi, Josh, welcome. Thanks so much
for being willing to join us tonight. I'm sure you've
had more than a few phone calls today.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
How you doing good? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Hi, Dan, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. Absolutely, I assume it's been a busy day. I
mean that was a pretty prominent piece in the Boston
Globe today and it was a nightmare. So tell us
the story you and your family took. It was a
vacation to France in August, as I read the story, correct, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
We were in Europe for two weeks. We spent a
week in Geeva and week in Paris with my wife
and I and our four kids.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Nice. Well, how old are the kids? I big travel
with young kids, I know it could be a challenge.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, yeah, No, we did travel with them when they
were younger, and we actually lived abroad with them for years,
so we're pretty experienced travelers. But they're relatively old now.
Our oldest is twenty, and then we have an eighteen
year old and a fifteen year old.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
She was twelve at the time. She just turned thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Well that's great now that you have responsible near adults
there and some adults actually. Yeah, so you are coming home,
you're flying Were you at Orley Airport or charlester Go
And so sometime if I have a talk to I
can tell you a funny story about Charles to call.
(02:24):
But obviously with my kids when we when they were younger,
and my wife. But we'll say that, let's focus on
your situation. So being a smart guy, the article said
you're a scientist, so that means right away you're a
pretty smart guy in my in my mind, you purchased
what they call an air tag twenty five bucks. I
don't have an air tag, and I'm not sure I
(02:45):
want to get one now, but that's okay. Do you
have an air tag and every piece of luggage or
do you just put it in I guess you have
to put it in every piece of luggage, one in
every piece of luggage, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I mean definitely our check bags. We attached to things
like our keychain, you know. We actually we have an
hour dog's collar in case you ever gets lost. The
pretty handy tools sure okay.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And for those the uninitiated, and I guess I mean
that category. How does it work? You you activate this device?
I don't know if you put it inside the bag
or if you hooked it onto the outside of the
bag or the or the dog. If the dog gets lost,
what do you go to the app and all of
(03:27):
a sudden it'll show you where where the dog is
wandering or maybe in this case, where your your piece
of luggage was left correct.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
It's it's a little thing. It's about the size of
the quarter. There's a picture of one with the story
in the Globe and you know. The way it works,
it's actually it's on its own. It's not like a
cell phone. It just emits like a weak signal, bluetooth signal.
But it's clever. The way it works is if it's
ever nearby someone who has an iPhone, it anonymously uses
that iPhone to kind of upload its position to Apple surfers.
(03:59):
And so you know, so many people have iPhones that
people walk by, and it's pretty constantly update if it's
in a busy area like an airport.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Okay, so in your situation, according to the article, when
you were when you were checking your bags, and it
looks to me like the bag in question, which you
had one similar to it in the Globe day. It
wasn't your traditional piece of you know, airplane luggage. It
looks more like kind of a catch all duffel bag.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah, it was like a soft side uffel bag. It
had a bunch of zipper pockets, and so you know,
we stuck the air tag in the bottom one of
those pockets, closed the zipper, and so YO should have
stayed with the bag.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And yeah, so you hit, you hit Logan the airport.
Hopefully you had a good flight, and yeah, all of
a sudden, there's a one piece of luggage missing, which
is this is all of them. All of the check
bags had air tags. So I don't know how many
bags you checked, but if just sort of thinking mathematically, uh,
one didn't make it home, how many made at home?
(04:57):
I want to give Air France credit for getting at
least some of the luggage car well.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Fast down because we only checked one bag.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
No, I was hoping you're gonna tell me like they
at least we're hitting two fifty or something. They got
zero oh zero zero zero. So you get off the flight,
you walk to the bug to the baggage carousel, your
bag doesn't show up. How long does it take for
them to to have you spend at Logan Airport or
(05:28):
do you just leave and they say, hey, we we'll
get it home to you later on tonight. Tell us
the story. You're at Logan Airport, the bag is not
on the luggage carousel. Everybody else walks away, and the
six of you are standing there looking for the bag
that doesn't exist. What did you do? And how to
just explain what happened that? Because I think we've all
been kind of there at some point, but we've never
(05:50):
really all gone through it. What you've gone through?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Go ahead, Yeah, Well it's interesting because I actually it
started even before that. When we were getting on the
plane in Paris, I could see that the bag hadn't
even left the place where we dropped it off or checking.
And I actually asked the gate agent when we were boarding, like, hey,
my bags looks like it's not on the plane. It
says three minutes ago, is back where we dropped it off?
If she checks the computer and says, oh, no, it's
on its way. It's you know, it'll be on the
(06:14):
Plane's like okay, And so yeah, when we land, Logan,
I check the phone and it's still back in Paris,
and so yeah, we go and doesn't chope, my krauseol
like you said. And so we go and we tell
Air France like, hey, look at our phone. It says
the bag's still in Paris, and they look at it
like oh yeah, it just missed that flight. It'll be
on the next flight. Don't worry, we'll deliver it to
your house. When when when it comes.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
On the next perfect solve. Problem solved, you thought, right, right, exactly,
not quite what happened next.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
So yeah, it turns out, you know, so obviously I'm
keeping tabs on it, and I checked the next morning
and nope, didn't wasn't on that flight. It's still on
Paris still. You know, the precision on the air tag is,
you know, as precise as like if you look at
your location on like Google Maps or something on your phone,
right like you know, within fifty feet or so. And
so it's still as far as I can tell still
even in the terminal, hasn't even gone anywhere. And so
(07:05):
you know, we had filed when we got when we
were at Logan and we told them the bag was
and there they gave us like a claim thing. And
what was weird is then the next day so we
flew on Saturday Sunday, it didn't show up Monday their
system updates and said, oh, yeah, now it's in Boston.
I'm like, that's not what my air tag says. So
like because it's a pre mismatch between their system and
what my phone says. And obviously I trust the phone
(07:27):
more than I trust air Friends.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So what happened next?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
So we called their customer service. They said, oh, yeah lost,
you know, well, when it shows up, we'll deliver it.
And then, you know, they kept insisting it was in Boston.
The system online says it's going to be delivered. And meanwhile,
on Tuesday that week, like three days after our flight,
he now says, okay, it's moved from the terminal. I'm like,
oh great, now I look and it's in some central place.
(07:56):
It's not even on the terminals. It's like, I don't know,
middle of the airport somewhere. And so I actually went
over to Logan later that week and talked to someone
in person who actually probably the most helpful person throughout this,
someone who's actually a Delta employee on their France because
I said, hey, this thing says that our bag is here,
can you go get it for us. He's like, yeah,
I'll go check, but I don't think it is and
he checks it's not.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
There is Delta somehow in a partnership with Air France.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
And the guy just a good guy uh no, so delta.
You know, this dis flight was like I guess you
call it code chair, so it was like an air
flant slash delta flight.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Okay, fair enough. Yeah, so it's it's still not found,
and you've really been inconvenienced, and you've been you know,
kind of strung along to. I would use stronger language
if we were not on the radio. You found out
from then they that they had sent your bag. They
(08:53):
basically had given up on your bag and had sent
it to some sort of a thrift shop somewhere in
France as a domination of your stuff to this thrift shop.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Yeah, it was kind of crazy. So even you know,
so one week goes by, nothing there. We bought some stuff.
We filed, you know, because we've had to buy some
medicine and stuff there's in the bag which probably shouldn't
have put in the check bag, but so we file acclaim.
Next week, my son calls because he was helping out,
he was home from college, and they say, oh, yeah,
we found your bag again. You know, it's in Paris,
they say they found it. Another week goes by. It's
(09:28):
now we're two weeks after the flight, and then the
air tag updates again. So now it's no longer in
the middle of the airport. It's someplace north of Paris.
I'm like, what is that? And so I look up
the address and it's this like charity thrift shop. I'm like, okay,
I guess they decided it was abandoned and they gave
it away to a charity.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And from the point of view of the bag, that's
the end of the story. But it's really not the
end of the story because now at this point you're
out in your inconvenience. I would be I would be
climbing the wall. Thank god, there was nothing in there
of immense. You know, your your wedding pictures or something
(10:07):
you know that you might have taken, or your the
baby pictures of the kids. Nothing that you lost of
a hugely sentimental value.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Right, Well, well one thing, and I'm going to embarrass
my eighteen year old here, and again we don't usually
check bag, and so this is kind of our fault
that I didn't tell the kids don't put anything really
important in there. So our eighteen year old, who just
started college, he actually always kept his baby blanket from
when he was an infant, and he put that in there,
and so he lost his eighteen year old baby blanket. Unfortunately,
(10:37):
that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Some kid in France somewhere. Let me do this if
I can, because the story even gets worse than this,
as far as I'm concerned, Josh, if you could hold on,
I'd like to hold you till one more segment, just
to finish the story. You know, the sad part about
this is the article you came across is a really
nice guy, and you come across on the phone as
a really nice guy. And I just don't understand why
(11:00):
these airline companies. I know that they're they're overstretched, their
employees are frazzled, but you would think that they would
have some empathy for a family, uh in this situation
and in someone someone in air France would have tried
to do the right thing, but apparently not. We'll take
a quick break. I'm back with my guest. His name
(11:22):
is Josh Bitker. I'm not going to take him, tab
him take phone calls, because that's not part of the
deal here. When we finish up with Josh at nine thirty,
I'm going to have you join me and talk about
some of your experiences with companies that really kind of
was willing. They were willing to take your money, except
you as a customer, but weren't willing not only to
(11:44):
go to the extra mile, to go like the extra
five yards and find your darn bag. Back on night side,
you have the number six one, seven, two, five four
ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty
back on nightside.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Right after this, you're on night Side with Dan Ray
us Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So Josh, after this dreadful experience, it certainly did put
a problem, you know, a real dent on the on
the whole experience. My understanding is that the bag contained
some dental retainers. I assume those were for your children,
prescription medications, some souvenirs, items of some sentimental value, close,
(12:28):
et cetera, a complete you know, pain of the neck.
What has Air France offered to do you know, if anything,
for for for the inconvenience that they have caused you
and your family to suffer.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
So you know, essentially nothing, because you know, they tell
you they give you a site to go put in
the list of things and claim a certain value. And we,
as I said, we did that right after the bag
was lost. Things we had to piss immediately, and then
once the bag we knew was gone, we kind of
put in the claim for the rest of the value
of the things in there, the bag itself whatever. Sure,
(13:03):
and they basically nothing has happened with that. We've called
their helpline and all of a sudden the story. You know,
they can't even give us an estimate. They haven't even
assigned someone to review it. They can't give us an
estimate of when to expect, if any, reimbursement, you know,
So that was part of the part of the reason
I contacted Sean. You know, I knew that the Globe
(13:24):
had some success with big.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Companies like this.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
They can get in through the press office whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
And it's funny.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
I think Sean got a little frustrated too, and wasn't
really able to get anywhere you could. The statement from
Air France, it's kind of a boilerplate, you know. We
asked them, why didn't you use the air tag We're
mabing the info, and they just said, yeah, sorry for
your loss, but haven't done anything.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We've all been through that that was that probably wasn't
even a person who was probably a bot or something
like that, right, you know, I love this stuff. The phony.
They give you this picture of someone, you can have
a live chat to find what a lie yet means
you're not talking to a human being. It's all right.
You could you could ask him you know, uh, you
know who was number nine for the bustin Red Sox.
Thank you for your question. It's have you tried? And
(14:06):
this is really this is me speaking to you as
a as a new friend. I would be calling the
French console in Boston tomorrow and I would send a
copy of this interview that we've just done on WBZ,
which is heard in thirty eight states. And make no
mistake about it. The airline that you've been disappointed by
(14:29):
is Air France. And you know you're a scientist, so
you probably know how to pull this down. We posted
this on Nightside and Demand, So this entire interview you
can have. Rob can get you a copy of and
you could share it, perhaps with the Consul general of
whoever's whoever represents France here in Boston. That might be
(14:51):
another avenue that would get you some response just.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Saying yeah, no, I mean we tried a lot of things.
We've you know, you can file with like the US FAA,
with the European regulators. But yeah, anything that will get
their attention. I think that's the main thing is it's
just kind of they have the system in place where
they claim they even have a link to give them
the air tag link so they can find it, and
we knew that nobody ever even opened it. So it just, yeah,
(15:16):
the problem is just sort of getting their attention, it
seems so maybe, Well, the thing.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
About an airline, you know, whether it's you know, you know,
any national airline, the government runs the airline, unlike you
know our airlines. You know, we have American airlines, but
it's running a private company. But Air France, I assume
is run by France. I think you know l L
is run by Israel, you know all you know those
(15:40):
are those are country run airlines. And I offered that
suggestion to you And if you stick on with Rob,
he'll he'll be able to tell you how to get
a copy of This will be posted some time after midnight,
as we post every hour of every show on nightside
and demand pretty easy to pull down. And you know,
(16:00):
they have just gotten a bunch of publicity that if
I was the head of Air France, I would be
very unhappy both having seen this article in the Globe
today and having listened to Night's side tonight. And I think,
you know, just as the court of public opinion sometimes
can have an influence, a positive influence for people who
are unjustly incarcerated, and you get a couple of stories
(16:22):
and someone finally takes notice, maybe maybe this would help
you as well. So I wish you're the best of luck.
You're a great sport to have come on with me tonight.
This could have happened to any one of us, Josh,
and I think it's important that you tell that you've
told the story tonight and that you were in the
Globe today, and I say congratulations to you, and you're
(16:43):
my sort of guy. I'm telling you, man, I would be.
I would be as angry as I you more control
than I would be.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
I'll tell you, yes, thanks having me on, Dan. It's
you know, but not only you know, obviously it would
be good to get reimbursement, but also, as I said,
like it just seems like they have a system that
the work, and as you said, for other people in
the future, hopefully they can fix that too.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Boy, absolutely, because that's what that's what is so important.
When you treated badly, maybe you might You can't rectify
the indifference that was shown to you, but maybe it
can wake some people up. I've had those sets of
circumstances myself, and sometimes you call these companies. You're not
looking for anything. All you're doing is to make sure
(17:25):
that they treat the next person who finds themselves in
a similar set of circumstances, at least with some professionalism
and courtesy. So keep you posted on a Josh, you
have my cell phone number. I left you John sent
you a message today. Let me know how it works out. Okay.
I really would appreciate knowing that. And if you want
to talk to Rob, he can explain to you how
(17:46):
to physically get a copy in your in your email
and then do with that as you aren't and as
they say I would be sending into the console general
here in Boston because they, I hope, concerned about the
reputation of the National Airline.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Yeah, all right, and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Thank you so much, Josh Bicker of Cambridge. Now, when
we get back, I'd like to hear some stories from you.
I can tell you a couple of stories, but and
I can tell you one story that happened to me
this spring, which was frightening, uh, and turned out positively.
And and it turned out positively, not that I was
(18:28):
looking for anything, but that I was trying to do
the right thing. I'm somebody who like really believes that
I believe in public advocacy. Okay, uh, And that's why
I did this tonight. I'm sure that their ference is
not particularly happy, but that's okay. This this man was
not treated with the respect, in my opinion, that he deserves,
(18:49):
and so let's let's talk about it. Six one seven,
six seven. At ten o'clock, we're going to go to
the latest that we have on the Jimmy Kimmel situation,
which seems to be getting bigger every day and a
lot of people are talking about it, and we'll talk
(19:10):
about it at the beginning right after the ten o'clock news.
But for now, your problems with companies, and you don't
have to mention the name. You can tell us what
type of company it was. This is an airline, and
maybe what they If some company treated you well and
respected you as a customer, as a client, that's great.
You can also give credit where credit is due. We're
(19:32):
coming right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
It's Night Side Withst's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
So all of us at some point have had an
interaction with a business. Josh Bicker's interaction with Air France
has not been a good one. I've had good ones
and bad ones, and I'd like to hear if you've
had a good one and a business has treated you right,
whether it's simply a restaurant where you had a bad
(20:01):
meal and you're called and you complained again, feel free
to join the conversation. This is this is something that
I think is so important that any business should treat
every one of its customers. And by the way, that's
why when I talk about Eastern Bank, that's why I
think there's such a great business and a great bank.
(20:24):
So I'm going to invite you to join the conversation.
Six one seven, two, four ten thirty six one seven,
nine three one ten thirty. I have a story or two,
but I'd like to hear from you. Helly, let me
go to Linda in Boston. Hey, Linda, welcome Tonight's side.
How are you.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I'm good, Thank you.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
The end of July, I took a flight. I went
on vacation and I took a trip and I when
I went through tsay, I was my bag was pulled
ready to check your bag yep, when I was going
through the right at the gate when when you go through,
so they put my bag and I was out the
front because he was gonna looking at to see I
(21:02):
guess like they flagged it for whatever reason. And I
was at the front right because see when he went
what he was taking up my bag and he said no,
you can't stand there, you have to go behind, which
was a thing that had up. But I couldn't see
what he was doing. And I was like, you know
what on on vacation, like you know whatever. So anyway,
(21:22):
so I had a connecting flight and I took the
flight to Miami. When I got to Miami, I looked
in my bag and because I was going to buy something,
and I didn't have my wallet, and I was like
wait this like so I got scared and he thought
maybe well I left it on a plane. So I
ran back to the gate and I asked them, I said,
(21:44):
you know, I think left my wallet on the on
the plane, and they stopped. They said, don't boil anyone,
they'll go check, and they never come my wallet.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
They absolutely do not let you reboard once you've you've
left the plane. So what I'm guessing it wasn't.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
No, they came back, they said it wasn't on the plane.
So I got the only place it could be is
that TSA because that's the only place. They opened my
bag because they knew I put it in the bottom.
So I got so scared and I started calling back
because I had no cash, my ID, my credit cards, everything,
and I was going on vacation. I had another connecting
(22:22):
flight and they said, and they called I wore someone.
They said, oh, no, one turned on the wall. I
said no, they took it over at TSA, so they said.
And I was so scared, so I started sending no emails.
And like just before my flight left to go to Antivo,
where I was going on vacation, someone from the air
(22:43):
like Colin said, oh, we have your wallet. And I
was like, oh my god. I said at TSA, right,
and she said yes, and she asked me what happened Anyway,
To make a long story short, they said, when I
returned back from my vacation, I could pick up my
wallet at the gate because you.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Much good on vacation.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Huh.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Exactly. But I went and I got my wallet. And
then I did get my wallet, the cash was missing,
like six hundred dollars, So I said, I said, where's
the money, and just said, oh, we take the cash
and we send you a check. But everything else was
in there, your credit cards and everything. You know, to
this day, I haven't got no matter how ill how
(23:24):
I send email, they would not give me about my cash.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So you flew from Boston to Miami on your way
to right and you found out in Miami when you
get off the plane you didn't have your wallet. You
had the presence of mind to send an email and
you learned while you're in Miami your wallet's back in Boston.
(23:49):
And they said, when you come back to Boston. Okay,
So I've been doing diga. By the way, did you
did you fly on to Antigua and try to do
your have your vacation without money and things like that?
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Yes? I did, because they went for a week and
I was with another friend and the funny thing is
she didn't have cash, and I said, don't worry about
the cash because I have like six hundred dollars, so
you can we can use the cash. And then I
have my credit card where I don't get charged for
international fees, so we'll use that. Yeah, yeah, but I
had nothing. And it's like, yeah, so your friends, your.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Friend, thank god helped you out financially.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Did you credit card?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
She had no cash?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
No, right, but so she So you were able to,
I use the word now in air quotes, enjoy your
vacation under the circumstances. So you fly back to Boston.
What a week later, maybe you go to recover your
wallet and the cash is missing?
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Straight yeah, yeah, yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Did you did you.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Get the name of the person from t SA who
was in possession of the wallet, who handed you the wallet?
Do you have any sort of.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
I have?
Speaker 5 (25:07):
I have the paper, they said, you know everything that
that is in the wallet I had that I have.
I still have this thing that they gave me that
I signed and it says the cash. They have the
amount of cash on the paper and they said, oh,
call back the next day. And when you called, you
can get some very rude people because you kind of
(25:29):
get the same people that all the time, and they
know exactly what you're calling. They said, mom, you have
to be two weeks. This is That was the thirty
first of July, this is September, and.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
This is this is seven weeks.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Can I make a suggest anyone?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Can I make a suggestion to you, Linda? You live
in Boston, right, Yeah, okay, I would make the suggestion
to you that you should get in touch with either
because it's TSA, that's a federal agency. I don't know
who your Member of Congress is. It could be Oppressley,
(26:10):
it could be Steve Lynch. I you know, you've got
to figure out your member of Congress. I would deal
with your member of Congress because they all have district offices.
That's a lot of money to be to be out.
There's no way that that wallet should not have been
put back in your bag.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
And you know so.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So I'm with you one thousand percent, but I think
you've got to get a member of Congress and your congress.
If you want to take my phone number, give me
a call tomorrow and I will give you a call
back and I'll try to track down your member. Do
you happen to know who you member of Congress is
or no?
Speaker 5 (26:49):
I can find it by tomorrow morning, there's no doubt.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, And then I would call that office and I
would basically they they will make the TSA move at
very fast speed on your behalf. Under these circumstances, what
you've gone through is absolutely wrong. But take my number anyway.
Rob will give you my direct line. And if you
run into trouble, if I can be of some help
to you, just in terms of guiding you, I'll be
(27:13):
more than more than happy to try to do that.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Okay, Okay, thank you, hang in.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There, robill give you my direct line. Get but get
a call. And do you remember Congress? If you can
figure out who you remember Congress is, and and just
say you need some help here, you need you need
some constituent service, and explain the situation. Okay, thanks Linda,
don't hang out. Well, take a break. I got a
bunch of calls here. Let's get to them. Uh. And
(27:40):
I might tell my story quickly when I get back,
but I more importantly want to hear from the callers.
We'll be back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
It's night Side with Yoston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Oh, let me go to Stu and Virginia. Hey, Stu,
welcome back to Nightside. How are you.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Oh, it's a it's a pleasure to speak with you. Dan.
I have a pleasure many years ago to be accompanied
by the vice president of Cola, and he told me
how to complaint. He said, go to you have a
problem with the company, find out where the company's address is.
And it's a ten Q file on the internet for
every company, and you have the president's name. He should
(28:22):
write a very nice letter about I enjoyed Pepsicola. First paragraph,
second paragraph, I had a problem with Petsicola. Third paragraph,
say I know together we can work this out. And
I've used it many I've used it many times to
go onto the internet, got the ten Q, So I write.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
The explain that to me because that went by me
kind of quick. So you go on the internet and
what are you looking for?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Looking for the ten Q report? All major corporations have
to file a quarter to report.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Okay, so you would okay, so you would put okay, okay,
So right, So what you do was the company? I
assume you simply put in the name of the company
and then ten Q.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Ten Q. That's correct, right, And it's a quarter report
they have to file. It's got the it's got the
name of the president, his mail the mailing address, and
and that has a lot of financial things what I
was really looking for and he told me to look
for was the address. He said, write him my real night.
He said, don't write him a sarchiastic letter. Write him.
(29:29):
He will never see it, but somebody in his staff
will see it.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I had a problem with Amazon one time. That's what
I did, e basically Amazon. In three weeks, Amazon calls me.
The matter is now resolved. The lady said, you'd be
getting a check and from us, and we appreciate you.
Let don't know what the problem was. Yeah, I just
(29:55):
he said, He said, it was all in being nice.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, And by the way, your app absolutely right. All
I did was I went into my browser. I put
in Pepsicola and I there's some contact information there which
you just have to google through a little bit and
you get you get all the information and the different
products that they have. And yeah, I had heard of
(30:22):
that before. But Stu, that's a great suggestion. Thank you
very very much. That's very helpful. So people in your browser,
in your computer, and if you don't have a computer,
there are people who still don't have computers. You can
perhaps go to a public library and get some help.
You just put in the name of the company and
the numbers ten the number ten one zero Q and
(30:45):
it'll bring you to the quarterly report and there then
you can find the information you need. Name of the company,
the address, the name of the president. Great suggestions, Stuve.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's worked for me more times that I've had one situation.
I never heard the people doing about ten or fifteen complaints.
Maybe twenty.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Well, i'll tell you. Let me just tell you real quickly.
The situation I had. We had a product that actually
it was a product in our backyard which ignited, okay, spontaneously.
(31:25):
It was like a fire pit, okay, and we were
not home at the time, and it basically burned and
was destroyed. I had an investigators come in and I
don't know what happened. It should not have done that.
I contacted the company that produced this product and I said,
(31:45):
I'm not looking for a freebie or anything like that.
You know, I'm just one. If there is someone else
in your customer base that has had a problem with this,
I want to protect the other customers. The guy said,
I'll call you back tomorrow. Call me back the next
day and he said, we'll we'll replace the fire pit
for your charge. I said, really, he said, Yeah, he says,
(32:07):
we've had a problem with that with that product, and
we are no longer constructing the fire pits that way.
So I would you know. I wasn't going to call,
but one day I said, why not give the company
a call? And I got right through to a person
who was quite nice. So sometimes it works.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I love a call. I always write a letter.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well it worked for me to call.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I think writing a letter a real nice lever.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah, I agree with it. I tend to agree with that.
I do.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Stu's a piece of written. Course, by this telephone call
is sometimes ignored.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I understand that, but I just want to sometimes whether
they say there's more than one way to skin a cat, right?
You heard that saying.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Next time I'll skinny catch you away. See how that works.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Talk to you soon. Good night. Let me go to
Jack and Newton. Jack, a little closer to homie. What's
on your mind? Jack?
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Yeah, a little better? I think about Happy in New
Year Russia? Shanas next week because.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yes, yeah, that's a twenty third. If I'm not mistaken,
am I correct on that?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (33:14):
That's the twenty second at night? Twenty four is okay?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I hope you have a good rush toa shana and
a great new year.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
All right, thank you. Well, I do a lot of
traveling outside the contract. How international flights you know are
very good, you know, Delta, KLM and the restaurant. But
the websites you know, like Kayak and Expedia, they.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
There's just too.
Speaker 6 (33:39):
Much pop ups and too much confusion, especially for you know,
older people like me. That's one thing that bothers me.
You know, I want to make sure also the e tickets.
I want to have a real piece of paper in
my hand. You know, yes, but now you're very careful
that you have that that you know, that confirmation code.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
If you don't have that code, you know, you're in
trouble when you're you know, and.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
This, you know, it's all kiosks. Very rarely can you
get someone at accounted to help you when you have
a problem. Go to the kiosk. Go to the kiosk,
Go to the kiosk. It's like these companies are just
laying people off, and they're just like they're laying off
supermarket clerks. Not a good trend in this in this
world in my opinion.
Speaker 6 (34:25):
Well, I mean, I'm not saying that those are difficult
to deal with. You know, you pick your passport up
on it or something, and you know, but you I
just I feel that a lot of these airlines, you know,
they really should send you an eat ticket that you
can print out and so and the other biggest thing
is that everything has gotten so corporate. You know, it's
(34:46):
so AI and everything. It's really hard to speak to
a real person.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Oh. Absolutely, they push you away from They probably have
one real person. And if you know, if you really
insist you get to that person. Uh, it's it's it's
it is. It's frightening what we want to do? You
get these things.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
If I'm really talking to a real person, I have
to ask three times, are you a real person?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah? Well I'll ask them and if they don't, I'll say,
what was Ted Williams's number with the Red Sox? Well,
thank you for your question? Is there anything else I
can to help you? I at that point know that's
not a real person, okay. Or I'll ask him what's
the capital of Massachusetts? Just ask If you think you're
dealing with some sort of robotic bot, just ask them
(35:33):
a simple question. You know, what's the capital of New York?
And if they're unresponsive. I don't quite understand your question. Well,
let me say you just you challenge them. You gotta challenge,
you gotta, we've got to fight for. We can't let
people's jobs disappear. Jack, one thing is going to disappear
(35:54):
as this hour because we're right up against that. I
got you in a couple of other callers didn't get
through it. Thank you. Happy to hear you do YouTube,
Jack and Joy, thank you much. Let me try real quickly.
I'm gonna give a shot here, Tom and Ken. Tom,
I give you about twenty seconds. You called real late.
You want to say something quickly? I know.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Sorry, Dan, any chance you can get Brian Foley on
the radio down the road.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I have no idea who Brian Foley is. He used
to work with the cameraman named Brian Fule.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
He's the guy organizing the vigil at the State House tonight.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So that visual was tonight. If I'm not mistaken, Tom,
if if you if you have his number, I want
to get and and do the work for me. Fine.
I would have helped publicize that vigil, but the visual
was tonight at seven o'clock. Did they do well with you? There?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I was not I couldn't go, but I think they
had a pretty good crowd.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
We'll watch the news and we'll and we will see. Thanks.
Thanks Tom. A little bit off topic, but I appreciate
you calling. Nonetheless, here comes to ten o'clock news, the
latest Jimmy Kimmel right after the ten
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WVS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh. I thank very much, Dan Watkins. As we move
into our nine o'clock hour, and this, of course is
the first hour during the program when you have the
ability to join the conversation. We had some interesting guests
tonight in that first hour, the eight o'clock hour, But
now we're going to talk to a gentleman from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(00:30):
I read my Boston Globe this morning, and I read
the piece by Sean Murphy, who's a great friend and
a great writer who follows in the footsteps of his dad,
Jormia Murphy, who wrote for the Globe for many many
years and was always very kind to me when I
was a young reporter growing up. The name of the
column in the Globe is in the D section the
(00:53):
well the business section is also the D section is
entitled tagged Out. When I France his luggage, he thought
his ear tag would save it. He was wrong with us.
It is Josh Bitker. Hi, Josh, welcome. Thanks so much
for being willing to join us tonight. I'm sure you've
had more than a few phone calls today.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
How you doing good? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Hi, Dan, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. Absolutely, I assume it's been a busy day. I
mean that was a pretty prominent piece in the Boston
Globe today and it was a nightmare. So tell us
the story you and your family took. It was a
vacation to France in August, as I read the story, correct, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
We were in Europe for two weeks. We spent a
week in Geeva and week in Paris with my wife
and I and our four kids.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Nice. Well, how old are the kids? I big travel
with young kids, I know it could be a challenge.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, yeah, No, we did travel with them when they
were younger, and we actually lived abroad with them for years,
so we're pretty experienced travelers. But they're relatively old now.
Our oldest is twenty, and then we have an eighteen
year old and a fifteen year old.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
She was twelve at the time. She just turned thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Well that's great now that you have responsible near adults
there and some adults actually. Yeah, so you are coming home,
you're flying Were you at Orley Airport or charlester Go
And so sometime if I have a talk to I
can tell you a funny story about Charles to call.
(02:24):
But obviously with my kids when we when they were younger,
and my wife. But we'll say that, let's focus on
your situation. So being a smart guy, the article said
you're a scientist, so that means right away you're a
pretty smart guy in my in my mind, you purchased
what they call an air tag twenty five bucks. I
don't have an air tag, and I'm not sure I
(02:45):
want to get one now, but that's okay. Do you
have an air tag and every piece of luggage or
do you just put it in I guess you have
to put it in every piece of luggage, one in
every piece of luggage, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I mean definitely our check bags. We attached to things
like our keychain, you know. We actually we have an
hour dog's collar in case you ever gets lost. The
pretty handy tools sure okay.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And for those the uninitiated, and I guess I mean
that category. How does it work? You you activate this device?
I don't know if you put it inside the bag
or if you hooked it onto the outside of the
bag or the or the dog. If the dog gets lost,
what do you go to the app and all of
(03:27):
a sudden it'll show you where where the dog is
wandering or maybe in this case, where your your piece
of luggage was left correct.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
It's it's a little thing. It's about the size of
the quarter. There's a picture of one with the story
in the Globe and you know. The way it works,
it's actually it's on its own. It's not like a
cell phone. It just emits like a weak signal, bluetooth signal.
But it's clever. The way it works is if it's
ever nearby someone who has an iPhone, it anonymously uses
that iPhone to kind of upload its position to Apple surfers.
(03:59):
And so you know, so many people have iPhones that
people walk by, and it's pretty constantly update if it's
in a busy area like an airport.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Okay, so in your situation, according to the article, when
you were when you were checking your bags, and it
looks to me like the bag in question, which you
had one similar to it in the Globe day. It
wasn't your traditional piece of you know, airplane luggage. It
looks more like kind of a catch all duffel bag.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah, it was like a soft side uffel bag. It
had a bunch of zipper pockets, and so you know,
we stuck the air tag in the bottom one of
those pockets, closed the zipper, and so YO should have
stayed with the bag.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
And yeah, so you hit, you hit Logan the airport.
Hopefully you had a good flight, and yeah, all of
a sudden, there's a one piece of luggage missing, which
is this is all of them. All of the check
bags had air tags. So I don't know how many
bags you checked, but if just sort of thinking mathematically, uh,
one didn't make it home, how many made at home?
(04:57):
I want to give Air France credit for getting at
least some of the luggage car well.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Fast down because we only checked one bag.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
No, I was hoping you're gonna tell me like they
at least we're hitting two fifty or something. They got
zero oh zero zero zero. So you get off the flight,
you walk to the bug to the baggage carousel, your
bag doesn't show up. How long does it take for
them to to have you spend at Logan Airport or
(05:28):
do you just leave and they say, hey, we we'll
get it home to you later on tonight. Tell us
the story. You're at Logan Airport, the bag is not
on the luggage carousel. Everybody else walks away, and the
six of you are standing there looking for the bag
that doesn't exist. What did you do? And how to
just explain what happened that? Because I think we've all
been kind of there at some point, but we've never
(05:50):
really all gone through it. What you've gone through?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Go ahead, Yeah, Well it's interesting because I actually it
started even before that. When we were getting on the
plane in Paris, I could see that the bag hadn't
even left the place where we dropped it off or checking.
And I actually asked the gate agent when we were boarding, like, hey,
my bags looks like it's not on the plane. It
says three minutes ago, is back where we dropped it off?
If she checks the computer and says, oh, no, it's
on its way. It's you know, it'll be on the
(06:14):
Plane's like okay, And so yeah, when we land, Logan,
I check the phone and it's still back in Paris,
and so yeah, we go and doesn't chope, my krauseol
like you said. And so we go and we tell
Air France like, hey, look at our phone. It says
the bag's still in Paris, and they look at it
like oh yeah, it just missed that flight. It'll be
on the next flight. Don't worry, we'll deliver it to
your house. When when when it comes.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
On the next perfect solve. Problem solved, you thought, right, right, exactly,
not quite what happened next.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
So yeah, it turns out, you know, so obviously I'm
keeping tabs on it, and I checked the next morning
and nope, didn't wasn't on that flight. It's still on
Paris still. You know, the precision on the air tag is,
you know, as precise as like if you look at
your location on like Google Maps or something on your phone,
right like you know, within fifty feet or so. And
so it's still as far as I can tell still
even in the terminal, hasn't even gone anywhere. And so
(07:05):
you know, we had filed when we got when we
were at Logan and we told them the bag was
and there they gave us like a claim thing. And
what was weird is then the next day so we
flew on Saturday Sunday, it didn't show up Monday their
system updates and said, oh, yeah, now it's in Boston.
I'm like, that's not what my air tag says. So
like because it's a pre mismatch between their system and
what my phone says. And obviously I trust the phone
(07:27):
more than I trust air Friends.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So what happened next?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
So we called their customer service. They said, oh, yeah lost,
you know, well, when it shows up, we'll deliver it.
And then, you know, they kept insisting it was in Boston.
The system online says it's going to be delivered. And meanwhile,
on Tuesday that week, like three days after our flight,
he now says, okay, it's moved from the terminal. I'm like,
oh great, now I look and it's in some central place.
(07:56):
It's not even on the terminals. It's like, I don't know,
middle of the airport somewhere. And so I actually went
over to Logan later that week and talked to someone
in person who actually probably the most helpful person throughout this,
someone who's actually a Delta employee on their France because
I said, hey, this thing says that our bag is here,
can you go get it for us. He's like, yeah,
I'll go check, but I don't think it is and
he checks it's not.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
There is Delta somehow in a partnership with Air France.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
And the guy just a good guy uh no, so delta.
You know, this dis flight was like I guess you
call it code chair, so it was like an air
flant slash delta flight.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Okay, fair enough. Yeah, so it's it's still not found,
and you've really been inconvenienced, and you've been you know,
kind of strung along to. I would use stronger language
if we were not on the radio. You found out
from then they that they had sent your bag. They
(08:53):
basically had given up on your bag and had sent
it to some sort of a thrift shop somewhere in
France as a domination of your stuff to this thrift shop.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Yeah, it was kind of crazy. So even you know,
so one week goes by, nothing there. We bought some stuff.
We filed, you know, because we've had to buy some
medicine and stuff there's in the bag which probably shouldn't
have put in the check bag, but so we file acclaim.
Next week, my son calls because he was helping out,
he was home from college, and they say, oh, yeah,
we found your bag again. You know, it's in Paris,
they say they found it. Another week goes by. It's
(09:28):
now we're two weeks after the flight, and then the
air tag updates again. So now it's no longer in
the middle of the airport. It's someplace north of Paris.
I'm like, what is that? And so I look up
the address and it's this like charity thrift shop. I'm like, okay,
I guess they decided it was abandoned and they gave
it away to a charity.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And from the point of view of the bag, that's
the end of the story. But it's really not the
end of the story because now at this point you're
out in your inconvenience. I would be I would be
climbing the wall. Thank god, there was nothing in there
of immense. You know, your your wedding pictures or something
(10:07):
you know that you might have taken, or your the
baby pictures of the kids. Nothing that you lost of
a hugely sentimental value.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Right, Well, well one thing, and I'm going to embarrass
my eighteen year old here, and again we don't usually
check bag, and so this is kind of our fault
that I didn't tell the kids don't put anything really
important in there. So our eighteen year old, who just
started college, he actually always kept his baby blanket from
when he was an infant, and he put that in there,
and so he lost his eighteen year old baby blanket. Unfortunately,
(10:37):
that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Some kid in France somewhere. Let me do this if
I can, because the story even gets worse than this,
as far as I'm concerned, Josh, if you could hold on,
I'd like to hold you till one more segment, just
to finish the story. You know, the sad part about
this is the article you came across is a really
nice guy, and you come across on the phone as
a really nice guy. And I just don't understand why
(11:00):
these airline companies. I know that they're they're overstretched, their
employees are frazzled, but you would think that they would
have some empathy for a family, uh in this situation
and in someone someone in air France would have tried
to do the right thing, but apparently not. We'll take
a quick break. I'm back with my guest. His name
(11:22):
is Josh Bitker. I'm not going to take him, tab
him take phone calls, because that's not part of the
deal here. When we finish up with Josh at nine thirty,
I'm going to have you join me and talk about
some of your experiences with companies that really kind of
was willing. They were willing to take your money, except
you as a customer, but weren't willing not only to
(11:44):
go to the extra mile, to go like the extra
five yards and find your darn bag. Back on night side,
you have the number six one, seven, two, five four
ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty
back on nightside.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Right after this, you're on night Side with Dan Ray
us Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So Josh, after this dreadful experience, it certainly did put
a problem, you know, a real dent on the on
the whole experience. My understanding is that the bag contained
some dental retainers. I assume those were for your children,
prescription medications, some souvenirs, items of some sentimental value, close,
(12:28):
et cetera, a complete you know, pain of the neck.
What has Air France offered to do you know, if anything,
for for for the inconvenience that they have caused you
and your family to suffer.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
So you know, essentially nothing, because you know, they tell
you they give you a site to go put in
the list of things and claim a certain value. And we,
as I said, we did that right after the bag
was lost. Things we had to piss immediately, and then
once the bag we knew was gone, we kind of
put in the claim for the rest of the value
of the things in there, the bag itself whatever. Sure,
(13:03):
and they basically nothing has happened with that. We've called
their helpline and all of a sudden the story. You know,
they can't even give us an estimate. They haven't even
assigned someone to review it. They can't give us an
estimate of when to expect, if any, reimbursement, you know,
So that was part of the part of the reason
I contacted Sean. You know, I knew that the Globe
(13:24):
had some success with big.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Companies like this.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
They can get in through the press office whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
And it's funny.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
I think Sean got a little frustrated too, and wasn't
really able to get anywhere you could. The statement from
Air France, it's kind of a boilerplate, you know. We
asked them, why didn't you use the air tag We're
mabing the info, and they just said, yeah, sorry for
your loss, but haven't done anything.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We've all been through that that was that probably wasn't
even a person who was probably a bot or something
like that, right, you know, I love this stuff. The phony.
They give you this picture of someone, you can have
a live chat to find what a lie yet means
you're not talking to a human being. It's all right.
You could you could ask him you know, uh, you
know who was number nine for the bustin Red Sox.
Thank you for your question. It's have you tried? And
(14:06):
this is really this is me speaking to you as
a as a new friend. I would be calling the
French console in Boston tomorrow and I would send a
copy of this interview that we've just done on WBZ,
which is heard in thirty eight states. And make no
mistake about it. The airline that you've been disappointed by
(14:29):
is Air France. And you know you're a scientist, so
you probably know how to pull this down. We posted
this on Nightside and Demand, So this entire interview you
can have. Rob can get you a copy of and
you could share it, perhaps with the Consul general of
whoever's whoever represents France here in Boston. That might be
(14:51):
another avenue that would get you some response just.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Saying yeah, no, I mean we tried a lot of things.
We've you know, you can file with like the US FAA,
with the European regulators. But yeah, anything that will get
their attention. I think that's the main thing is it's
just kind of they have the system in place where
they claim they even have a link to give them
the air tag link so they can find it, and
we knew that nobody ever even opened it. So it just, yeah,
(15:16):
the problem is just sort of getting their attention, it
seems so maybe, Well, the thing.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
About an airline, you know, whether it's you know, you know,
any national airline, the government runs the airline, unlike you
know our airlines. You know, we have American airlines, but
it's running a private company. But Air France, I assume
is run by France. I think you know l L
is run by Israel, you know all you know those
(15:40):
are those are country run airlines. And I offered that
suggestion to you And if you stick on with Rob,
he'll he'll be able to tell you how to get
a copy of This will be posted some time after midnight,
as we post every hour of every show on nightside
and demand pretty easy to pull down. And you know,
(16:00):
they have just gotten a bunch of publicity that if
I was the head of Air France, I would be
very unhappy both having seen this article in the Globe
today and having listened to Night's side tonight. And I think,
you know, just as the court of public opinion sometimes
can have an influence, a positive influence for people who
are unjustly incarcerated, and you get a couple of stories
(16:22):
and someone finally takes notice, maybe maybe this would help
you as well. So I wish you're the best of luck.
You're a great sport to have come on with me tonight.
This could have happened to any one of us, Josh,
and I think it's important that you tell that you've
told the story tonight and that you were in the
Globe today, and I say congratulations to you, and you're
(16:43):
my sort of guy. I'm telling you, man, I would be.
I would be as angry as I you more control
than I would be.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
I'll tell you, yes, thanks having me on, Dan. It's
you know, but not only you know, obviously it would
be good to get reimbursement, but also, as I said,
like it just seems like they have a system that
the work, and as you said, for other people in
the future, hopefully they can fix that too.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Boy, absolutely, because that's what that's what is so important.
When you treated badly, maybe you might You can't rectify
the indifference that was shown to you, but maybe it
can wake some people up. I've had those sets of
circumstances myself, and sometimes you call these companies. You're not
looking for anything. All you're doing is to make sure
(17:25):
that they treat the next person who finds themselves in
a similar set of circumstances, at least with some professionalism
and courtesy. So keep you posted on a Josh, you
have my cell phone number. I left you John sent
you a message today. Let me know how it works out. Okay.
I really would appreciate knowing that. And if you want
to talk to Rob, he can explain to you how
(17:46):
to physically get a copy in your in your email
and then do with that as you aren't and as
they say I would be sending into the console general
here in Boston because they, I hope, concerned about the
reputation of the National Airline.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Yeah, all right, and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Thank you so much, Josh Bicker of Cambridge. Now, when
we get back, I'd like to hear some stories from you.
I can tell you a couple of stories, but and
I can tell you one story that happened to me
this spring, which was frightening, uh, and turned out positively.
And and it turned out positively, not that I was
(18:28):
looking for anything, but that I was trying to do
the right thing. I'm somebody who like really believes that
I believe in public advocacy. Okay, uh, And that's why
I did this tonight. I'm sure that their ference is
not particularly happy, but that's okay. This this man was
not treated with the respect, in my opinion, that he deserves,
(18:49):
and so let's let's talk about it. Six one seven,
six seven. At ten o'clock, we're going to go to
the latest that we have on the Jimmy Kimmel situation,
which seems to be getting bigger every day and a
lot of people are talking about it, and we'll talk
(19:10):
about it at the beginning right after the ten o'clock news.
But for now, your problems with companies, and you don't
have to mention the name. You can tell us what
type of company it was. This is an airline, and
maybe what they If some company treated you well and
respected you as a customer, as a client, that's great.
You can also give credit where credit is due. We're
(19:32):
coming right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
It's Night Side Withst's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
So all of us at some point have had an
interaction with a business. Josh Bicker's interaction with Air France
has not been a good one. I've had good ones
and bad ones, and I'd like to hear if you've
had a good one and a business has treated you right,
whether it's simply a restaurant where you had a bad
(20:01):
meal and you're called and you complained again, feel free
to join the conversation. This is this is something that
I think is so important that any business should treat
every one of its customers. And by the way, that's
why when I talk about Eastern Bank, that's why I
think there's such a great business and a great bank.
(20:24):
So I'm going to invite you to join the conversation.
Six one seven, two, four ten thirty six one seven,
nine three one ten thirty. I have a story or two,
but I'd like to hear from you. Helly, let me
go to Linda in Boston. Hey, Linda, welcome Tonight's side.
How are you.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I'm good, Thank you.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
The end of July, I took a flight. I went
on vacation and I took a trip and I when
I went through tsay, I was my bag was pulled
ready to check your bag yep, when I was going
through the right at the gate when when you go through,
so they put my bag and I was out the
front because he was gonna looking at to see I
(21:02):
guess like they flagged it for whatever reason. And I
was at the front right because see when he went
what he was taking up my bag and he said no,
you can't stand there, you have to go behind, which
was a thing that had up. But I couldn't see
what he was doing. And I was like, you know
what on on vacation, like you know whatever. So anyway,
(21:22):
so I had a connecting flight and I took the
flight to Miami. When I got to Miami, I looked
in my bag and because I was going to buy something,
and I didn't have my wallet, and I was like
wait this like so I got scared and he thought
maybe well I left it on a plane. So I
ran back to the gate and I asked them, I said,
(21:44):
you know, I think left my wallet on the on
the plane, and they stopped. They said, don't boil anyone,
they'll go check, and they never come my wallet.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
They absolutely do not let you reboard once you've you've
left the plane. So what I'm guessing it wasn't.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
No, they came back, they said it wasn't on the plane.
So I got the only place it could be is
that TSA because that's the only place. They opened my
bag because they knew I put it in the bottom.
So I got so scared and I started calling back
because I had no cash, my ID, my credit cards, everything,
and I was going on vacation. I had another connecting
(22:22):
flight and they said, and they called I wore someone.
They said, oh, no, one turned on the wall. I
said no, they took it over at TSA, so they said.
And I was so scared, so I started sending no emails.
And like just before my flight left to go to Antivo,
where I was going on vacation, someone from the air
(22:43):
like Colin said, oh, we have your wallet. And I
was like, oh my god. I said at TSA, right,
and she said yes, and she asked me what happened Anyway,
To make a long story short, they said, when I
returned back from my vacation, I could pick up my
wallet at the gate because you.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Much good on vacation.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Huh.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Exactly. But I went and I got my wallet. And
then I did get my wallet, the cash was missing,
like six hundred dollars, So I said, I said, where's
the money, and just said, oh, we take the cash
and we send you a check. But everything else was
in there, your credit cards and everything. You know, to
this day, I haven't got no matter how ill how
(23:24):
I send email, they would not give me about my cash.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So you flew from Boston to Miami on your way
to right and you found out in Miami when you
get off the plane you didn't have your wallet. You
had the presence of mind to send an email and
you learned while you're in Miami your wallet's back in Boston.
(23:49):
And they said, when you come back to Boston. Okay,
So I've been doing diga. By the way, did you
did you fly on to Antigua and try to do
your have your vacation without money and things like that?
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Yes? I did, because they went for a week and
I was with another friend and the funny thing is
she didn't have cash, and I said, don't worry about
the cash because I have like six hundred dollars, so
you can we can use the cash. And then I
have my credit card where I don't get charged for
international fees, so we'll use that. Yeah, yeah, but I
had nothing. And it's like, yeah, so your friends, your.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Friend, thank god helped you out financially.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Did you credit card?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
She had no cash?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
No, right, but so she So you were able to,
I use the word now in air quotes, enjoy your
vacation under the circumstances. So you fly back to Boston.
What a week later, maybe you go to recover your
wallet and the cash is missing?
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Straight yeah, yeah, yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Did you did you.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Get the name of the person from t SA who
was in possession of the wallet, who handed you the wallet?
Do you have any sort of.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
I have?
Speaker 5 (25:07):
I have the paper, they said, you know everything that
that is in the wallet I had that I have.
I still have this thing that they gave me that
I signed and it says the cash. They have the
amount of cash on the paper and they said, oh,
call back the next day. And when you called, you
can get some very rude people because you kind of
(25:29):
get the same people that all the time, and they
know exactly what you're calling. They said, mom, you have
to be two weeks. This is That was the thirty
first of July, this is September, and.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
This is this is seven weeks.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Can I make a suggest anyone?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Can I make a suggestion to you, Linda? You live
in Boston, right, Yeah, okay, I would make the suggestion
to you that you should get in touch with either
because it's TSA, that's a federal agency. I don't know
who your Member of Congress is. It could be Oppressley,
(26:10):
it could be Steve Lynch. I you know, you've got
to figure out your member of Congress. I would deal
with your member of Congress because they all have district offices.
That's a lot of money to be to be out.
There's no way that that wallet should not have been
put back in your bag.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
And you know so.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So I'm with you one thousand percent, but I think
you've got to get a member of Congress and your congress.
If you want to take my phone number, give me
a call tomorrow and I will give you a call
back and I'll try to track down your member. Do
you happen to know who you member of Congress is
or no?
Speaker 5 (26:49):
I can find it by tomorrow morning, there's no doubt.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah, And then I would call that office and I
would basically they they will make the TSA move at
very fast speed on your behalf. Under these circumstances, what
you've gone through is absolutely wrong. But take my number anyway.
Rob will give you my direct line. And if you
run into trouble, if I can be of some help
to you, just in terms of guiding you, I'll be
(27:13):
more than more than happy to try to do that.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Okay, Okay, thank you, hang in.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There, robill give you my direct line. Get but get
a call. And do you remember Congress? If you can
figure out who you remember Congress is, and and just
say you need some help here, you need you need
some constituent service, and explain the situation. Okay, thanks Linda,
don't hang out. Well, take a break. I got a
bunch of calls here. Let's get to them. Uh. And
(27:40):
I might tell my story quickly when I get back,
but I more importantly want to hear from the callers.
We'll be back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
It's night Side with Yoston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Oh, let me go to Stu and Virginia. Hey, Stu,
welcome back to Nightside. How are you.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Oh, it's a it's a pleasure to speak with you. Dan.
I have a pleasure many years ago to be accompanied
by the vice president of Cola, and he told me
how to complaint. He said, go to you have a
problem with the company, find out where the company's address is.
And it's a ten Q file on the internet for
every company, and you have the president's name. He should
(28:22):
write a very nice letter about I enjoyed Pepsicola. First paragraph,
second paragraph, I had a problem with Petsicola. Third paragraph,
say I know together we can work this out. And
I've used it many I've used it many times to
go onto the internet, got the ten Q, So I write.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
The explain that to me because that went by me
kind of quick. So you go on the internet and
what are you looking for?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Looking for the ten Q report? All major corporations have
to file a quarter to report.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Okay, so you would okay, so you would put okay, okay,
So right, So what you do was the company? I
assume you simply put in the name of the company
and then ten Q.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Ten Q. That's correct, right, And it's a quarter report
they have to file. It's got the it's got the
name of the president, his mail the mailing address, and
and that has a lot of financial things what I
was really looking for and he told me to look
for was the address. He said, write him my real night.
He said, don't write him a sarchiastic letter. Write him.
(29:29):
He will never see it, but somebody in his staff
will see it.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I had a problem with Amazon one time. That's what
I did, e basically Amazon. In three weeks, Amazon calls me.
The matter is now resolved. The lady said, you'd be
getting a check and from us, and we appreciate you.
Let don't know what the problem was. Yeah, I just
(29:55):
he said, He said, it was all in being nice.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, And by the way, your app absolutely right. All
I did was I went into my browser. I put
in Pepsicola and I there's some contact information there which
you just have to google through a little bit and
you get you get all the information and the different
products that they have. And yeah, I had heard of
(30:22):
that before. But Stu, that's a great suggestion. Thank you
very very much. That's very helpful. So people in your browser,
in your computer, and if you don't have a computer,
there are people who still don't have computers. You can
perhaps go to a public library and get some help.
You just put in the name of the company and
the numbers ten the number ten one zero Q and
(30:45):
it'll bring you to the quarterly report and there then
you can find the information you need. Name of the company,
the address, the name of the president. Great suggestions, Stuve.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's worked for me more times that I've had one situation.
I never heard the people doing about ten or fifteen complaints.
Maybe twenty.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Well, i'll tell you. Let me just tell you real quickly.
The situation I had. We had a product that actually
it was a product in our backyard which ignited, okay, spontaneously.
(31:25):
It was like a fire pit, okay, and we were
not home at the time, and it basically burned and
was destroyed. I had an investigators come in and I
don't know what happened. It should not have done that.
I contacted the company that produced this product and I said,
(31:45):
I'm not looking for a freebie or anything like that.
You know, I'm just one. If there is someone else
in your customer base that has had a problem with this,
I want to protect the other customers. The guy said,
I'll call you back tomorrow. Call me back the next
day and he said, we'll we'll replace the fire pit
for your charge. I said, really, he said, Yeah, he says,
(32:07):
we've had a problem with that with that product, and
we are no longer constructing the fire pits that way.
So I would you know. I wasn't going to call,
but one day I said, why not give the company
a call? And I got right through to a person
who was quite nice. So sometimes it works.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I love a call. I always write a letter.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well it worked for me to call.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I think writing a letter a real nice lever.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah, I agree with it. I tend to agree with that.
I do.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Stu's a piece of written. Course, by this telephone call
is sometimes ignored.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I understand that, but I just want to sometimes whether
they say there's more than one way to skin a cat, right?
You heard that saying.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Next time I'll skinny catch you away. See how that works.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Talk to you soon. Good night. Let me go to
Jack and Newton. Jack, a little closer to homie. What's
on your mind? Jack?
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Yeah, a little better? I think about Happy in New
Year Russia? Shanas next week because.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yes, yeah, that's a twenty third. If I'm not mistaken,
am I correct on that?
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (33:14):
That's the twenty second at night? Twenty four is okay?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I hope you have a good rush toa shana and
a great new year.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
All right, thank you. Well, I do a lot of
traveling outside the contract. How international flights you know are
very good, you know, Delta, KLM and the restaurant. But
the websites you know, like Kayak and Expedia, they.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
There's just too.
Speaker 6 (33:39):
Much pop ups and too much confusion, especially for you know,
older people like me. That's one thing that bothers me.
You know, I want to make sure also the e tickets.
I want to have a real piece of paper in
my hand. You know, yes, but now you're very careful
that you have that that you know, that confirmation code.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
If you don't have that code, you know, you're in
trouble when you're you know, and.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
This, you know, it's all kiosks. Very rarely can you
get someone at accounted to help you when you have
a problem. Go to the kiosk. Go to the kiosk,
Go to the kiosk. It's like these companies are just
laying people off, and they're just like they're laying off
supermarket clerks. Not a good trend in this in this
world in my opinion.
Speaker 6 (34:25):
Well, I mean, I'm not saying that those are difficult
to deal with. You know, you pick your passport up
on it or something, and you know, but you I
just I feel that a lot of these airlines, you know,
they really should send you an eat ticket that you
can print out and so and the other biggest thing
is that everything has gotten so corporate. You know, it's
(34:46):
so AI and everything. It's really hard to speak to
a real person.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Oh. Absolutely, they push you away from They probably have
one real person. And if you know, if you really
insist you get to that person. Uh, it's it's it's
it is. It's frightening what we want to do? You
get these things.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
If I'm really talking to a real person, I have
to ask three times, are you a real person?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah? Well I'll ask them and if they don't, I'll say,
what was Ted Williams's number with the Red Sox? Well,
thank you for your question? Is there anything else I
can to help you? I at that point know that's
not a real person, okay. Or I'll ask him what's
the capital of Massachusetts? Just ask If you think you're
dealing with some sort of robotic bot, just ask them
(35:33):
a simple question. You know, what's the capital of New York?
And if they're unresponsive. I don't quite understand your question. Well,
let me say you just you challenge them. You gotta challenge,
you gotta, we've got to fight for. We can't let
people's jobs disappear. Jack, one thing is going to disappear
(35:54):
as this hour because we're right up against that. I
got you in a couple of other callers didn't get
through it. Thank you. Happy to hear you do YouTube,
Jack and Joy, thank you much. Let me try real quickly.
I'm gonna give a shot here, Tom and Ken. Tom,
I give you about twenty seconds. You called real late.
You want to say something quickly? I know.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Sorry, Dan, any chance you can get Brian Foley on
the radio down the road.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I have no idea who Brian Foley is. He used
to work with the cameraman named Brian Fule.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
He's the guy organizing the vigil at the State House tonight.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So that visual was tonight. If I'm not mistaken, Tom,
if if you if you have his number, I want
to get and and do the work for me. Fine.
I would have helped publicize that vigil, but the visual
was tonight at seven o'clock. Did they do well with you? There?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I was not I couldn't go, but I think they
had a pretty good crowd.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
We'll watch the news and we'll and we will see. Thanks.
Thanks Tom. A little bit off topic, but I appreciate
you calling. Nonetheless, here comes to ten o'clock news, the
latest Jimmy Kimmel right after the ten
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