Mother is instructed she should pay £25 to retrieve her son’s misplaced £30 coat from Heathrow Airport… or fork out £50 to have it delivered
When Rachel Gross realised her teenage son had left his coat behind at Heathrow Airport, she thought it would be a simple mistake to fix.
Instead, she said she was told she would have to pay £25 to get it back, or up to £50 to have it posted to her home.
The mother claimed she was left ‘gobsmacked’ after discovering the fee was almost as much as the coat itself, which she said cost around £30.
The mix-up happened on Sunday evening after Ms Gross and her family arrived at Terminal Three.
Her 13-year-old son had been pushing two luggage trolleys when he mistakenly left his coat behind.
‘He saw a coat in the trolley and thought I had taken the trolley with his coat, but I had the trolley with my coat, and so when we came through, he realised that his coat was still on the other side’, she told the Daily Mail.
The family immediately asked airport staff for help but were told they could not return through the terminal.
She said they were told they had to wait for the coat to be reported to lost property before they could claim it – despite knowing they had left it there straight away.
Ms Gross was informed that reclaiming the item would incur a £25 fee, a figure that doubles to £50 if the coat is returned via post (Pictured: A stock photo of international arrivals at Heathrow Terminal Three)
But instead of being able to quickly retrieve the item, the family were forced to wait several days for it to appear in the airport’s lost property system.
Despite realising the mistake within minutes, Ms Gross said no one was willing to retrieve the coat.
‘It was sitting there in the trolley. One of the officials could have just gone back through and got it. I understood you couldn’t go back through customs, but they could have helped,’ she said.
When the coat was finally logged, Ms Gross contacted the service to arrange collection and was shocked by what she was told.
‘They said I could come pick it up, but it was £25 for them to give me my coat back, it’s almost the same price as the coat,’ she said.
‘I said, “What are you talking about?” It was my item,’ she added.
She said she was also told it could cost up to £50 to have the coat posted back.
‘If I didn’t go and get it, they would send it to me, but they would charge me £50,’ she said.
Ms Gross said the charge made little sense given the value of the item.
‘The coat cost about £30, so why would I go and pick it up when it was almost the same price as buying a new one?’, she said.
She added that the true cost would be even higher once travel expenses were included.
‘It wasn’t just £25 – I would have to get to the airport, pay for petrol or transport, and pay for parking, it feels like a con,’ she said.
Ms Gross said she believed the system was unfair and placed an unnecessary burden on travellers.
An image of the coat on Sports Direct’s website. The family were forced to wait several days for the item to appear in the airport’s lost property system
‘It felt almost like a con, you left something by mistake, they wouldn’t help you get it, and then they charged you to get it back’, said Ms Gross.
Ms Gross stated that she was also told the service was operated by a third party.
She claimed the staff informed her that they ‘needed to make money,’ to which she responded that they should not be profiting from her lost property, especially in a public airport.
Ms Gross said her frustration was not just about her own situation, but the wider impact on others, as she added that many people simply cannot afford such charges.
‘No one had spare income nowadays, that £25 could be a week’s worth of food for someone and that was before you even factored in the cost of getting there,’ she said.
Ms Gross said she had travelled extensively and had never encountered similar charges elsewhere.
‘We travelled all over the world, and I had never had to pay to collect my things,’ she said.
She compared the experience to losing items on public transport.
‘If you left something on a London bus, they won’t charge you to get it back, I might as well buy a new one,’ she said.
With the costs involved, Ms Gross said she may not retrieve the coat at all.
‘If I didn’t get a result, I would end up buying my son a new coat, he’s a growing boy – why would I pay almost the same for one he had already worn this season?’, she said.
Ms Gross said she hoped speaking out would draw attention to the issue.
‘I was gobsmacked. It was just insane that they were charging people to get their own property back,’ she added.
Heathrow Airport has been contacted for comment.
