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Ask HN: TSA stole my wallet from checked luggage. What can I do?

7 points by treyfitty ↗ HN
I was leaving NYC and didn’t think it made sense to bring my vacation money on my persons, so I put it in my checked luggage. I land in another country only to realize my whole wallet was stolen. Does this happen often? What recourse is there?

9 comments

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kstenerud
It happens often and there isn't any recourse that actually works.

TSA employees are poorly paid and poorly trained, so easy thefts are common.

GianFabien
Checked luggage is handled by many persons and in many different places. The TSA are only one of those many steps. Even though TSA keys should be secure, I doubt that there aren't counterfeit ones around. Rogue baggage handlers are not uncommon.

You need to read the fine print on your ticket and your travel insurance to find out what actions are available to you. Most travelers would never put valuables in their checked luggage.

Someone
TSA keys aren’t secure. For example, there’s https://github.com/Xyl2k/TSA-Travel-Sentry-master-keys, which states

“pictures of TSA master baggage keys got leaked by the Washington Post and also PDFs hosted on TravelSentry's Website. This repo is a reproduction attempt.

[…]

The TSA has issued an official statement making it known that they don't even care that we've done this, as the now-pointless locks affect theft prevention, not airline safety.“

kayfox
Honestly... Zip ties work really well to keep people out of my pelicans when I travel. The TSA is required to replace them and they are a significant enough impediment to someone breaking into the case that they will just look for something else.
warrenm
The first "recourse" is: don't put valuables like wallets in your checked bag (depending on where in the bag it was, it also could have fallen out, and not been "stolen", per se) - carry them on your person or in your carry-on

Second, if it were stolen, there's nothing saying it was TSA vs baggage handlers

Third, call all your card issuers represented in your checked wallet, report them stolen, and ask for replacements to be sent

Fourth, carry important things like your wallet on your person/in your carry-on in the future

verdagon
If you have renter's insurance, they'll likely cover thefts like this. Sorry for your trouble and best of luck!