Can an airline charge a passenger for taking the wrong bag?

[Yehudaa]

Here's the story, I'm sorry if it's long. I sent a suitcase with a friend on a flight from TLV-YYZ. He accidentally took a similar looking suitcase off the carousel in YYZ and went home. The owner of that bag connected to a second city, and AC somehow delivered my bag to his house in that city (how they decided it was his, I don't know).

So now my suitcase is in the wrong city, and his is in YYZ. Bh the guy who has my bag called me (always have a luggage tag!) and wants to find rides for each of our suitcases to get to their proper homes. At first I thought that's ridiculous and both parties should call AC and (hopefully) they'll pick up both bags and send them to their correct destinations, but then I was wondering whether AC can/will hold my friend responsible for taking someone else's bag and make him pay for the cost of switching them now. If that's the case I'd be willing to work on finding rides and leave the airline out of it because my friend did me a big favor by taking a suitcase for me and made an honest mistake.

Basically: can/will AC hold my friend responsible for taking the wrong bag?

[myi]

Definitely worth calling and mention where you only saw one bag that looked like yours while your bag was acccidently tagged and taken to another location.

 Hence your explaining why you have someone else's bag, as they looked alike and this was the only bag that you saw like yours, so you didn't think twice, now what should of happened to your bags was not end up in another location as the tags were marked for Pearson intl airport and not some other airport.
   Call and ask what they can do to make the swap, yes on your end that the bag was mistaken, you can blame on the bag being scanned to another location.
 Don't know what service they will offer, but definitely worth calling.
 
 And if you don't mind keep us posted to what happened.     

[Yehudaa]

Definitely worth calling and mention where you only saw one bag that looked like yours while your bag was acccidently tagged and taken to another location.

 Hence your explaining why you have someone else's bag, as they looked alike and this was the only bag that you saw like yours, so you didn't think twice, now what should of happened to your bags was not end up in another location as the tags were marked for Pearson intl airport and not some other airport.
   Call and ask what they can do to make the swap, yes on your end that the bag was mistaken, you can blame on the bag being scanned to another location.
 Don't know what service they will offer, but definitely worth calling.
 
 And if you don't mind keep us posted to what happened.     

Thank you.

[Yehudaa]

So....it looks like week won't find out what AC would've done about this. I just found out that a relative of mine is driving from YYZ to that person"s city this coming week and is visiting someone near the guy who has my suitcase, so we're just going to switch it ourselves and leave AC out of it.

Just to add, though: Apparently it wasn't only my friend who made a mistake, it was also the other guy too, and AC also messed up in a big way. After speaking more with the guy who has mine, I found out that he actually took my suitcase thinking that it was his and realized when he was checking into his next flight in YYZ. He couldn't go back to the carousel to switch it so he told the AC agent what happened, and the agent took down his info and told him they'd deliver his bag to his city on a later flight and they'd return my bag to its rightful owner. He said the agent then took my tags off my suitcase and put on new ones and sent it off. As it turns out, those tags had his name and address on it and my suitcase showed up at his door this morning. He tried telling the courier it wasn't his but the courier wouldn't take it back, so he contacted me himself. I Have no idea why- after this guy told the agent the suitcase wasn't his- the agent took my tags off the suitcase and put on tags with that guy's name, but bh it seems it's all sorted out now.

Bh it seems my original question won't need an answer.

[ludmila]

Glad you had this resolved. But in this case AC is definitely responsible to return the luggage.

[Dan]

Glad you had this resolved. But in this case AC is definitely responsible to return the luggage.

+1

[Yehudaa]

Glad you had this resolved. But in this case AC is definitely responsible to return the luggage.

+1

Thank you. I'm glad that the courier refused to take it back because at that point it didn't have any airline tags identifying it as mine, just my personal luggage tag, and although I hope AC would've contacted me, I can't imagine it would've been as fast as the person who wanted to get his bag back from me.

[myi]

Now you fight with AC for some type of reimbursement for all the trouble they caused you.

[Yehudaa]

Now you fight with AC for some type of reimbursement for all the trouble they caused you.

Ya, but I don't exist in AC's books, and my friend is not interested in fighting.

[Sam Finkelstein]

Just a piece of practical advice:

Put a conspicuous waterproof label with your name and phone number (at minimum) underneath the handle, if any.