SendMeHome.com: Helping Lost Gear Find Its Way
What would happen to your GPS receiver, backpack, or ice axe if someone forgot them at the airport, the trailhead parking lot, or even on top of a mountain? (Trust me, this does happen.) If you’re lucky, you’ll find them in a lost-and-found bin (or table, like at right) before anyone else. Or you'll hope the finder can ID you as the owner and contact you. If not, you’ll be looking for replacement gear.
Aiming to make the recovery process easier is SendMeHome.com, which launched this month and claims to be the first free lost-and-found recovery service in the world. At SendMeHome.com you can register anything of personal or monetary value—tents, backpacks, that sweet new soft shell that broke your gear budget.
I have yet to use SendMeHome, but for free it sounds like a simple and worthwhile
service, one that will prove itself—and the kindness of strangers—only after you lose something.
Here's how it works. Each item gets a unique and anonymous ID code. You can write this code on the item, print free labels, or order professional labels. If your contact information changes update it on the site. The site is entirely free, unless you opt to buy labels, and you can register an unlimited number of items. If you lose something, SendMeHome.com lets you communicate anonymously with anyone who finds it in order to arrange for its return.
Here’s hoping no one forgets your new ice ax at the summit, but if you register it with SendMeHome.com first, you at least stand a chance of seeing it again.
For more information: www.sendmehome.com/about
Comments
This sounds like an improvement on a similar service that has been around for a couple years and one that is part of and international travel insurance program I have used (I only seem to lose things colored black or dark colors at the bottom of my black packs, only to recover them when I return home from the trip and unpack the whole bag).
There is a catch - it isn't completely free. The finder and loser have to make an arrangement to rejoin you with your lost item (SendMeHome just provides the connection), and someone pays the shipping (probably the loser). But registration and notification by the finder is free, unlike the other services I am familiar with, where you pay an up-front fee. SendMeHome lets you print the ID tags free on your own computer, as an alternative to buying their tags.
Nice! I will think about registering. Lessee, that's about 5 million items, or will that inspire me to go even more ultralite?
Years ago I acquired a backpack through a lost & found auction, the gear came from airlines, bus lines ect.
Some time later I found a partial address (smeared), it was an address in Denmark, the first name was Henrik. I wanted to return it to Henrik as it was a nice pack and I'm sure he missed it. (Lowe Alpine Contour 4) But what do you do with a partial address and no last name.
Anyway this sounds like a good service.
Can I tag my forehead?
I read a post on VFTT where someone had lost their digital camera on a trail, the finder took it to the local police station where the cops started looking at the pictures for clues. One of them spotted a photo of a couple of dogs and went "hey, I know those dogs!" A happy ending.
Someone in NYC has a website for lost gloves-they post pictures of them. Kind of funny, but apparently it works sometimes.
Also, there's that lost luggage place in Alabama that's on the news every so often. They have all kinds of stuff.
Tom, I guess gloves are quite important in NYC huh.
I know I get cranky about mine sometimes. I really dislike numb fingers, no good reason to suffer I say.
The lost gloves site reminds me of a book called "Too Many Mittens" that I read as a kid and now read with my son.
In the story, one of the twins loses his red mitten and everyone in town brings him any lost red mitten they find. The family ends up having a lost mitten line on their clothesline every winter to pair people and their mittens together. It's a cute story.
Around our house we have many gloves with no mate, they are in a box, we have had the box for years. I don't know why we keep them. Same with tupperware.
I'll give this site a try.
