Lost my bag at an SSB train.

sanjhi sardana

Hello,

I am Sanjhi Sardana, a master’s student at Ulm universitat in Germany. I went for a day trip to Zurich and was travelling to Rhine falls in S12 nach schafferhausen and left my black coloured sling bag in the train. The thing is the bag contains my everything including my passport, dorm keys, debit and credit cards, school ID as well as the health Insurance card. I called the SBB helpline and they told me to register a complaint online at the lost and found department of SSB. I had to leave Switzerland because I had a bus back to Germany at 9 pm and am still a student so could not afford to stay overnight. I am still waiting on the response from SSB but I don’t know what else to do. Please help me. I am scared because the bag contains really important information.
If you have any advice for me, then please let me know.

RolandP

Hlelo sanjhi sardana

If you have filed a lost item report, there is nothing else you can do than wait.

If the bag has been found on the train, it will be sent to the centralised lost & found storage, from where you will be contacted. It may take several days for this to happen. You will be notified after 4 and 10 days. Even if you receive the message after 4 days that the item has not been found, there is still a great chance that it will be found; it is simply that your bag has not been registered as found at the time the e-mail was sent - be patient. If the bag was found on the train by a staff member, there is a high chance that it will be returned to you after some days.

Still, you have to file a lost item report with the German police as well.

Best wishes,
Roland

sanjhi sardana

Hi, thank you so much for your guidance!
I received this message “The SBB Lost and Found Service has found your lost property” from the ssb services and they said that’s it is being processed. I wanted to ask usually how long does it take for the lost property to reach the chosen station?

RolandP

Hello sanjhi sardana

That’s great news. To dispatch the found item to the station of your choice may take 2-3 days, depending on their location.

Best regards,
Roland

sanjhi sardana

Update: My experience with SBB regarding my lost property.

As mentioned above, I went for a day trip to Zurich and ended up losing my bag on one of the trains. The bag had my passport, my dorm keys, my debit cards, my student ID, and my health insurance card. Basically, that bag had my everything. I had to come back because I am a student and I did not have the money to stay in Switzerland however I had registered a complaint with the SBB lost & found office. I was told that the services were extremely good and there was a solid 90% chance that my bag would be found. Now I can say that I can’t agree more.

Within just 2 working days, I received an email saying that my lost property had been found, and in the next 2 days, I was asked to pick up my bag at my chosen station which was Konstanz. The train station timings were given. I went there and showed the email as well as my ID and got my bag back. They charged a fee of 20 CHF. My bag had everything that I had kept in it. So, to summarize, within a span of 4 working days, they were able to locate my bag and hand it over to me.

Some notes:

If you are asked to take the bag from a chosen train station, remember that it will be in the train station and not anywhere else. Find an office that is located in the train station and check the timings given online.
If like me, you have asked SBB to send your bag from a city in Switzerland to Germany (Konstanz), remember to look for the lost and found faculty of SBB and not DB as there are many lost and found offices of DB as well and you might end up getting confused.
Lastly, just remain calm. Mistakes happen but just remember to be patient. SBB has an excellent service for lost and found and in most cases, they find your property and ensure that it reaches you safely.

I hope this can help others who are in a similar situation.
Thanking You
Sanjhi Sardana