Up until now I was pouring my sorrows on the digital paper without providing any advice to a prospective reader. Well, with baggage claims the situation is quite clear, you can either go to court suing the airline for damages, or try to find an out-of-court settlement. There are agencies dealing with airline irregularities like the National Enforcement Bodies, but they do not deal with such small matters like baggage claims. Please mind that I am writing about the EU countries here, though my limited research revealed that elsewhere it is much more difficult to exercise one's rights.
Obviously, not being a lawyer and living in a foreign country made the choice for me. This is of course what the airlines in such situations hope for - too big of an effort to bother over a hundred odd Euros. I do not know what would be Lufthansa's position in the matter, decided to try the latter option, which by no means prevented me from suing later. Please mind that under Montreal Convention the biggest refund you can get from an airline is about €1100, otherwise you need to insure your luggage separately. Montreal Convention is an international agreement about standards in dealing with air traffic irregularities, ratified by most of the developed countries, see Montreal Convention on Wikipedia.
So I decided to contact the European Consumer Center, an European Commission body aimed to settle cases between individual consumers and companies. I must admit that they helped me greatly, managed to get Lufthansa to settle, and reimburse me for a new suitcase.
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| ECC logo |
The procedure is easy, you need to collect your correspondence with the company you bought a good or service from, together with all relevant documentation. Please mind that ECC requires that you had already complained to the trader but found no resolution. Also, you need to contact the appropriate ECC of you country of residence. So for the Netherlands you can use the following link.I suggest reading the descriptions carefully as they provide better explanation that I ever could.
