While waiting for my flight in Harare, I had two men approach me, address me by name, and wanted money to put a tag on my luggage so they would get to Atlanta faster. I had read a report about this type of scam on AR and knew what was going on, so I told them NO. A few minutes later, I started thinking, here are two men who know my name and my destination. If they get mad because I didn't give them money they could remove my bags from the trailer and keep them from making my flight. I decided to go to security. The first fellow I talked to called the head of security and I told him my story and that my main concern was my bags not making my flight. I gave him a description of the two men and my bags. Fortunately, he had seen them talking to me. He wrote down my baggage claim numbers, apologized, and said he would get back with me. I was standing at the window watching them load the baggage and saw the handlers take my bags off the coneyor belt and set them off to the side. I was wondering what was going on when the head of security came up to me and asked if that was my two bags and wanted me to see them load them on the plane. There was another man with him who wrote down my story and the description of the two men. I thanked them, boarded the plane and took a deep sigh of relief. While I was waiting for the other passengers to board the head of security came to me on the plane, said they had two men at the gate and would I feel comfortabke identifying them. I said SURE and got off the plane, went to the gate, looked at the two men, who seemed to be very unhappy,and told security that was them. If this happens to somebody else, get a good description and go to the security, who knows, they may actually catch the scum bags.

From what I'm told of Zim jails and justice I'm not surprised that the two guys looked unhappy !!

Smart thinking Randy, and a good lesson for everyone else.

Most would have probably paid the bribe out of fear of losing their bags in a foreign country. Good for you!

Well done. I had two guys approach me past security in Harare last April, they told me they took care of my bags personally and not to worry, "they will be on the flight". They seemed a little taken back when all I had to offer was a thank you.

Good for you, would have loved to seen the look on their faces when you identified them.

Randy,

I agree with Vaughn in that most would have paid the bribe and become part of the problem. Nice to see you standing up for what's right.

Good for you!

Mark

Last year when I flew through Harare, I had the same thing happen, probably by the same two guys and I did the same thing you did. Said Thank You. I didn't think to tell security about it though. I did watch as the plane was being loaded to make sure all my stuff went aboard, and fortunately, it did. Times are hard.