GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A trolley folly two weeks ago led to a major headache, lost keys, but the ordeal has ended happily and, as everyone heads off on holidays, I’d like to suggest you take a minute to think about your keys. I lost mine as I was leaving for a short business trip to Greece, but I realized they were gone only when I returned, late at night, with the rest of the family – and their keys – abroad. It took me a while to work my way back, step by step, to the airport five days earlier, and the trolley where I last saw them.
Luckily, just a couple weeks earlier one of those free gifts that come with requests for donations, arrived in the post. I am normally annoyed by these, but this one, from the Swiss Red Cross, was a keychain tag from Lost.ch. I checked out the website and decided it was a good idea to add it to my key ring.
You pay CHF5.90 a year to register. In exchange, if someone finds your keys and drops them in a Swiss post office box (just as they are, not wrapped), they will be delivered promptly to Lost.ch, which informs you right away that they’ve been found. The keys are delivered the next day by Post A+, which is cheaper and easier than registered mail, but more secure than regular mail: the bar code is scanned by the person who delivers your mail only when the keys are handed to you.
Similar services
Lost.ch is not the only such service, but others are more expensive, for example KeyFound, I discovered. I phoned the airport (Swissport) and Geneva police lost & found offices and was invited to register my lost keys here, for a fee although it is free if you register the loss online. Expect to pay a fee if the keys are found. I checked with the Geneva lost & found objects service. The federal information website ch.ch has information about what to do if you lose or find objects. Did you know that under Swiss law you have to pay someone who finds your goods? The suggested guideline is 10% of the value. My keychain is an incomparable treasure, the key to my home and therefore my heart – what is 10% of that?
Trolley tokens: think twice
I thought I must be the only person so stupid as to lose my keys in a trolley – I used my supermarket trolley token to take one from the lineup at the airport train station, then had to abandon the trolley without finding a lineup of them. I forgot about my keys in the bustle of the airport on the first day of school holidays.
But no, I am not alone, for the latest product from Lost.ch is for trolley tokens! You buy one for 3 or 5 years, put it in a trolley then promptly remove it and put the keys away.
The hassle of lost key sets
Here’s what happens when you lose keys and don’t have a handy replacement because a) it’s a bad idea to use the classic spots like under a flowerpot or the back of the mailbox and b) the people who have your spare keys are also on vacation:
You order a new house or apartment key, but if these are secure Kaba keys you need the number of the key, so be sure to keep it somewhere safe, but not in your wallet or inside the place you’re locked out of! I had to phone my husband to get it from his. Once you have the number it takes at least a working week to get the new key.
You order a new car key and it might take 2-3 days to arrive, but you have to take the car to the garage to get the key programmed, part of the anti-theft systems manufacturers now use. So you can unlock and sit in your car, but you can’t go anywhere. Make sure you have a spare car key, programmed, that you can get hold of at all times.