Taipei city councilors yesterday raised questions about Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s (TRTC) handling of lost goods, suggesting that the company review and change its methods.
The company takes custody of lost funds or items and informs the owner without turning it over to the police, Taipei City Councilor Hung Chien-yi (洪健益) said.
If the person who lost the goods or money on the MRT does not claim it, the funds would become part of TRTC income, Hung said.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Rapid Transportation Corp
The estimated value of lost-and-found goods and cash that were not retrieved at the TRTC per year is about NT$7 million (US$212,656), he added.
TRTC is not part of the judiciary and its methods of handling lost money could easily lead to controversy, Hung said, citing an instance during which a passenger left a backpack containing NT$1.5 million in cash on the MRT and retrieved it from the lost and found.
Taipei City Councilor Hsu Hung-ting (徐弘庭) also asked why TRTC did not put the lost-and-found goods up for auction, which is what Taiwan Railway Corp and Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp does.
TRTC said the Mass Rapid Transit Act (大眾捷運法) refers to the Civil Code, particularly articles 804 and 807, for the disposition of all lost and found goods on MRTs.
Article 804 of the Civil Code says if the person entitled to the lost property does not identify and claim it within a reasonable time after notification, in accordance with the second paragraph of the preceding article, the person who picks up the lost property must deposit the property with the police or the local autonomous institution.
Meanwhile, Article 807 reads: “If the person who picks up the lost property does not claim such property within three months from the date of informing or advertisement in accordance with the preceding paragraph, the lost property or the net proceeds of its sale belongs to the local autonomous institution.”
Given the large amount of lost items, the Taipei City Government commissioned TRTC to handle all such affairs, per the Administrative Procedure Act (行政程序法), the TRTC said.
TRTC also said it registered 28,000 lost-and-found items, including cash, in 2023, and that it had sent out 1,600 text messages to the owners, 1,000 of whom had come in to retrieve their lost goods.
It had attempted to auction off the more valuable unclaimed lost goods in its inventory in 2014, but this increased expenses due to personnel costs and appraisal fees, TRTC added.
The additional work put into answering the public’s questions regarding the auctioned goods also affected the company’s daily affairs, so it decided to adhere to the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法) and put all items up as a procurement bid, instead of holding an auction, TRTC said.
The most significant amount of cash found on the MRT within the past three years was NT$1.94 million, it said, adding that the owner had been informed and had come to retrieve the money.
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