About Us

Scottsboro, Alabama, home to Unclaimed Baggage Center, is 45 minutes from Huntsville, an hour from Chattanooga, and a 2-3 hour drive Birmingham, Nashville, and Atlanta.  

Our address is:

509 West Willow Street

Scottsboro, Alabama, 35768
Get Directions

The phone number is:

256-259-1525
We’re open:
Monday-Friday from 9:00 am-6:00 pm CT
Saturday 8:00 am – 6:00 pm CT
Closed on Sundays



Our store is replenished with new items several times a day, so any time is a great time to shop!

E-commerce opportunities are currently being developed.  Stay tuned for details on our website.

At our store, you’ll find things you’d pack for a trip – clothes, cameras, jewelry, golf clubs, and other items that are commonly taken on business trips and vacations. If it’s packed in a suitcase or left on the plane, it could wind up for sale at UBC. . . and in your shopping bag!

Please note that we can’t guarantee you’ll find exactly the brand or item you’re longing for because our inventory is based on whatever we receive in the baggage. However, with our wide selection, you’ll find all sorts of treasures.

You just never know what people may pack, so you could be one of the lucky shoppers to scoop up an African mask, vacuum-packed frogs, or even a snowboard.

We also sell unclaimed cargo, which typically consists of NEW merchandise, like multiples of clothing, books or even household items, which was lost en route to distributors, wholesalers, and retailers.

Come with your imagination – You never know what you’ll find at Unclaimed Baggage!

Our merchandise is a combination of unclaimed baggage or cargo, primarily from commercial airlines but also from buses, trains, trucks, or other transportation venues.

As you’re hunting, keep an eye out for yellow tags, which are items from Unclaimed Cargo. These are typically brand new items, often in multiples, in the original packaging.

Unclaimed Baggage Center covers more than a city block. Treasures wait to be discovered amid 40,000 square feet of floor space.

The store is well organized by department and arranged by style, season, and size.

All clothing is professionally cleaned. In fact, UBC has the largest known commercial dry cleaning and laundry facility in Alabama, washing or dry cleaning 20,000 items per day. That adds up to more items in a month than most professional dry cleaners do in a year! Electronic equipment is tested and all personal data is deleted.

Unfortunately, no.  In order to keep our merchandise at bargain prices, we are unable to employ “runners” to search the store for requests made over the phone or online.  Plus, we’d hate to rob you of the thrill of the hunt!

Regrettably, “No.” By the time Unclaimed Baggage has purchased the luggage, every effort has been made by the airlines over a three to four month period to return it to its owner.

After items make their long trek from the baggage carousel to our store, they are scooped up quickly by treasure hunters, making it even more unlikely that any specific lost object could be found here.

There is only one instance that we know of in over 40 years of selling unclaimed articles where a customer (accidentally) found something that belonged to him!

The airlines actually do a remarkable job moving hundreds of millions of passenger bags each year from the conveyor belt to the tarmac to the belly of the plane and back again.

Only about ½ of 1 percent of checked bags fail to show up at the baggage carousel. Within 5 days almost 98 percent of the delayed bags have made their way home. During the next 3 months, through a comprehensive baggage tracing process conducted by the airlines, over half of the remaining bags are reunited with their owners.

This leaves an astonishingly small fraction of a percent of passenger bags checked each year that are ultimately lost. Yet even that small percentage results in a warehouse full of unclaimed articles, all waiting for you to claim at Unclaimed Baggage Center.

No, airlines do not profit from unclaimed baggage. Carriers invest significant manpower and technological resources in the baggage recovery process. They pay passenger claims on any bags not found. Only a fraction of the total tracing and claims settlement cost is recouped by selling the unmatched bags.

Airlines are in the business of flying planes and servicing their customers, not disposing of leftover personal items. Unclaimed Baggage Center provides an important service to the airlines by buying these items and repurposing them in the best way possible.

Not everything sent to Unclaimed Baggage is suitable for sale in our store. A complex sorting process separates out the merchandise designated for the retail floor.

Items not sold to the public are either repurposed or discarded. Through relationships with multiple charity organizations locally, nationally and around the globe, UBC is able to reclaim more than half of these leftover items for good.  Millions of dollars of clothing, eyeglasses, medical supplies and other useful items are refurbished and donated to those in need.