Originally Posted by
MechEngr
This sounds unethical, and were it a matter of a valuable item with a family cherished history, that would certainly be the case but ...
Don't buy a trolley. Go to lost and found and tell them you lost one. There are a great number of them there, never ever going to be reclaimed, and when you describe yours as metal with wheels and a handle they will very likely give you one to clear it out. They are most likely to be left by people struggling to get on a plane but have no interest in wrestling with the item through TSA or into the overhead or packing it into the suitcase. They may have obtained it from lost and found themselves - the great circle of trolleys. When you are done, leave it at the luggage carousel. It will either go to other adventures or be recycled back to lost and found.
The same applies to umbrellas. Black, folds up small. Or doesn't fold up small. Pick a story and stick with it.
Not feasible [at least in the UK] as most [all?] of the major airports have effectively sub-contracted their 'lost and found' and there is now a fee to retrieve anything from them. A case in point, the elderly mother of a colleague of mine, was recently travelling through
the major UK gateway and she inadvertently left her iPad in the security screening area. By the time she realised, she was on the plane. As it was only a short flight [less than two hours] she contacted her son on landing and he found that it had already been passed to the lost and found but as they are now a separate company a minimum retrieval fee of £25 [about $32] was payable and the best bit being the son actually is an employee at the airport [and he still had to pay!]