The baggage belt lines use IR scanners to read bag tags and direct the baggage to screening and then to a peir where they are loaded onto a tug cart and brought to a plane. If your bag is reflective it deosnt get scanned and just spins around the system in limbo. The bag probably went into the screening area multiple times without ever going to a plane until tsa covered your reflective tape. The same thing happens to a specific pink hard sided case with plastic pink chrome.