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In the thick of the holiday shopping season, thousands of packages are being shipped across the country (and around the world) every day. In other words, it’s a great time to be a porch pirate. TRAVEL HACK: How to Open and Close Your Garage Door While You’re Away
Porch pirates, if you’re not familiar with the term, are people who steal packages off of front stoops, from yards or even from mailboxes. They strike after a package has been delivered to the listed address but before the recipient has had a chance to retrieve the package.
And they’re more successful than you might think and the problem is getting worse. According to Safewise, “Three out of four people we surveyed said they lost a package to thieves in the past year. If you look at the entire U.S. population, that could mean over 119 million stolen packages. But even though fewer people who’ve ever been a victim of package theft told us porch pirates hit them in the past twelve months, the overall number of people targeted in the past year went up.”
Safewise, a safety and home security company, also shares these interesting numbers about package thefts. According to their research:
-4 in 10 people who had a package stolen in the past year were hit by porch pirates more than once.
-71% of all packages stolen were valued at $100 or less—but if you pick $50 as an average loss, we estimate up to $6 billion in losses.
-2023’s estimated losses are 5% higher than in 2022.
-Over half of all stolen packages were delivered by Amazon.
So, what should you do? How can you keep your holiday gift packages safe from porch pirates? Here are a few tips:
- Install a doorbell cam like this one
- Have packages delivered to your place of work
- Have packages delivered to the post office
- Get a MyQ enabled garage door opener which allows you or an Amazon driver to open and close it remotely. Here’s my experience with it.
- Use an Amazon Locker or similar
- Track your package (USPS, FedEx and UPS all offer tracking services) and sign up for delivery notifications so that you know where your package is.
A doorbell camera really is a great idea and can help police capture porch pirates, like this one in a stolen car, who had more than 30 packages inside his car. You can watch the full story from ABC News affiliate WISN below, where they say it took just 10 seconds for the porch pirate to steal someone’s package.
How do you beat porch pirates?
As we head into the holidays, don’t let porch pirates ruin your special time with friends and family. How do you manage deliveries made when you’re not home? Have you ever had a package stolen? Share your experience in the comments and tell us your tactics for keeping your packages safe from thieves.
KEEP READING
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- The Sleep Hack Every Traveler Needs to Know
- Never Get Your Valuables Stolen on the Beach
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It seems like all the options are burdens on the consumer. The vendors (directly like Amazon doing their own delivery and indirectly by using UPS, FedEX, and USPS) have decided that ringing a door bell, getting an answer and a signature isn’t worth the cost. The vendors should own the problem, not the consumer.
The article quotes the 90,000 packages stolen a day in NYC. It doesn’t mention that there are 1,500,000 packages delivered daily in NYC. I guess the vendors have decided that a 6% loss rate is okay.
If Amazon, where I spend easily a couple of thousand per year, thinks a lockbox is needed, they an pay to put on at my home.
I almost lost my four wheel hand grips because a random dude tried to get the package. Good thing my dog barked and we were alarmed of what happened. Better to put a CCTV on your porch so you can record who’s the culprit and apprehend them.
Good Day, Johnny!. It’s a very valuable and helpful guide, I found ever. Cause, I’m a travel blogger. I’ve much deep knowledge about travel tips and tricks and now I’m also passionate to launch my blog.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful and wonderful guide.
Good sharing, bro keep it up
Heres a holiday tip: save all your Amazon boxes and load them up with all your household junk or stuff you don’t want. Put em back on the porch. Gone!