Porch pirates!

[jujubiee4]

Once several years ago I got package of pillow cases stolen. Amazon promptly refunded them.
If im buying online 90 percent of time It is as Amazon as I get tracking alerts where the driver is
and how far away. Last week my husband had expensive camera being delivered. I was out shopping
and got alert the driver was 10 stops from my house. I left mall shortly after to be there.

Also Amazon offers pickup lockers to store your stuff if your not going to be home. (at least near me). Or bring to neighbors house.

Online there are ton of videos of porch pirates on camera. Not caring who sees or wearing a mask.
Lack of respect for personal property is terrible.

 

[_19disnA]

It hasn't been a problem in our neighborhood. I guess I don't get the mentality of someone who steals random packages when most of the time you can't tell what they contain just by looking at the label. Do they hope it is something of value they can turn around and resell on ebay?..............LOL.

 

[Genie+]

Zero chance around here thankfully because most of the driveways are long.

No porch pirates No trick-or-treaters

 

[team bradfield]

wish we'd get some pirates, I have several old broken TV's I'd like to box up for them

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

wish we'd get some pirates, I have several old broken TV's I'd like to box up for them

SEVERAL years ago, when I lived in IL, our TV broke shortly before Xmas. We did get another one like same day,, but dragged the old one outside....it was GONE the next morning

 

[barkley]

Zero chance around here thankfully because most of the driveways are long.

No porch pirates No trick-or-treaters

long driveways and no trick or treaters here either. thing with the long driveways though here is if you are going away for a couple of days or longer during the winter months is to get a neighbor to drive in and out of yours/walk up and back to the garage door and a bit around the mailbox at the end so the house looks occupied. there have been break-ins b/c theives drive around a day or so after a fresh snow and target homes with pristine driveways/no obvious activity around the mailbox (cuz if you stop your mail the postal truck isn't stopping and leaving tracks). ya need someone to kerfuffle the snow and make the house look lived in.

 

[EACarlson]

No problems I'm aware of in my neighborhood. We have a Google Doorbell so we get notified immediately when something gets delivered. We have Amazon Key so the Amazon drivers can put our packages in our garage.

 

[BrianL]

My neighborhood has a bit of petty crime, but it is mostly middle-of-the-night stuff. Leave your car unlocked, and there's a chance it will be gone over. They are very polite--they don't take anything that isn't easy to turn into cash, and mostly leave things the way they found them. I've had it happen twice in the last year (I'm not good at remembering to lock my car) and they left my (prescription) Ray Bans both times. I think I lost a half-full $25 gift card once, and that's about it.

I did have an old bike taken. It was locked to itself, rather than to something more permanent. As one of my pastors once challenged us: I figure someone needed it more than I did. No big--it wasn't worth much, and was on the "I need to replace this" list already.

As for packages: I'm in a condo building, with eight units per outside entrance. Most of us pull packages inside when we see them, so they don't last outside too long, and the risk is pretty low. I will admit that if I'm buying electronics I will pick them up from Apple or BestBuy rather than have them delivered.

So, overall, I don't get too worked up about it. It's just stuff, and stuff is easy to replace. And I flatly refuse to get a video doorbell, etc. We're awash in enough surveillance capitalism already.

This reminds me of way back in the day, some punks rifled through my mom's car - she was offended that they didn't steal her CD's! This was back when you could actually get a little cash for them - They just didn't want her's!

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

No problems here, we are far enough off the road that I don't think a lot of people even realize there's a porch there to pirate from. I do worry about packages left in the mailbox, though. It's right on the road and the mailperson doesn't seem to be able to close it. So far so good, there were two packages in there last night that no one bothered.

 

[TippyThomas]

No problems I'm aware of in my neighborhood. We have a Google Doorbell so we get notified immediately when something gets delivered. We have Amazon Key so the Amazon drivers can put our packages in our garage.

I did the Key on my garage because I was having some edible things delivered often enough that I was more worried about the animals than I was pirates. Wise choice for either in my opinion.

 

[FastPasser.]

An 6 foot high steel security gate at the main entrance and a warning sign saying that there are license plate cameras seems to have kept any thieves away.

 

[LilyWDW]

Some issues here, but I live in a large city and many of the apartments are in older buildings that don't have mail rooms. Luckily my building has a locked lobby area that they leave packages in. Not all buildings have that. I have seen packages left right outside the exterior door along a busy traffic area. So not really surprised that stuff gets grabbed in those cases.

 

[weewuvvdisney]

Live in a big city. Houses are side by side, close to the sidewalk. We had one Amazon package stolen which was replaced. Hubby is retired now so he says within hearing distance of the doorbell. Sometimes drivers don't ring the bell and my daughter will text me that she got a delivery notification. Now, when they ring, I run to the door and yell out: Thanks for ringing the bell. Have a good one! I usually get a wave & a smile. Gentle reminder for the drivers. One day my daughter ordered a $250.00 paddleboard. The driver did not ring the bell. I was waiting for it but didn't know it was there. Luckily my daughter was close by. She rang the bell and I ran to do door. Was surprised to see her & the paddleboard. There are a lot of people in our area who have posted missing packages with pictures of the person. I think I would be careful posting someones picture online.

 

[kdonnel]

Haven't had porch pirates but we have had quite a few misdelivered packages in the neighborhood. Neighbors complaining on Facebook page about USPS, Fedex, UPS, or Amazon packages marked delivered but not in their mailbox or on their property.

Not sure how many find the real owner.

 

[Southernmiss]

Thankfully, no. We went out of town for a day and a half and 2 packages sat on the porch. Eek.

I had ordered items for Christmas and they took 2 weeks to come in, longer than they should have.

 

[LoveDaisy]

I have not heard of any in my area (CT) but people have had their cars stolen while letting them warm up so packages must not be worth their time. I have a friend in Maryland he said they are having lots of issues with porch pirates and his car has been broken into 3 times in 2 weeks.

 

[mgarbowski]

Had our first porch theft loss just last night. It happened less than 10 seconds after the package was dropped off. My doorbell rang, I opened the inner door, and through the storm door saw the thief reach down, grab the small package, and run 40 yards down the street to a waiting car. Thief was either tailing the Fedex truck or working with the driver. I prefer to think it's the former but no way to know.

I reported to Fedex but not expecting any follow up.

 

[barkley]

Had our first porch theft loss just last night. It happened less than 10 seconds after the package was dropped off. My doorbell rang, I opened the inner door, and through the storm door saw the thief reach down, grab the small package, and run 40 yards down the street to a waiting car. Thief was either tailing the Fedex truck or working with the driver. I prefer to think it's the former but no way to know.

I reported to Fedex but not expecting any follow up.

dang! that's brazen. the way we've seen it rurally is a vehicle will trail the delivery trucks but then have another car/partner nearby that they communicate the drop-off addresses to. if someone or the delivery driver's dispatch call in the following vehicle and it gets pulled over there's no packages to recover.

 

[mgarbowski]

dang! that's brazen. the way we've seen it rurally is a vehicle will trail the delivery trucks but then have another car/partner nearby that they communicate the drop-off addresses to. if someone or the delivery driver's dispatch call in the following vehicle and it gets pulled over there's no packages to recover.

Like a drug dealer keeping the cash and product separate.

 

[barkley]

Like a drug dealer keeping the cash and product separate.

yup and now we are learning that the pickup vehicles are taking the time to periodically stop and open all the packages to dump all identifying information out. one neighbor was out walking and glanced into a ditch to find a pile of open ups/fed ex/USPS packaging with addresses in adjacent areas they reached out to the 3 delivery services and none were interested saying individual customers would contact them if they had issues with receipt of deliveries.