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‘Porch pirates’ stole an estimated 260M packages in 2021
- birdyrooster 4y agoThe porch pirates that hijack trains, yes
- bombcar 4y agoI mean there are people who break into trains and loot the valuable insides, but I don't think they're actually hijacking the train, kicking out the engineer, and driving it to a secret hideout in the mountains.
- jcadam 4y agoDon't have too much trouble with porch pirates up here on my 2.5 acre property in Alaska. Though, sometimes UPS/FedEx drivers can't make it up my hill in the winter and decide to just lean a package up against a tree. That's annoying because I receive a delivery notification and then have to go hunt for it.
- sigstoat 4y agoi'd like to move some place even more rural, such that i have similar problems. i was imagining installing something like one of the blue usps mailboxes at the end of the driveway. is it not a big enough problem to bother with something like that?
- bombcar 4y agoIt's usually rare enough (winter only, certain days only) that it's not worth bothering; but if you really cared you could easily get a trash can in yellow or something https://www.uline.com/BL_445/Uline-Trash-Cans-with-Wheels https://www.uline.com/BL_445/Uline-Trash-Cans-with-Wheels My local UPS has no problem leaving things on the steps (nothing has ever gone missing) but FedEx always backs down my (shortish) driveway and tries to hide it behind a trash can. Even assuming the trash can above was somehow porch pirate secure, you're looking at 10.4 billion dollars to outfit each house with one, interestingly enough.
- Scoundreller 4y agoEven just a shield to make it not so visibly obvious that there’s package for the taking would cut risk by xx%. Sometimes a lot of easy and cheap solutions are better than a few expensive but closer to perfect solutions. At least what I like with the amazonization of society is that most packages are close to worthless to fence. That big Amazon box might just be toilet paper. The small one might just be hot sauce. That wasn’t a thing 20 years ago.
- bombcar 4y agoYeah, we have the dollar amount lost to porch piracy, it'd be interesting to see how much "value" comes out the other side. I suspect much of it is just ripped open and left; perhaps Amazon will start shipping low value items in clear boxes.
- mc32 4y agoSounds like you'd like to live like Ivo: https://www.insider.com/man-living-in-utah-ghost-town-alone-2020-10 https://www.insider.com/man-living-in-utah-ghost-town-alone-... He has to hop into a plane to go pick up groceries.
- whycome 4y agoIf they just leave it randomly somewhere on your property I guess it's technically 'delivered'. Just wait til drone deliveries are a thing.
- twiss 4y agoI hate blaming the process rather than the "root cause" (that brings people to steal), however, in this particular case it does feel like leaving packages out in the open on porches is setting yourself up for failure. In the Netherlands, where I'm from, if you're not home, they'll ring your neighbor's doorbell and ask them to keep the package for you, and put a piece of paper in your letterbox telling you which neighbor has it. Now, of course if you don't have any neighbors (that are home), that might not work, and I can understand the convenience of just having your package there when you arrive home, but I still feel like a better system might help, here.
- bombcar 4y agoAround here we have had zero incidences of porch piracy, so nobody bothers; and as neighborhoods head more toward stratification the likelihood of no neighbor being home increases. If this becomes endemic in areas, things like lockers will start to appear; someone's paying for all this (perhaps this is why Amazon promotes the Amazon lockers so much in some areas). https://www.amazon.com/ulp/view https://www.amazon.com/ulp/view
- phil21 4y agoSome delivery drivers will still do this in the US, but due to the metrics they need to attain this level of customer service is largely in the past. When I was growing up, you'd regularly see similar. Neighborhoods were more robust socially, and there was actually time in the day for the mailman to stop for a 3 minute chat every block with the old ladies. These days talk to any delivery driver (friends and family have been for USPS, Amazon, and Fedex) and they'll laugh at this suggestion. They get mere seconds per drop most on most routes. The small fraction of packages stolen evidently ends up being cheaper than paying more delivery drivers. Especially since I suspect at least a fraction of this "cost of doing business" is fobbed off directly on consumers by refusing/making it hard to get a refund in some cases.
- tomjen3 4y agoAround here in Denmark, you just get a notice for what shop you can go and pick it up in. The same thing happens if you are home, but they are lazy. I like the US version better, but it needs to be paired with a severe penalty for theft.
- coreyp_1 4y agoAs a first step, let's stop calling them "porch pirates". Call them a "thief". And, yes, some thief stole something from my porch 2 weeks ago. I asked Amazon to deliver it on a Thursday when I knew I would be home to get the package. It was delivered on Monday instead. Guess who wasn't home to get the package? Yes, I got a refund, which I'm thankful for, but it was still a huge inconvenience for me and it took money out of someone's pocket! Thief. Not a "porch pirate". Thief.
- lost_tourist 4y agonah matey, I'm still calling them porch pirates, and I'll still send videos of them in.
- bombcar 4y agoBut porch pirate sounds so alliteratively fun! What's annoying is that Amazon has started delivering with their own companies; it is relatively easy to tell UPS/FedEx/USPS to mark your address as "always signature/handoff required" and they'll not deliver if they can't contact you - the smaller companies are hit and miss.
- tedunangst 4y agoWhat do you think pirates do?
- itsyaboi 4y agoSing cute shanties and engage in cheeky hijinks, if we completely ignore the parent comment.
- serverholic 4y agoWe have a tendency in our culture to soften words. Thief has more emotional impact than “porch pirate”.
- happytoexplain 4y agoI agree that "pirate" isn't an appropriate word in this case (though "porch pirate" is very specific and brief, at least), but I would say that we have a tendency in our culture (perhaps all cultures) to bend words in any direction based on our biases, whether that means making them softer or harsher.
- adamredwoods 4y agoI wonder how well a simple package bin with lid would work, for a home? It would have to be large enough to take in a couple packages. No lock, either, for ease of delivery. This way porch thefts must take the action of looking into something, and possibly be disappointed, if empty. I'm curious if that specific action would change the thieves' mental process, along the lines of "out of sight, out of mind".
- zimpenfish 4y agoSomething like these drop boxes seem like the best option - https://www.smartparcelbox.co.uk https://www.smartparcelbox.co.uk
- barbazoo 4y agoThis seems like overkill. I bet even a simple wooden box would do, simply because thieves wouldn't see whether there IS a package. They wouldn't go from house to house rummaging through the boxes I bet.
- p1mrx 4y ago> It would have to be large enough to take in a couple packages. Also heavy enough to not blow away in the wind, but light enough for inexpensive delivery. Perhaps with IKEA-like assembly, and a compartment in the bottom for gravel or dirt.
- trenning 4y agoJOBOX is the answer then. Probably not going to fit the aesthetic of the compulsive online shopper’s home however.
- kitsunesoba 4y agoThe problem there is getting delivery drivers to actually use the bin. I've seen a number of people who've tried this approach only for packages to be dropped on top of or around the bin. When I still lived in an apartment complex it was a struggle to get drivers to use the package lockers in the mailroom. Fairly often you'd go down there to find a big pile of packages that you'd have to rummage through, which drove me nuts because I hate messing with others peoples' mail.
- godzillabrennus 4y agoRenting a UPS store mailbox to get packages is my solution. It’s about $50/month and it got rid of any potential thieves.
- jacquesm 4y ago$600 per year means that you must be dealing with a lot of theft.
- test6554 4y ago$600 per year?? You should ask the city if you are allowed to deduct that from your local property taxes that would normally go toward the police budget.
- devilbunny 4y agoFor $20/year, you can get a UPS MyChoice paid account that will deliver to a different address, and if you designate a favorite UPS Access Point, you can redirect all packages there for free - if anyone ships UPS to you, it will go to the designated AP. It also automatically upgrades UPS SurePost (UPS long distance, USPS local delivery) to UPS Ground, meaning it will be directed to your favorite AP.
- 63 4y agoI ended up deciding to pay for a po box rather than risk leaving expensive packages sitting around. The inconvenience of needing to go to the post office sucks but the price isn't terrible and it basically just acts as insurance. I do wish there was a cheaper way to say "don't deliver any packages to my house, just hold them until 6:00 today and I'll go get them."
- KptMarchewa 4y agoIn Poland we have Paczkomaty which are dominant delivery method - https://inpost.pl/en/find-location https://inpost.pl/en/find-location Density of those is very high, so you'll have one in walking distance unless you're living in some backwater. Then you'll have one in 5 minute driving distance.
- cft 4y agoCertain businesses are possible only in the high-trust societies. As the US approaches Central American trust levels (especially in the urban areas and states like California), many business models will become non-viable.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago> (especially in the urban areas and states like California) It's by no means isolated to such places. The rural area I grew up in out east has seen increasing problems with theft in general, packages included. It was very unlikely there as a kid in the 90s — people left their doors unlocked all the time — but these days you not only need to keep your doors locked but make sure it never looks like your house is unoccupied for longer than a couple of days.
- flerchin 4y agoMark Rober has shown that it's a very small percentage of folks, and that most of these are thrill crimes more than anything (the SF car thieves being another issue entirely). I have never had any problems with porch thievery. Going so far as to have my pc-build parts delivered when I wasn't home. No big deal, just $4k worth of stuff on my doorstep.
- lizardactivist 4y agoI don't mean to diminish the problem, but that sounds like a massively inflated number.
- zardo 4y agoIn my experience, shippers will claim a package was delivered and must have been stolen rather than own up to losing it.
- alphabettsy 4y agoIt’s been a long time since I had a package stolen even though I live in a “crime-ridden liberal hellscape”. Personally, I’d like to see a few things. Police actually patrolling rather than sitting on the major street a few blocks away pulling people over for minor infractions. Police taking any actions whatsoever when reported such as using the video and license plate to follow-up would be nice as well. Contrary to what is oft repeated, they do get prosecuted around here. I’d also like to see companies like Amazon, have their drivers actually respect the preferences that you can set such as delivering packages to a side/back door or to a certain place that’s less visible. Despite having my preferences set with every service, I’ve still come home to find packages on the very edge of the steps or front porch where they’re visible from the end of the street. When I lived in an apartment packages were left outside the door sometimes even though drivers had an entry code. The USPS workers are the only ones that seems to somewhat consistently care and one guy even knocked and checked on me personally when he noticed I hadn’t gotten my mail in several days (just forgot).
- frogblast 4y agoRegarding having drivers respect preferences... Shippers end up eating the cost of these packages, and they are making an economic tradeoff: Slower deliveries by following preferences vs. eating the cost of loss. They are choosing the latter. Maybe they haven't done the analysis right, or maybe the overall costs really are lower that way.
- zardo 4y agoI find in an apartment complex with lock boxes to prevent package theft, some shippers (FedEx and Amazon) almost never use them, presumably because the drivers are under a time crunch. It may be easy for FedEx and Amazon to just have insurance cover it. But it's easiest for me to just stop ordering anything from them.
- laserdancepony 4y agoMaybe because the USPS ist paying their employees a living wage and giving them a delivery schedule that is actually going to work out over the day? You get what you pay for.
- jrnichols 4y ago"“I also encourage people to reach out to the police, but only about 5% to 8% do that,” Stickle said." People don't bother because they know that law enforcement rarely does anything about it. San Jose, CA a couple years ago had someone catching porch thieves on video yet SJPD said they wouldn't pursue the matter further. Not surprising considering how low the penalties can be, if the DA even moves to prosecute. I'm in Sacramento, which is now #5 on the list, and while there are organized theft rings that will basically follow delivery trucks, many of the package thefts here are done by the homeless. Due to rising thefts, the Amazon Lockers have been a great thing to have.
- steviedotboston 4y agoIt's astounding to me how much the cost of porch pirates, self checkout theft, and customer returns are now baked into the cost of products, yet things still seem quite cheap.
- jabthedang 4y ago
- horns4lyfe 4y agoWe’ve become very comfortable with large swaths of society not abiding by any kind of social contract. We’re becoming a low trust society really quickly, and it sucks.