Tens of millions of Individuals have had packages stolen from their entrance doorways by “porch pirates” this 12 months and one retired police officer advised Fox Information Digital the most effective options to make sure that your vacation items make it safely into your private home.
Dennis Farris, who served as a police officer in Austin, Texas, for 25 years and serves now as president of the Austin Police Retired Officers Affiliation, advised Fox Information Digital that the primary method to deter porch pirates is the “Amazon Key” system, which permits an Amazon supply particular person to drop a bundle contained in the storage.
“It’s a one-time code and it alerts you when the storage doorways open and alerts you when the storage door’s closed,” Farris mentioned. “It solely works one time after which the subsequent time it could be a distinct code, so it’s not just like the man that’s delivering your bundle may simply come again.”
Amazon’s in-garage supply course of is offered to Prime members and may be arrange utilizing the Amazon app.
Farris acknowledged that many individuals are “leery” of offering a stranger with entry to their storage and instructed different methods to safe packages, together with a lockbox on the entrance porch with a one-time entry code that the shopper can present to the supply service.
“Most individuals get packages which are comparatively small, so you may get a small lockable field that you would put in your entrance porch and put a mixture lock on it and within the supply directions you possibly can say there’s a lock field on the entrance porch and put down the mixture,” Farris mentioned. “That’s labor-intensive, nevertheless it’s one thing to maintain your stuff safe. That’s one of many methods to do it.”
Farris additionally instructed that Individuals who're involved about porch pirates make the most of Amazon lockers that the corporate gives at native institutions like 7-Eleven.
“The one foolproof method to hold your packages from getting stolen is utilizing a secondary location that you need to have a code to open the locker of,” Farris mentioned. “That’s realistically the one method to not get your stuff stolen.”
Farris really helpful that anybody who can’t or doesn’t need to use these choices ought to a minimum of contemplate a Ring doorbell digital camera or some form of video surveillance on their entrance porches so they may a minimum of “have an thought” of who did it if a bundle is stolen.
“The opposite factor is simply don’t go away your packages,” Farris mentioned. “Attempt to schedule your packages to be delivered for those who can later within the afternoon whenever you’re going to be residence or ask the supply driver to cover the bundle someplace in your porch.”
An estimated 260 million delivered packages have been stolen over the previous 12 months, in accordance with a examine from Safewise, in comparison with an estimated 210 million the earlier 12 months.
“It occurs in Austin on a regular basis,” Farris mentioned about porch pirates. “You hear about it on a regular basis, it’s turn into commonplace. Persons are nearly turning into numb to it. It’s arduous to catch these folks. That you must catch them within the act. At the moment with FedEx and UPS and Amazon, you possibly can observe the packages on the app, particularly in the event that they’re gonna be ordering stuff and observe the bundle.”
The examine ranked Austin as town with the third-highest variety of bundle thefts behind San Francisco, California, and Seattle, Washington.
“Coronary heart sunk, fell into my abdomen, and I used to be like, ‘Oh man, somebody took my bundle,’” Tacoma, Washington, resident Andres Reyes advised KCPQ-TV after being the sufferer of porch pirates final week in an incident caught on his Ring doorbell digital camera.
“It appears like I used to be violated.”
The highest three cities the place packages are stolen the least had been Miami, Florida; Tampa, Florida; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
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