We are having a rash of robberies in our neighborhood. Someone is following UPS and Fed Ex and stealing packages off front porches. A lot of neighbors have the Ring cameras and have been posting photos of the guy at the door through our local Next Door neighborhood app. But, it’s very disconcerting. Several ladies opened their door right after delivery to watch the guy run down the driveway with their package. You’d think Fed Ex or UPS would watch out for cars following them.
It doesn’t happen to our house because our front door is high off the street
That is apparently the MO of some pkage thieves aka porch pirates. Amazon even sells locker boxes that one can install on the porch to prevent crimes of opportunity.
Our old house was on a long private drive (dead end on also on a dead end street), so porch pirates have never been a problem. I have been diverting some of the most valuable packages to work as many of my coworkers do.
I had the same thing happen to me a couple of years ago. But I continued to receive packages ( 5 total?) Some were addressed to me and paid for with someone else’s card and some were paid by my card. I discovered an unauthorized charge on my cc and the next day the packages started arriving. I contacted the vendors, requested return labels, explained the situation, filed a police report, monitored my credit cards, bank statements daily since then. Prior to that I checked things online maybe twice a week. I changed the alerts on my cc charge texts to anything over $50.
When I contacted the first vendor they felt so bad about the cc charge on my card she wanted me to keep the items which I absolutely refused. Did not want to be associated with any scam. I googled the scenario and it appears to happen frequently. It’s been almost 2 years and I’ve not had any problems or additional weird things happen. The police were very confused!
@coralbrook wrote “We are having a rash of robberies in our neighborhood. Someone is following UPS and Fed Ex and stealing packages off front porches.”
My neighborhood as well. In our area we now even have plain clothed delivery people from Amazon delivering. In fact, last night (early evening) my doorbell rang, and a young woman in plain clothing (no logo) handed me a package (yes, I had ordered the item from Amazon). Normally I do not answer the door, ever, unless I’m expecting someone. I can’t really explain why I did last night, but it reminded me to not do that again (I am alone most of the time at home). When I read the OPs post it got me thinking that any of these plain clothed delivery folks could be scamming any one, at any time.
Reminder to self, just don’t open the door. Period.
My niece in SF had a box with shoes sh had ordered ripped open and the empty box left tossed into the bushes. She was surprised but my BIL wasn’t and suggested she have deliveries shipped to his office. So far we haven’t had this issue.
S rents a condo in VA and the deliveries are kept at the front desk and when there are too many, they put the boxes in his condo, with his permission.
I got a Ring doorbell last month and am able to see thefts captured on their Ring doorbells that people in my neighborhood have posted. It is totally creepy to watch. People park right in front of the houses and do things like walk up a house and fill a garbage bags with the stolen packages and then walk right back to the car and leave. Others fill up their backpack or just run to the car with the boxes. One guy was the passenger in a car and roller bladed to the front door another one’s clothing resembled a delivery person and he came up the driveway with a package and exchanged if for the real one at the door. My favorite was the guy who ran up into someone’s yard and stole their walk behind lawn mower right out of the yard by loading it into their SUV. Crazy stuff.
We have ring as well. Got it on Amazon Prime day. It also allows you to speak to the person on the other side as well, even if you aren’t home. I’ve already caught a delivery person throwing boxes on my porch. But if I’m in another part of the house I now know who is at the door without having to go look, and be seen.
There is a small possibility this is an innocent mistake. Last summer I got a packet of intake forms for an Alzheimer’s program at a hospital about 50 miles away. There was the initial thought that, whoa, maybe I do have Alzheimer’s, if I don’t remember making an appointment there.
But I managed to unravel the problem by realizing they were supposed to be sent to someone with my same name, but a different spelling. The only way I figured it out was that they had a phone number that wasn’t mine. I used a reverse directory to determine it was a person with my name.
@JustaMom, DHL and other delivery companies are hiring drivers to deliver packages. Sort of an Uber/Lyft type employment. There is no uniform. A friend is doing this to earn extra money.
My brother used to work for UPS during the season. He was a driver’s helper and was issued a uniform.
Tonight on our ‘Nextdoor’ neighborhood forum someone posted an event that happened at lunch. He came home to let the dog out, heard something break in the front of his house. He checked his doorbell camera and it had recorded an SUV drive up to his next door neighbor’s house, 3 boys jump out, run up to the porch, and I guess when they found nothing took a planter and smashed it on the walk. Then one boy jumped back into the car but the other two jumped on the rear bumper and held one while the car was driving away. They were middle school/high school kids.
There have been a ton of porch thefts around here. We live in an older (1950-60) neighborhood with small houses o huge lots. The mailman still delivers to the porches. People are always walking dogs and just around, but there have been these package thefts and a lot of car break ins.
