3 Tips to Protect Your Holiday Packages from Porch Thieves

3 Tips to Protect Your Holiday Packages from Porch Thieves

3 Tips to Protect Your Holiday Packages from Porch Thieves

Ensure that your front porch isn’t a victim of “porch piracy” with these simple tips.

It is becoming an all too familiar sight: thieves stealing packages right off the porches of homes in neighborhoods. Authorities are calling the trend “porch piracy” and say it is happening more and more this time of year in conjunction with the rise of online sales during the Holiday season.

In order to protect your home from these package pirates, follow these tips we’ve assembled for you.

Require a signature

Ask the shipping company to require a signature upon delivery when receiving a package. This ensures that the package will be passed directly from the postman to you. While it is difficult to schedule a time to receive a package when the majority of Americans are working during the drop-off time, it is worth it to not let the postman simply leave the box on your front step.

If you are not able to be home to sign for the package, most third-party shippers will leave the box at a local store if it was unable to be signed for three times in a row. While this errand to the local shipping shop may seem unnecessary, you’ll be thanking yourself for not having to go through the headache of reporting a package stolen.

Send it to your office

If you work in an office building that allows you to receive personal packages, have it sent there instead of your home. Boxes that are dropped off at office buildings are often seen the minute that they arrive and are distributed almost immediately. You’ll have a higher chance of receiving your box when it hasn’t been sitting unattended for multiple hours outside your front door.

This option is especially great for those who live in apartment complexes. Often, apartments do not have anything sitting in front of the door that could obscure a package. While postmen are taught to try to hide the package from plain view, it is hard to do when there isn’t anything in front of your door besides a shared hallway.

Install a security camera

If you know you won’t be home to sign for a package and it isn’t an option to send it to your office building, install a camera on your front porch that can be your eyes for you. Place the camera at an angle so that it can capture as much of your front porch as possible. If you do get a package pirate on your stoop, you can easily identify who the culprit is and turn the footage over to the police.

These days, a lot of security cameras come with integrated platforms that allow you to monitor your home from a remote location. When your package has shipped, ask the shipping agency to send you mobile notifications when your package has been delivered, then you can check your camera from wherever you are to ensure the package is really there. After that, you can peek in on your package throughout the day to make sure it hasn’t been taken. If it has, you can quickly call authorities and the chance of getting your box back is much higher.

Bonus: Insure your items

Many online retailers this Cyber Monday have offered buyers free shipping this year, so use the money you saved on shipping to insure your bigger purchases. That extra money spent on insurance will look like a really good idea if you, unfortunately, are visited by porch pirate.

About the Author

Sydny Shepard is the Executive Editor of Campus Security & Life Safety.

Featured

  • New Report Reveals Top Security Risks for U.S. Retail Chains

    Interface Systems, a provider of security, actionable insights, and purpose-built networks for multi-location businesses, has released its 2024 State of Remote Video Monitoring in Retail Chains report. The detailed study analyzed over 2 million monitoring requests across 4,156 retail locations in the United States from September 2023 to August 2024. Read Now

  • Gaining a Competitive Edge

    Ask most companies about their future technology plans and the answers will most likely include AI. Then ask how they plan to deploy it, and that is where the responses may start to vary. Every company has unique surveillance requirements that are based on market focus, scale, scope, risk tolerance, geographic area and, of course, budget. Those factors all play a role in deciding how to configure a surveillance system, and how to effectively implement technologies like AI. Read Now

  • 6 Ways Security Awareness Training Empowers Human Risk Management

    Organizations are realizing that their greatest vulnerability often comes from within – their own people. Human error remains a significant factor in cybersecurity breaches, making it imperative for organizations to address human risk effectively. As a result, security awareness training (SAT) has emerged as a cornerstone in this endeavor because it offers a multifaceted approach to managing human risk. Read Now

  • The Stage is Set

    The security industry spans the entire globe, with manufacturers, developers and suppliers on every continent (well, almost—sorry, Antarctica). That means when regulations pop up in one area, they often have a ripple effect that impacts the entire supply chain. Recent data privacy regulations like GDPR in Europe and CPRA in California made waves when they first went into effect, forcing businesses to change the way they approach data collection and storage to continue operating in those markets. Even highly specific regulations like the U.S.’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) can have international reverberations – and this growing volume of legislation has continued to affect global supply chains in a variety of different ways. Read Now

Featured Cybersecurity

Webinars

New Products

  • AC Nio

    AC Nio

    Aiphone, a leading international manufacturer of intercom, access control, and emergency communication products, has introduced the AC Nio, its access control management software, an important addition to its new line of access control solutions. 3

  • A8V MIND

    A8V MIND

    Hexagon’s Geosystems presents a portable version of its Accur8vision detection system. A rugged all-in-one solution, the A8V MIND (Mobile Intrusion Detection) is designed to provide flexible protection of critical outdoor infrastructure and objects. Hexagon’s Accur8vision is a volumetric detection system that employs LiDAR technology to safeguard entire areas. Whenever it detects movement in a specified zone, it automatically differentiates a threat from a nonthreat, and immediately notifies security staff if necessary. Person detection is carried out within a radius of 80 meters from this device. Connected remotely via a portable computer device, it enables remote surveillance and does not depend on security staff patrolling the area. 3

  • 4K Video Decoder

    3xLOGIC’s VH-DECODER-4K is perfect for use in organizations of all sizes in diverse vertical sectors such as retail, leisure and hospitality, education and commercial premises. 3