5 Ways to Prevent Package Theft from Your Doorstep

33% of sur­veyed Cana­di­ans have had a pack­age stolen, accord­ing to recent fig­ures from FedEx – and those num­bers have been ris­ing every year.

In the Unit­ed States, the rates of pack­age theft are even high­er, with more than 210 mil­lion pack­ages stolen in 2021.

This trend isn’t going away any­time soon. As online shop­ping con­tin­ues to rise each year, a grow­ing num­ber of “porch pirates” are steal­ing pack­ages right from shop­pers’ front steps.

But that doesn’t mean you have to be a vic­tim. In this post, we out­line 5 effec­tive ways to reduce the risk of your pack­ages being stolen from your doorstep.

1) Schedule delivery when you’re home.

We get it: this tip is very dif­fi­cult for those who are not at home dur­ing the day. But if you have any con­trol over when your pack­age is deliv­ered, take advan­tage of it. If pos­si­ble, sched­ule deliv­ery for the evening, the week­end or when­ev­er you know you’ll be home to accept it.

2) Instruct deliveries to leave packages in discreet locations.

By a back door … inside a car­port … behind a bench …any­where that ensures your pack­ages are out of sight.

Pack­age thieves typ­i­cal­ly dri­ve through neigh­bor­hoods look­ing for homes with pack­ages sit­ting out in clear sight. These crooks scan doorsteps very quick­ly, stop­ping only when a pack­age is clear­ly vis­i­ble and eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.

By instruct­ing deliv­ery com­pa­nies to hide your pack­age how­ev­er pos­si­ble, this great­ly reduces the chances of it being stolen. Many online retail­ers, includ­ing Ama­zon, are increas­ing­ly allow­ing cus­tomers to add deliv­ery instruc­tions with their orders, so be sure to take the time to do this.

3) Install security cameras and/video doorbells.

Porch pirates don’t want to be caught. So if there’s any chance of being caught on cam­era, then these thieves will usu­al­ly move on to anoth­er home.

The Durham Region­al Police Ser­vice rec­om­mends that home­own­ers “install clear­ly vis­i­ble secu­ri­ty cam­eras or video door­bells, clear­ly point­ed at [the] drop-off loca­tion.”

The key phrase here is “clear­ly vis­i­ble.” The thieves must be able to see the cam­eras for deter­rence to be effec­tive.

4) Implement a home security system (with yard/window signs).

A home secu­ri­ty sys­tem is anoth­er pow­er­ful deter­rent that can steer away porch pirates (and bur­glars). But, like the cam­eras, the key is to make it obvi­ous that the secu­ri­ty sys­tem is in place.

As Durham Region­al Police Ser­vice advis­es, “Hang signs in your win­dow or yard about your secu­ri­ty sys­tem.”

Most rep­utable secu­ri­ty com­pa­nies will pro­vide these signs or win­dow decals when they install the sys­tem. Be sure to put them on dis­play!

5) Going away? Reschedule or direct packages.

Don’t let pack­ages sit at your doorstep. If you do, you can say good­bye to your pack­ages. But that’s not the only con­cern. Unat­tend­ed pack­ages are also a sign to bur­glars that nobody is home. So it’s not just the pack­age you could lose. Your home could be bur­glar­ized, too!

If you’re going away or oth­er­wise unable to retrieve your pack­age on the day it’s deliv­ered, have the deliv­ery resched­uled or redi­rect­ed to anoth­er address. Alter­na­tive­ly, ask a rel­a­tive or neigh­bor to retrieve your pack­ages while you’re gone.

Learn more

For more infor­ma­tion on how to pro­tect your home from theft, bur­glary and oth­er threats, con­tact PROTECTION PLUS for a no-oblig­a­tion secu­ri­ty sys­tem con­sul­ta­tion today.