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Can Consumers Fight Package Thieves With Technology? (geekwire.com)
Every year more than 10 million packages are stolen off doorsteps, according to a study by August Home Inc. -- a company which sells a "smart" door lock that's controlled by your cellphone so you can remotely let a delivery person into your house. But that's just one of the weird ways consumers are using technology to try to fight package thieves. An anonymous reader reports:
Some online shopping sites will now also text you when one of their packages gets left on your doorstep, according to GeekWire, which reports that for a thousand bucks you can also just buy a lockable iBin parcel-delivery box. But there's also a startup selling an odd new product called Package Guard, "a Frisbee sized, wi-fi-enabled device that alerts a user when a package has been delivered and set on top of it. Package Guard sets off a loud alarm if anyone unauthorized tries to remove the package."
GeekWire details the frustration of one Seattle police detective. "Bach knows the crimes are happening, he knows it all spikes during the holiday season and he knows that the few thieves who are caught are likely to see little if any jail time." (Though Bach admits "We do a wide variety of undercover stings," including a recent operation involving mobile surveillance with a "major delivery company.") One Seattle man even attempted to stop thieves by installing a Ring smart doorbell to film activity on his doorstep, only to discover that this only enabled him to watch helplessly as a thief opened his package, and then successfully stole all of its contents.
Though he yelled at the video "Bring my package back now!" that thief was never caught.
GeekWire details the frustration of one Seattle police detective. "Bach knows the crimes are happening, he knows it all spikes during the holiday season and he knows that the few thieves who are caught are likely to see little if any jail time." (Though Bach admits "We do a wide variety of undercover stings," including a recent operation involving mobile surveillance with a "major delivery company.") One Seattle man even attempted to stop thieves by installing a Ring smart doorbell to film activity on his doorstep, only to discover that this only enabled him to watch helplessly as a thief opened his package, and then successfully stole all of its contents.
Though he yelled at the video "Bring my package back now!" that thief was never caught.
A fat lot that will help, when the problem is that delivry firms dump the packet outside and drive off. A more sensible approach would be to have safe delivery spots - or more, since I already see them here and there: something like a wall of steel lockers, where the delivery is deposited. The recipient will then get a code to unlock it sent to his mobile.
Or legislation: the seller should be liable for the loss of the goods, unless they can show a receipt with a signature and a photo of who signed. Something like that. It shouldn't be up to the consumer to solve the problem, because they are the ones least able to fix it.
I'm a fan of the USPS.
They make sure the package gets in your hands. If you're not home, they leave a ticket in your mailbox to pickup the package at the office, which is far less inconvenient then having a package stolen.
And if it's small enough to fit in a mailbox, sure, someone might take it. But it's a federal offense. And it's far less likely to happen when potential thieves can't see what's inside, as opposed to an inviting box sitting on one's doorstep.
Seriously, why did this even become a thing? Twenty years ago, I remember when a package that came by UPS or Fedex always had to be signed for and was never left on a doorstep.
According to my local post office, if you want UPS or FedEx to deliver to a PO Box, just address the package to the street address of the post office with your box as an apartment number, and it will be delivered to you. I've been to scared of losing a package to try this myself though.
to get a PO box, and have all packages shipped to you there. Its 100% secure, nobody but you can get your package. And USPS shipping is usually less expensive than other options.
The only problems are:
- many companies have exclusive contracts with shipping carriers that cannot deliver to PO boxes, and - many companies refuse to ship to PO boxes even if they do offer USPS shipping, possibly out of obsolete paranoia.
This. It is extremely uncommon for a delivery service to leave parcels on doorsteps in England and Australia because someone might pass it and thing "I'll have that".
In Australia if you cant have someone present for the delivery, you'll have to pick it up from a Distribution Centre or Post Office. In the UK they might leave it with a neighbour.
Smart door locks are not the solution as they just expose your home to burglary. In fact like the parent poster pointed out, a solution already exists. This kind of thing just screams "solution looking for a problem".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Option 1A: If you have a yard, get a dog that barks and make it a point to introduce it to the delivery people when you are home. A vocal canine will dissuade most would be thieves, and there's one looking for a human right now at a pound near you.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Easy: don't let distance retailers leave parcels on your doorstep!
Here in the UK, if a parcel is on your doorstep and gets stolen, it's still the retailers responsibility. Also, many large employers will let you receive parcels at your place of work, so they're received by a human into a secure building. Your neighbours can do the same thing for you if you have some you talk to (and are home when you're not). Larger apartment blocks have a conceirge. Most places I've ever worked at least have let me work at home for a day to receive deliveries. Amazon have 'Amazon Lockers' (as do a few others), and some other retailers have small shop fronts at stations and whatnot where you can 'click and collect'. I'm not sure if it died off due to disuse, but there used to be a chain called 'doddle' (funded by our rail companies of all things) that did collection and delivery services. Then my least favourite, but occasionally used option: saturday delivery. If all else fails, most couriers here will take the parcel back to their base (which is invariably a bit of a distance away) so you can pick it up from there.
Honestly, this isn't that hard.
Maybe that guy should have bought the Ring 2.0 that shoots lasers at the thieves.
Not the seller, the courier. Leaving a package on a doorstep is no less negligent than leaving it on the side of the road and telling someone to go get it before it's stolen. This should be covered under existing law.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
- Various "locker" countries. Lockers at many locations, often post offices, petrol stations, 24-hour shops. After selecting a bank of lockers which is convenient (e.g. on your way home to/from work), the delivery driver gets the location and a code for sealing the locker ; the recipient gets a code for opening the locker ; the shop keeper/ station manager etc has nothing to do unless there's a dispute, but they get a rental fee. PROBLEM : multiple companies. NEAREST to me : 2 locations in my city of < 10000 people.
- At least one "warehouse chain" (no store as such, just a warehouse ; you select from the catalogue or online, pay, and the goods are brought to you at front-of-warehouse) leverage their existing delivery network for people to collect goods from their chosen store. PROBLEM : limited number of stores. NEAREST : six miles from me, but I'm often there anyway. Another one 10 miles away in a different direction..
- Locker by front door : bolt a weatherproof locker by your front door. Close it with a programmable combination lock. Set code on lock, send code to delivery company, lock locker, put paper seal on locker. When you get home, unlock locker, inspect goods. Reverse works for collecting returns. Change lock code for next delivery. PROBLEM : might be too small, might be ugly, these are your problems. NEAREST : I've made these temporarily - metal locker secured by chain through letter box.
But to be honest, the "card through the door and collect item from post office" generally works fine for me.
This is not a problem that really need sophisticated technology. Just a little of that rarest of commodities - common sense.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I use street addressing feature and it is very effective. The only thing you have to pay attention to is the length of the address. The safest thing to do is put the street address on one line and the unit number on another line. I only had a problem once when a shipper truncated the address line and the unit number was cut off. The post office did a return to sender and the shipper claims he never got the package back and would not provide a refund.
I'm a fan of the USPS.
Evidently you haven't had to deal with them as much as I have. USPS is clumsy and inefficient. Their workers don't work quickly and shipping anything through them is a pain in the ass. Shipping packages through USPS is generally more expensive for equivalent service to UPS or FedEx. USPS "tracking service" is generally utterly useless. It tells you that it's been shipped and that it's been delivered and nothing in between most of the time. USPS does a fine job with letters but they are the only ones allowed to handle those so it's not like there is any alternative unless you want to hire an expensive private courier.
They make sure the package gets in your hands.
Only if you pay them extra to do so, no different from UPS or FedEx. Ship something without requiring the recipient to sign for delivery and they will not take special measures to get it to you and only you.
If you're not home, they leave a ticket in your mailbox to pickup the package at the office, which is far less inconvenient then having a package stolen.
UPS and FedEx do the same thing provided you pay them to do so. Just like USPS. And speaking solely for myself, I find having to make a special trip to the post office to be a colossally bad use of my time. It's inconvenient and the postal workers at the counter take FOREVER to do anything. It's typically a half hour trip every time I go and sometimes worse. Furthermore you can have UPS or FedEx hold packages at their depot in exactly the same way if doing so makes sense.
And if it's small enough to fit in a mailbox, sure, someone might take it. But it's a federal offense.
"Might"? Theft from mailboxes happens all the time. It's illegal to steal a package even if it isn't in a mailbox so I'm not sure why you think thieves give a shit just because the post office is involved. I've had packages I've shipped stolen right off the back of the truck long before they even got to their destination both via UPS and via USPS.
Twenty years ago, I remember when a package that came by UPS or Fedex always had to be signed for and was never left on a doorstep.
Bullshit. I was shipping packages by the thousands (literally) twenty years ago and it was no different then than it is now. You can pay UPS and FedEx extra to require a signature to deliver the package or you can just tell them to drop it off and save the extra cash. Same with insuring the package. You pay them if you want the extra handling. Some areas they will not deliver to without a signature but that is not widely true and hasn't ever been true for all packages as far as I know.
Rather than wait for your packages to be delivered then stolen, start early. Say around October. Put your own package on the front step when you leave for the day.
Inside you can fill it with dog shit or dirty diapers.
The first time a thief takes it they'll probably think better of stopping by a second time.
Which leads to the next step. Since that thief probably won't try again you can either rinse and repeat for the next thief or go to the next level and rig a fake package to shoot out pepper spray when opened.
If you wanted to be really clever, have a package which uses compressed air to shoot out dog shit when opened. Or any comparable liquid.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
In Denmark and Germany they have a foolproof system, the mailman or delivery guy doesn't actuallly have the package in his truck, all he has is a pad of notices all saying "You weren't at home, go get your package at the post office tomorrow!"
That gets REALLY awkward when you open the front door while the mailman is coming up towards it.
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UPS and USPS will deliver there (not sure for fedex) and it can be used as a business address.
Silence is a state of mime.
to get a PO box, and have all packages shipped to you there.
UPS will not deliver to PO boxes and in fact they cannot by law. Neither can FedEx, DHL, etc. Only the United States Postal Service can deliver to PO boxes. Since most of my deliveries do not come via USPS a PO box is rather useless to me. You can get a similar sort of service through places like UPS stores and they will accept packages from other couriers. Not the post office though.
And USPS shipping is usually less expensive than other options.
Not for equivalent service it isn't. USPS is generally more expensive and less convenient if you are paying for a similar level of service. I ship lots of packages and you can save money on postage in some cases through USPS but you generally get what you pay for.
Exactly this. Especially if the person is home and the courier leaves the package outside without even trying to ring the doorbell. We've had expensive shipments sitting outside for hours because UPS drivers don't ring the doorbells. Both of our cars are in the driveway, our lights are on, and sounds are coming from our house, but they still toss the package down and walk off. We've called UPS and they said it's their policy for drivers to ring the doorbells, but the drivers don't seem to follow through.
FedEx seems better at this by us, but this might vary depending on your local drivers. They need to enforce this policy better. Yes, it will mean slightly longer times needed for delivery (since "ring doorbell and wait 30 seconds" is longer than "drop package and walk away"), but it's worth it if it reduces package theft.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Yup otherwise people will steal everything you have and you will die.
The question is can vs should, you need to be able to shoot them you should not do it unless absolutely necessary. Anything you make illegal you agree that it's worth depriving somebodys life over. Because you will get that person that refuses to or simply can not live within that rule. Police and the courts will do it for you but overall it's still depriving somebody of their life one way or another.
No sir I dont like it.
Why do you want them to wait 30 seconds? USPS, FedEX and UPS all drop my package, ring the bell and leave. I don't see what waiting for me to answer is going to do for me. Also, don't you get a notification you package has been delivered as soon as they mark that in the handheld they carry?
Not the seller, the courier. Leaving a package on a doorstep is no less negligent than leaving it on the side of the road and telling someone to go get it before it's stolen. This should be covered under existing law.
The consumer has the power to fix this already: when ordering, request a "signature required" delivery. If the seller doesn't offer that, order elsewhere. Whatever you decide, it isn't the carrier's problem if you elect to assume the risk.
Here in California at least (and I'm sure other states as well) we have a problem with postal employees pilfering certain items before they even get to your door; you'll get your envelope, but the gift cards and money will be gone.
So are you planning on a quick headshot, or are you more into a gutshot so you can watch them flop around while they bleed out?
Indoors, you go for the head shot. Otherwise they could move into other rooms spurting blood everywhere. And I don't want to have to pay the carpet cleaners for any additional rooms.
Sometime in late 2004 Martha Stewart had a great show on this. She showed all kinds of different plastic shower curtains that looked great on the floor. Which was really convenient for keeping the mess to a minimum. She also recommended using duck tape to wrap the perp in the shower curtain for easy removal and cleanup. These days you can get all kinds of patterned duck tape too, so you shouldn't have much difficulty finding one that matches the shower curtain.
Look, this is getting ridiculous. If you just use the post office for package delivery, you know what happens if they can't deliver it into your hands? It goes back to your local post office, and they hold it for you-- you go by and pick it up whenever convenient. A postal worker is not just going to abandon your package on your doorstep pretending that you live in Mayberry RFD...
This is the key thing here: UPS sucks. They don't maintain anything like the network of post offices managed by USPS, and instead they like to gamble with the safety of your packages in ways the post office simply won't.
Blaiming the USPS for being "less efficient" is crazy: they *do more* for you. UPS cuts corners, and the result is a theft problem everyone is looking for slick technical fixes for.
The thief seems to think so if they are stealing in a castle doctrine state.
One of the issues in the UK was (it seems to have improved in the last year) that delivery schedules were essentially impossible for mortal humans to meet, and there was no time to hand over the package, get a signature, etc. Given that the odd pension funding requirements have put UPS under strain and UPS might be understaffed and having similar issues.
You are making the common confusion between UPS (united parcel service, a private company) and USPS (united states postal service, a government charter company). USPS has your so-called "odd pension funding requirement", the private UPS/IBT offers a pretty standard pension for its employees. Neither pension issue seems to have a effect on staffing levels of these companies.
Although USPS pension "pre-funding" issues have made the news, most folks are unaware that the UPS also has a completely different pension issue. Current UPS workers in the US have their pensions handled by a UPS/IBT union-partnership company, however prior to 2008, UPS outsourced the management of pensions to CSP (aka central-states-pension fund). They eventually decided to take bail on that company, but only take current employees to the new plan and a pay several billions of dollars to CSP to fund the pensions of retired employees remaining on CSP.
Now the old pension management company CSP is becoming insolvent (because most of its clients are trucking companies that are going bankrupt and didn't pay up like UPS) and CSP is poised to slash benefits checks as part of a reorg plan sponsored by the US treasury. Note that this crisis doesn't UPS, or current workers at all, but is of course a kick in the butt for those UPS employees that retired before 2008. Unlike the coal pension fund, congress hasn't been pressured to bail out this pension fund. If the pension fund would go bankrupt and taken over by the the pension guarantee insurance, only a fraction of the pension payments are generally covered by insurance and this negotiation with US treasury is designed to hopefully avoid the BK/insurance option for pensioners.
FWIW, the USPS pension would likely not have this insolvency issue because they are "odd-ly" forced to pre-pay their pension obligations, and not pay-as-you-go as other pensions funds. The observer is left to decide if pre-funding liabilities is an "odd" requirement or not given the fact that many industries can face an eventual future where in their growth phase, multiple employees are supporting a single pensioner, but as they shrink into obsolescence a single employee is supporting multiple pensioners. This is a just microcosm of the future effect of automation and aging populations will have on many western economies.
When companies are "doing-well", it's always tempting to improve benefits for pensioners over the amounts actually supported by the contributions the pensioners and the company when the employees were working. The argument that companies are "doing-well" and "should-contribute-more" is always compelling (and this argument often made by unions when negotiating contracts), but of course we see that generally violates the laws of economics long term and we see the results of this lack of foresight. Ironically the people who allegedly are qualified to plan for the retirement contracts for the employees are ignoring any planning for the retirement of their industries.
Next up on the pension crisis... Calpers (the california public employee pension fund)
But then again, I very much respect the US having "states' rights".
That gives the citizenry choice, to live in areas where the laws, regulation and lifestyle of an area are closer in terms to what they want for their lives.
That's why a large Federal one-size-fits-all system is not the best system.
But I don't have a problem with shooting someone on my property, stealing or damaging my property.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........