90,000 Packages Disappear (stolen) Daily in N.Y.C. Is Help on the Way?

New York Times ^ | December 2, 2019 | Winnie Hu and Matthew Haag

[karpov]

Online deliveries to an apartment building in northern Manhattan are left with a retired woman in 2H who watches over her neighbors’ packages to make sure nothing gets stolen.

Corporate mailrooms in New York and other cities are overwhelmed by employees shipping personal packages to work for safekeeping, leading companies to ban packages and issue warnings that boxes will be intercepted and returned to the senders.

A new start-up company is gambling that online shoppers who are worried about not getting their packages will be willing to pay extra to ship them to a home-based network of package receivers in Brooklyn.

With online shopping surging and another holiday season unfolding, customers’ mounting frustration and anger over stolen packages are driving many to take creative and even extreme measures to keep items out of the hands of thieves.

In New York City, where more orders are delivered than anywhere else in the country, over 90,000 packages a day are stolen or disappear without explanation, up roughly 20 percent from four years ago, according to an analysis conducted for The New York Times.

About 15 percent of all deliveries in urban areas fail to reach customers because of package theft and other less frequent issues, like deliveries to the wrong house, according to transportation experts.

In suburbs and rural areas, thieves often follow delivery trucks and snatch just-delivered packages from homes, often out of sight of neighbors.

Now online shoppers are turning to a variety of strategies to stymie thieves. Some are installing video doorbell cameras or, at the urging of postal workers, replacing outdated mailboxes from a bygone era of postcards and letters with models that can accommodate large packages.

Online retailers and shipping services, recognizing the scope of the problem, are trying to help customers.

[sheana]

All Ring, or any of the others, do is record the theft. Police don’t respond to any of this stuff. Try calling them and tell them you have video of a porch pirate theft. They’ll laugh.

[zeugma]

Every week we empty the cat litter into a nice UPS labeled box and leave it on the front porch. It helps. It's always taken within 24 hours.

HAHA. I like the way you think.

[packrat35]

I live right by Sheffield High School and Goodlett Elementary.