Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/13/cops-using-gps-gear-and-doorbe.html
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maybe leave a box in your porch under a sign with an arrow that says, “Relax. This is not a bait package. No one is monitoring it. ”
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Stink bombs?
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Good for them. Porch pirates should be made to walk the plank.
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What’s in the box?
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I’ve thought of leaving out bait boxes filled with glitter and spring snakes.
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I have come upon the results of porch theft a bunch of times recently. They toss anything not valuable in the bushes, so that personalized coffee mug with your best friend’s face on it? Nearly worthless to anyone else. My favorite was the huge box of pet food, they probably thought it was a computer or other valuable electronics. Nope. Dropped in the brush near the subway tracks.
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They would have “package not received” complaints, but how many of these are porch thefts?
Do you really want to know?
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I agree that casual theft is lame. But couldn’t you get off your damn porch and go buy things from the store your neighbors work at? And maybe even chat with the cashier? I mean I know it’s not 1950 anymore, but why not give human contact one more try? I mean, you know, it IS Christmas after all.
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I tried human contact but they wouldn’t get off my lawn. 
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No one likes to look incompetent, I suppose.
Not about incompetence, but as businesses that rely on shipping things to your home, they obviously don’t want people to realize how likely they are to get screwed by theft and get discouraged from buying online, as it rather undercuts their whole business model.
Yeah, a neighbor had a large box of law books stolen - they had to have had close to zero resale value for someone looking for a quick buck, and were no doubt immediately dumped, but cost a pretty penny to replace. I suspect that’s true of a lot of packages; I’ve often wondered how many packages someone has to steal to make it worthwhile. I’m guessing a fair number, which is why so many package thieves actually follow delivery vehicles around and grab everything that they leave behind.
Except, you know, online retail has not just removed stores but also altered what stores carry.
I went to a hobby store a while back that I hadn’t been to in years - I was surprised to see that their selection was a shadow of what it had previously been. Speaking to the manager, he explained that they no longer carried any of the things they previously sold that had lower margins, leaving those to online retailers. All they carried were the items with the highest demand and/or highest profit margins. Which meant there was literally no way to buy any of the things I was interested in purchasing locally.
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My mum gets super stressed with Christmas shopping. She buys us stuff whether we want her to or not so it’s easiest to just send her the links to the things we want and she orders them. She wouldn’t know where to find half the things anyway.
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A lot of the stuff I buy, isn’t even available locally in a physical store. I grapple with this all the time because I don’t like Amazon’s business practices with their employees, but I am also poor as shit right now. Definitely an ethical quandary.
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I can’t believe that nobody has popularized lockboxes for porches yet. Something that locks when the delivery person closes the door after dropping the package inside. Much simpler to implement than getting car manufacturers to give amazon a backdoor into your car for car deliveries.
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I’m lucky in that things I like to buy are potatoes from the Zimmerman’s farm, cheese from the Clerc family’s cows, meat from the self-serve butcher, and carrots from the farmer’s co-op.
Good luck with the “poor as shit” problem, I hope things go better for ya in 2019!
It’s almost like, and bear with me on this, leaving packages lying around outside a property is a bad idea!
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I’m surprised that Amazon wouldn’t want people to know how common porch pirates are because that would encourage people to use those pickup points at grocery stores / 7elevens etc. I’m guessing those are cheaper for Amazon to deliver to.
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I try. Really try. I wanted a new desk lamp about a year ago; went to three local retailers (including Walmart). Not one example to be found. Got a nice one at Amazon for much less than I had expected to spend (ya, I know why, but Walmart also has those practices). I use a specific nasal spray a lot (Xlear, fwiw) . Tried like crazy to get a local health food store to order it for me…used to go there every week, “is it here yet?” . Nope . Books, same thing. Local bookseller would order a book for me, take forever, and then append a 25% premium over list for their trouble. I know, anecdotal evidence, but I get the impression my experience is typical 
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