Best ways to safeguard shipping holiday gifts
This holiday season more people are shopping online which means more shipping and more scams.
A recent study by the Buy Safe America Coalition found that retail theft has ballooned to more than $68 billion per year.
Prepare for an uptick in all manner of pirates targeting your porch, including an opossum that swiped a pair of hoop earrings off Betsy Lockhart's porch in Fairfield.
"He just grabbed it, went off to the side, then we heard him chomping," Lockhart said.
Surveillance footage is filled with two-legged swipers sailing around stealing in so many neighborhoods, but the rogue robbers caught on tape don't care or don't even bother to cover up their criminal acts and only run off if they happen to get caught in the act.
"I found out there are people that follow the Amazon trucks that come to deliver and just wait for them to leave it on your stoop and take it before you even get a notification that the package arrived," porch pirate victim Alexandra Duff said.
Duff's boyfriend, Nick Travelyn, just had a pair of one-of-kind vintage boots he ordered off Etsy for $100 boosted off their Cobble Hill stoop.
He got a notification on his phone that it had been delivered and within five minutes it was gone.
So what can you do to safeguard your deliveries?
Amazon offers local lockers and provides customers with codes to retrieve safely.
Retailers encourage shoppers to 'BOPIS': buy online, pickup in-store.
And delivery services say, when possible, to leave instructions for the delivery driver to leave items out of sight, on a side porch or by the garage for example, can keep sly eyeballs off of your boxes.
If your work allows for it, consider having packages delivered to your office.
After Alexandra had several packages pirated they now pay a fee to have a local mail place receive and send their stuff.
It costs $400 a year, but Duff says it's worth it.
Lastly, don't leave packages unattended and consider working out a buddy system with some trusted neighbors.
ALSO READ | How to get your money back if you fall for Zelle/bank scam
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