Ever Had a Package Stolen from Your Doorstep?

[Octavia]

This is almost certainly illegal, but boy is it satisfying.

[SlateSlabrock]

And all it took was six months of engineering and $2800 of smartphones.

[Mr. Big]

That was so satisfying to watch

[Octavia]

And all it took was six months of engineering and $2800 of smartphones.

100% worth it

I love how everyone's immediate reaction is that they're the victim. The way the first guy whines "look at my caaaar, dude!" just cements the fact that he's a colossal piece of shit.

[Jill]

This is almost certainly illegal

what are they gonna do, press charges against you for fraud?

[Jill]

i can see the headlines now

Local Man Charged with Fraud for His Stolen Property Not Being All That Desirable

[Mr. Big]

He wasn't the only one who thought of using glitter bomb to troll package thieves. A woman in Massachusetts had the same idea, although hers didn't have a camera.

[Wayoshi]

It's a huge issue in my Mom's neighborhood right now, she's pretty furious about it. Is having me send presents to a local UPS instead.

Why are people so scummy?

[Wayoshi]

also this channel is great, love this guy

[W.T. Fits]

I love how everyone's immediate reaction is that they're the victim. The way the first guy whines "look at my caaaar, dude!" just cements the fact that he's a colossal piece of shit.

"How dare that asshole set a booby trap to ruin my car/house when all I did was steal their private property!"

I also love how the one woman who was like, "Aw HELL naw!" went to grab the thing... only to suddenly back off when it started spraying the fart scent. Because she wasn't sure what was about to happen to her at that point.

[Gloomy Rube]

Wowee these guys are all super scummy, I especially get angered by the whole "UGH HOW DARE SOMEONE DO THIS TO ME" attitude most of them have, for pete's sake.

[minty]

I wonder why package theft has become so bad lately. Packages are nothing new, regardless of Amazon.

[Fizzbuzz]

I remember hearing a story about someone rigging a fake package to fire a blank shotgun shell inside when it was picked up. Nothing happened other than a loud bang, but it was always enough to send the would-be thieves running.

[Adiwan]

Is it legal for the deliverer to leave the package at the front door (unless the customer says it is OK to leave it there)?

[Octavia]

what are they gonna do, press charges against you for fraud?

It's illegal to leave booby trapped items on your property, but yes in order for the thief to press charges, they'd have to admit they were stealing the package, which would open them up to prosecution as well. In this specific case, the video maker could easily defend that he wasn't trying to physically hurt the thieves, since it was filled with glitter and fart spray, not explosives or sharp objects.

Is it legal for the deliverer to leave the package at the front door (unless the customer says it is OK to leave it there)?

You usually have to pay extra if you want the package to have a signature required. Post Offices have terrible hours and it's not worth the hassle of going there, especially during the busy holidays, so packages are usually just left at the front door.

Two years ago, I had a jacket that was delivered to me stolen off my front porch. Then like a month later, someone stole a package containing 500 envelopes and 12 hockey pucks. Both times the companies re-sent them free of charge and I was able to get the items, but I still felt violated and angry that they got away with it. We've since improved the lock on our front gate and I also get text delivery notifications for Amazon deliveries, so I'm able to grab deliveries within 5 minutes, and I haven't had anything stolen since.

[Gloomy Rube]

I'm lucky in that my house is at the end of a cul-de-sac, part of a duplex, and it's the half that's totally invisible from the street, especially if my car's in the driveway. If someone wanted to snatch a package from our front step, they'd have to drive into our driveway first to even tell if there was a package there or not.

[Gloomy Rube]

I guess my advice is "hide your front porch"

I recommend a big painting of the land behind your house so people won't realize there's a house there

[Mr. Big]

I recently sent a drawing to a friend, and even though the tracking said it got delivered, the friend never got it, apparently stolen. TLDR: his mailbox is a block away because the street he lives in is privately-owned, and thus the USPS truck is legally not allowed to drive there unless they have to deliver in person (like signature required mail). As a result, it's literally a long walk to get his mail, so he only go check the mail once every other day, which is why he didn't check for days.

I scanned the drawing before I sent it, so my plan right now is to re-create the original by tracing it from the scan and send it again, this time through UPS, since they would have to deliver to the house. For extra security, I'm going to make it signature required.

Thank you, mail thief, for making me spend 3x the postage cost to avoid you

[Mr. Big]

On my end, I don't think any of our package got stolen, but that's because 1) somebody is usually at the house at all times, so we know when the mail arrives, 2) we have dogs outside that barks at literally anyone, scaring away potential thieves, and 3) hardly anybody comes to our street anyway, and most houses on our street are spaced far apart. There are advantages of living in a rural area.

There were instances, though, when UPS mis-deliver our packages to another house on our street (it's always UPS that does this for some reason). Whenever this happens, the person would always bring it over to our house.

[Princess Flufflebutt]

Here, they leave a letter saying the package is in the nearest post office instead of leaving it around because that's just fuckin' stupid.

[Jill]

we've been lucky enough to not have our packages swiped but that's probably because i'm home nearly 24/7 and my father gives me a heads up on days where he's expecting something. on two occasions i've caught UPS guys coming and going without even bothering to knock or ring the doorbell when they drop off one of our packages

loads of people don't have the same kind of luxury so it's appalling that a) delivery companies are allowed to just leave packages unattended and b) even if you have the most damning video evidence ever, authorities can just say "who cares" if the package is worth less than four digits

[Madeline]

we've been lucky enough to not have our packages swiped but that's probably because i'm home nearly 24/7 and my father gives me a heads up on days where he's expecting something. on two occasions i've caught UPS guys coming and going without even bothering to knock or ring the doorbell when they drop off one of our packages

loads of people don't have the same kind of luxury so it's appalling that a) delivery companies are allowed to just leave packages unattended and b) even if you have the most damning video evidence ever, authorities can just say "who cares" if the package is worth less than four digits

Same. I’ve found packages in the bushes and once I found one under a bench. OnTrac straight up never delivers anything, and they always lie and mark it delivered so it’s a huge hassle if someone uses them to ship something.

[Madeline]

the video was faked

womp womp

[Octavia]

If you read the article, it says that only 2 of the 5 were suspicious and it wasn't because of the creator of the video, it was because the people he paid to put it on their doorstep got their friends to do it.

Also I refuse to believe that people would willingly cover their own car interiors with glitter. That is IMPOSSIBLE to completely remove.

[Fizzbuzz]

Also I refuse to believe that people would willingly cover their own car interiors with glitter.

Considering how many people have hurt or even killed themselves in pursuit of a viral YouTube video, getting a bunch of shit up in your car for the same purpose seems like it should be far more common.

[Highbrow Dash]

we've been lucky enough to not have our packages swiped but that's probably because i'm home nearly 24/7 and my father gives me a heads up on days where he's expecting something. on two occasions i've caught UPS guys coming and going without even bothering to knock or ring the doorbell when they drop off one of our packages

loads of people don't have the same kind of luxury so it's appalling that a) delivery companies are allowed to just leave packages unattended and b) even if you have the most damning video evidence ever, authorities can just say "who cares" if the package is worth less than four digits

Seriously, in other countries if a package can't be delivered they just take it back and you have to pick it up at the post office or wherever. You don't just leave it in the middle of the street and hope nobody will steal it

[Perpetual Motion]

The problem in the US is that there's a ton of competing package delivery services that have both wildly varying policies and wildly varying quality of employees. I've heard plenty of stories of delivery people just dumping packages on the doorstep and walking away without even knocking.

[Jill]

it's another example of how our capitalist ideal of self-regulation and competition breeding better service is naive at best; sometimes just achieving the bar of common sense is too expensive to be worth offering a de facto better deal than the competition

thus, delivery services have burrowed deep into this hole of just taking the minimum amount of responsibility required unless you're willing to foot a larger bill to ensure something doesn't get stolen. in essence they are leveraging a criminal threat to charge you for protections that would be bog-standard in other parts of the world, though i can't speak for how prices would compare

[Octavia]

it's another example of how our capitalist ideal of self-regulation and competition breeding better service is naive at best; sometimes just achieving the bar of common sense is too expensive to be worth offering a de facto better deal than the competition

thus, delivery services have burrowed deep into this hole of just taking the minimum amount of responsibility required unless you're willing to foot a larger bill to ensure something doesn't get stolen. in essence they are leveraging a criminal threat to charge you for protections that would be bog-standard in other parts of the world, though i can't speak for how prices would compare

It's just like airline travel. Flights used to be cheaper, you had more leg room, you'd get a free checked bag, free beverages and a free meal. Then one airline realized you could make more money by charging people for all those things and every other airline followed suit, so it became the new standard.

[!saak]

turns out that two of these incidents were staged



this vid is a good watch overall