Have you ever been excited to return home from work to a package that was delivered that day, only to find it missing from your porch? Some thieves are particularly opportunistic and will jump at the opportunity to grab an unattended package off of your porch.
If this has happened to you, then you might be wondering what you could do to stop it from happening in the future. Here are some ways you can keep your packages a bit safer when you’re not at home!
The most straightforward way to protect your Amazon deliveries is to simply have them delivered to an Amazon Locker. If you have a locker in your area, you can simply have your items taken to that location and dropped off there, like a PO box. That way, you can rest assured knowing your items are under lock and key in a secure location.
When you want to retrieve the items, you just drop by the locker and use the provided code to unlock the door. Your packages will be waiting for you inside.
If you’re not ordering from Amazon, of course, Amazon Locker isn’t helpful. For other items, you could consider setting up a PO box with your local post office. A PO box is a dropbox for your mail that is stored at the post office and is locked to everybody but you.
All you need to do is just set the delivery address for your items to your PO box, and then you’ll be able to grab them without hassle when they arrive. This is also a good way to have items delivered to an area near you without divulging your address to the shipper.
Petty thieves are generally opportunists. They’re not terribly interested in difficult tasks, so they’ll usually balk when they see the slightest thing between themselves and their mark. For instance, if you put up a camera system, you’ll ward off the majority of your neighborhood’s thieves.
Here’s a little secret: you don’t even need to actually hook the camera up. If you just mount a plastic camera housing over your door or near your porch, it’ll be essentially as effective at preventing theft as the real thing. That’s because your average petty thief wouldn’t have any way to know whether or not the camera is actually hooked up. Its mere presence alone is usually enough to keep them from stepping foot on your property.