Being able to have your package arrive right at your front door is convenient, but you have to watch out for those neighborhood Grinches, lurking around and waiting to snatch your packages right off your porch.
Barbra Tombrillo and Amy Birmingham have first-hand experience with some heartless thieves. Barbra said she met one face to face on her front porch.
"I was so angry that it happened right in front of me and he had no concern or care that the one who he was robbing was standing there watching him,” said Barbara.
Amy Birmingham recounts her experience with these porch pirates. She said she had two different porch pirates snatch packages right off her porch within the same half hour.
Related Video: Ring captures the two porch thefts on camera
“My husband called me and said, 'did you see the Ring camera?' So that's when I went in and looked at it. And he said, like, 'two people have been at our house in the last 20 minutes taking stuff off of our porch,'" said Amy.
These porch pirates aren't reserving their Grinch-style tactics for just one house. According to Barbara, she was shocked when she opened Facebook and recognized one of the men snatching a package off of Amy's porch, as the same man she encountered.
Both of the women told me they had other boxes on their porch, mostly containing clothing. They found it interesting that this porch pirate targeted one specific box among them, the only box containing electronics.
“Somebody tried to activate my phone within 15 minutes of stealing because I got a text that said, 'you must turn off your location, find my phone so your new phone can be turned on.' So we knew what was happening. When I looked at my slip and it said no signature required, Verizon said all of them are signature required. How did that happen? How did that happen? And how did that person know to be on my front lawn?” said Barbara.
A detective working the case in Berkley said if you want to ensure your packages are protected, there are some extra steps you can take.
Related: AG's office issues warning & gives tips to protect yourself from porch pirates
"There are lock boxes that they talk about that, you know, whether it's Fedex or UPS or Amazon will drop off and be secure. Having it delivered to your work. If your work accepts that to where you're at, having it go to a neighbor's house or a family member's house, scheduling the delivery for a time you're going to be home requiring your signature are important things. And one of the easiest ones is to order online and go pick it up in the store," said Detective Andrew Hadfield.
