Collectively, Americans lost $13.4 billion to package theft in 2023, according to Capital One.
As online shopping continues to proliferate, so does the scourge of package theft. In fact, Wakefield Research estimates that 21% of Americans have had packages stolen from outside their door.
Capital One says the problem is only growing.
“Collectively, Americans lost $13.4 billion to package theft in 2023; the average stolen package was worth $112.30,” the credit card company posted on its website. “From 2021 to 2022, the share of packages stolen increased 25.6% year over year. And in 2023, 65 percent of Americans were more worried about package theft than in 2022.”
You can’t always be home, and even when you are, you don’t always hear the deliveries, but delivery companies and security experts say there’s a lot you can do to safeguard your packages.
Christopher Lanni of Secure Residential Services in Hudson said package theft is a big business for thieves, and while no system can stop 100 percent of thefts, there is a lot you can do to minimize it.
“Package theft has been a problem for years,” he said. “Since the pandemic, people have been much more aware of it, but virtually no one has changed how they handle the packages coming in, “whether it’s a single-family home or a multifamily building. Every building is unique.”
At multifamily properties
Lanni said managing so many packages can be dangerous because it leaves staff with less time for other security-related tasks.
“I’ve got clients who are applying the exact same staffing level as they had five years ago, and they’re receiving 20 times more packages,” he said. “Now the person behind the desk isn’t looking at cameras. They’re not doing access control. They’re not doing building checks. They’re just hustling packages full time.”
Some buildings have a team of resident volunteers who pick up packages and either bring them to the proper owner or put them someplace secure, he said, and they have very few incidents of theft. Others create a Facebook page to alert residents when they’ve had a package delivered.
“Obviously, when you go to the other end of the spectrum, I’ve got clients who have dedicated staff,” he said. “One building receives about 65,000 packages a year, and they have a dedicated staff person who handles and logs in and delivers every item. They have zero package theft.”
Things like inadequate locks, controls, lighting, and monitoring contribute to package theft. Sometimes replacing a door or installing a curtain can make a big difference.
“I have a client on Dorchester Avenue who had a profound problem with package theft,” he said. “Packages were being dropped off inside of a secure vestibule with clear-glass doors on an outside wall, so anyone could just look and see what was inside. Folks were literally pulling the doors out of the frame or breaking glass or whatever they needed to do to get in.”
Package theft in a multifamily building can lead to other crimes, he said.
“Once people get into the building to grab packages, they’re in your space.,” he said. “Now they’re in the garage or [on] the resident floors. It can lead to much bigger problems. Building owners need to do the things that make it harder for opportunistic thieves to get to their packages.”
Packages should be placed somewhere not visible to anyone but residents —behind a locked door, if possible. They should be monitored by a video camera as well. He said another good option is to have packages delivered to your place of work, if you can.
“We’ve got cameras on our front porch,” so we know when a package arrives, he said. “We’ve got neighbors who work from home, and we all help each other out by bringing packages in when they arrive. It takes two seconds, and that’s the whole idea of community right?”
Locking package lockers can be part of an effective system to protect against theft, but they are expensive, take up a lot of room, and may not be effective during high-volume periods, such as the holidays.
“Package lockers have been around for a while in the large-scale residential setting, but they haven’t really proven to be successful, “ he said. We’ve had a hard time getting them to fit in places physically. Also, those lockers require the participation of incoming delivery people. They’re just not scalable.”
At single-family homes
For single-family homes, Lanni said, homeowners should keep the area well-lighted and shrubs trimmed so there are fewer places for someone to hide. Making the house as visible as possible from the street also helps. Security cameras can help identifying thieves, but after the fact.
He also recommended the US Postal Service’s Informed Delivery program, which notifies users of incoming mail, but tells people to avoid using the neighborhood mailbox when mailing anything important or valuable. Take it to the post office, if you can, he said.
“In fact, I would rather pay bills online than send checks out there and see how it goes,” he said.
Consumer Reports offers many tips on how to safeguard your packages, such as granting Amazon drivers inside access to your home.
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