The first time it was shoes that mysteriously disappeared. I ordered it online, received a message indicating which package deliverer had the credit, and then a few days later another message saying my item had been “delivered.” Luckily I was home to intercept the package. Except that when I opened the front door – minutes after hearing the happy news of its arrival – there was nothing.
“They didn’t even ring the doorbell!” I didn’t yell at anyone.
A sloppy delivery, yes, probably by a courier with a hundred credits left that afternoon. But it seemed that I had not been the victim of the courier, but of a parcel thief. After all, there was photographic evidence that the package had been left on my doorstep minutes earlier.
In vain I scoured the street in case the thief had opened the box, realized the shoes weren’t his size, and threw them into a hedge. He didn’t have that.
My situation is not unusual. Recent Freedom of Information requests to British police by Quadient, a technology company, revealed that package thefts had increased by 57 percent in the past year, with the average reported value of a stolen package being £66.50. It was estimated that around 16,421 porch thefts occurred in the 12 months to August 2023 (extrapolated from figures provided by the armed forces responding to requests for information). This was compared to the estimated 10,485 reports in the previous twelve month period.
Cambridgeshire had the highest total value of reported thefts (£33,729), closely followed by Northumbria (£33,408). But this is probably due to better reporting and recording of the crime, rather than the fact that these areas are necessarily the hot spots of piracy in the country.
Whatever the case, the data reveals a hidden economy worth £206 million in stolen goods, according to Quadient. As we begin our Christmas shopping in earnest, online deliveries will reach their annual peak. And as more packages arrive, so do more opportunities for thieves to intercept them.
“About a quarter [doorstep thefts] happen between November and December,” said Gary Winter, vice president of global strategic initiatives at Quadient. “We know that a lot of it is stolen for resale, not for personal use.”
However, not all packages are equally interesting for so-called ‘porch pirates’. What they’re mainly looking for is sportswear and casual wear, says Winter, who previously worked for two delivery companies.
“When I worked for one of the carriers, we supervised [it]and if you were a sportswear company or an athleisure company, you were two or three times more likely [to see your delivered items stolen].
“Many of these brands are very proud to have their logo on the side of the packaging. But you might as well print ‘steal me’, because then it becomes clear what’s in it.”
The appeal of sportswear lies in how easily it can be sold online, he says, with the major consumer-to-consumer platforms such as eBay and Facebook inadvertently providing marketplaces for such commerce. “When you buy a pair of sports shoes [on sites like these] where it says ‘unworn’ there is a chance they have been stolen,” says Winter.
Because the goods are sold at less than the recommended retail price, they appear to be a bargain to the unknowing customer. “It’s very tempting,” says Winter. “[But in buying them] You could inadvertently fuel these crimes.”
Although Britain is not the only place with a problem of porch piracy, crime appears to be growing faster here than anywhere else. A report on global parcel theft from Penn Elcom shows that more than 8 million parcels were lost or stolen in Britain between May 2021 and April 2022. This was an increase of more than 5 percent compared to the previous year – the largest increase in parcel problems worldwide.
Of all the UK regions, Wales appeared to experience the biggest increase in parcel thefts compared to the previous year.
The much higher figures than Quadient’s are explained by the fact that the scale of the problem is under-represented in police reports, as consumers are likely to report the theft only to the retailer or delivery company, rather than to the police.
It’s a crime born of the modern lifestyle, with the explosion of online shopping offering new opportunities for thieves. While it was assumed that porch piracy would decline once we exited the pandemic and returned to the stores, this was not the case. Online shopping has of course skyrocketed during Covid; but unlike wearing a mask or obsessively sanitizing our hands, we didn’t lose the habit afterwards. Although data from the Office for National Statistics shows that UK internet sales as a share of total retail sales peaked around the third lockdown in January 2021, at almost 38 percent, they never fell back to pre-pandemic levels ( 20 percent in January). 2020). Last month, online purchases still accounted for more than a quarter of all retail sales. Meanwhile, package theft nationwide has increased by more than 500 percent since 2019, Quadient said.
Unlike during the pandemic, we are now more likely to be out of the house when our deliveries are made. According to Quadient, some thieves even follow delivery trucks, see where they leave the packages and then show up. “I’ve even heard a few reports of people stopping delivery trucks,” Winter said.
More often, they wait until the courier has left and then swipe the package. Usually the item can be replaced either by the retailer or the delivery company, depending on who is liable. In some cases this is not possible.
“A limited edition T-shirt was stolen from the communal area in my apartment building,” said Andy Lloyd-Williams, 36, from east London, who works in communications. “I told the retailer and they refunded me but couldn’t send me a new one, which was annoying.”
Often it is not even necessary for the thief to gain access to the common areas in apartment complexes. Couriers who are under pressure to complete all their deliveries for the day will not always spend time ensuring the package is safe.
“My wife’s Christmas present was once thrown in a garbage can,” Winter says. “I had to empty the bin and dig it out. Luckily I got there before the garbage truck.”
Couriers are usually self-employed and are paid a piece rate to deliver each package, he says. This can range from as little as 40p or 50p per parcel to £2 or so, with up to 200 parcels delivered in one day at this time of year. A huge amount of temporary staff are being hired in the run-up to Christmas, “and maybe they’re just not that experienced, a bit of desperation is creeping in and they’re willing to go off-piste [in terms of where they leave items],” says Winter.
Under the car, in a bin, wedged into the wrought iron railing above the front door – we’ve all experienced the delivery style of a ‘newsboy from an American movie’. (The paper boy, that is, who throws his load off the road and hopes for the best.)
“Couriers just have to get the job done,” says Paul Needler, CEO of iParcelBox, a smart delivery box company. “The reason they throw things over people’s walls is because they have targets.”
Research published by Citizens Advice in November found that a third of shoppers had a delivery problem with the last parcel they received in the last month alone. Problems included packages being left in unsafe locations and packages arriving late. According to the study, the worst offenders were Yodel, DPD and Evri.
But it’s not all bad news, argues Neill O’Sullivan, director of parcels and mail at the Post Office. “If you go back even a few years, the standard [requirement for delivery] was just a signature and a very large delivery window,” he says. “It would take one to two days or even longer. What you see now is much more information and choice for the customer when it comes to changing the delivery location or adding a safe place.”
Tackling this type of crime requires a “tripartite agreement” between the person sending the package, the person delivering the package and the person receiving it, Winter says. Safer delivery options, such as using the Post Office for click-and-collect, can help. Taking extra security measures can also help: more than half of all households now have external light sensors (houses with outdoor sensors and timers have proven to be an effective deterrent against burglaries).
“This type of crime is preventable,” said a spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs. “Ask to forward your deliveries to trusted neighbors or friends when you are not at home. If this isn’t possible, try to set a time when you know you will be home.
“We ask everyone to work together this holiday season and beyond to eliminate this type of crime in our communities.”
A DPD spokesperson said: “We do not recognize the findings [the Citizens Advice] no research at all and have raised major concerns about the methodology… In contrast, this month there was another survey by consumer group Which? gave DPD a customer satisfaction score of 92 percent.”
Evri and Yodel have been contacted for comment.