How big of a problem is porch piracy? What should be done if a package can’t be found? What are retailers and deliverers doing to help? Answers abound.
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Retailers say customers should check their order status and confirm whether a package was delivered. If the delivery was finalized, they say customers should ask other members of their household or their neighbors to see if someone else accepted the delivery.
If that doesn’t work, the best thing to do would be to reach out to the company from which you purchased the item.
Shah, from Extend, said retailers are often trying to determine if customers are telling the truth, and looking at things like the shopper’s prior history of reporting stolen packages to determine how they should respond. Some, he said, are asking customers to file police reports, which most people don’t want to do whether they’re lying or not.
“There are these points – what I like to call friction or ‘gotchas’ – where (retailers) will try to minimize customers filing these claims because they know it’s going to cost them,” Shah said. “It’s a bit of a headache for all parties involved.”
Ben Stickle, a criminal justice professor at Middle Tennessee State University and a leading expert on the topic, said retailers are generally willing to replace stolen packages, which might be driven by a desire to maintain their brand reputation and customer loyalty.
Amazon encourages customers to contact customer service if they don’t have their package in hand within 30 days of expected delivery. Customers who ordered items from Amazon’s third-party sellers should contact those merchants, the company says on its website. Walmart also says customers should reach out to the company.
Target includes a clause on its site that says the risk of loss passes to the buyer after the company delivers an order to a carrier. Still, the company says on its site that customers who can’t find their deliveries can request a replacement or a refund online.
If retailers aren’t helping, Consumer Reports says customers should contact the shipping company. If the purchase was made with a credit card, it might also be worth checking the credit card company’s benefits to see if it includes insurance for lost or stolen items, they said. Homeowners or renters insurance might also help, it noted, but those policies usually have deductibles of $500 or more.
Stealing packages delivered by the U.S. Postal Service is a federal crime. But punishment for taking parcels delivered by private carriers, like UPS or Amazon, falls under state laws, which can differ.
A bill to expand federal penalties to packages delivered by private carriers was introduced in Congress last year by U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota. But the legislation hasn’t advanced.
Meanwhile, some states — including Texas, New Jersey and Michigan — have been changing their own laws in the past few years to impose more stringent penalties on porch piracy.
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