
Amazon uses dummy parcels to catch thieves - adzicg
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46552611
======
cronix
I haven't had any packages stolen for the last few years. We have a large "toy
box" on the front porch/deck that has a padlock on it. When expecting
deliveries, we just leave the lock unlocked and leave a note to put the
delivery in the box and lock it. So far, so good! I can't say the same for my
neighbor though. He was hit last week, and is now going to build a box. It was
less than $60 to make (3/4" plywood, 2x4's, stain, lacquer, hinges, padlock)
and is too heavy for a single person to lift when empty.

~~~
eropple
That's a really good idea. The annoying thing in Boston is that you might have
two packages from the same order (looking at you, Amazon) arrive at different
times on the same day.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I'm pretty sure Amazon explicitly offers the option to "group my items into as
few shipments as possible, even if it takes longer".

~~~
grozzle
As few as possible is sometimes still more than one, though.

~~~
mcny
Why does this happen? Are the items coming from multiple Amazon locations?

~~~
jsjohnst
> Are the items coming from multiple Amazon locations?

Yep! Especially if you live in NYC (or anywhere in the North East really).
Amazon has something like 50+ different warehouses in NJ and Pennsylvania
alone.

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ChuckMcM
This is why every Christmas I order Explosive Dye Packs with motion sensitive
trigger from Amazon :-) Actually, no I don't.

I have considered some DIY solutions however, one being a 115 dB siren[1] and
battery that goes off when it is taken. The intent being to draw attention to
the people carrying the stolen package.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Alarm-Siren-115-dB-
VDC/dp/B0002BG3SU](https://www.amazon.com/Alarm-Siren-115-dB-
VDC/dp/B0002BG3SU)

~~~
schoen
Sounds clever, but how can you distinguish between a package that's being
moved by a thief and a package that's being moved by the delivery person?

~~~
berbec
I think the idea was the homeowner plants the package with the horn, not
orders one.

~~~
evv
Yeah I think that was the idea. Although..

If the package had a cell network connection it could check that its tracking
number has been delivered, then "arm" itself.

Or, the package could be programmed to wait for the homeowner's WiFi SSID to
appear, then wait for the accelerometer to settle when the package is put
down.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ohh I like that, I bet you could program an ESP32 to do that pretty simply
(watch for the SSID to vanish.)

Or, I could turn it into an SDR project. Send a Zigbee 'disarm' signal once
every 10 seconds or so, if the package got out of range of my SDR it would go
off.

~~~
berbec
I like the ESP32 idea! Sound Bombs - the new maker project.

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gojomo
I wonder why stings/bait-items aren't used more often, when an area is facing
a rash of specific kinds of crime, like bike theft, parked-car smash-and-
grabs, and package theft.

It's often a small number of violators – sometimes professional – who've been
emboldened by early successes to scale up. So just a few stings, with adequate
follow-through prosecution, could have a highly-leveraged effect on the
overall rate.

~~~
nikanj
It's the adequate follow-through prosecution that's the problem.

Fines? Can't get blood from a stone. Jailtime? The cost-benefit analysis
doesn't support that, prison time is expensive and petty theft doesn't really
cause that much damage.

I have no solution to offer here.

~~~
fladrif
Community service, pays back the community, hopefully break-even cost in terms
of administration and enforcement to labor productivity gained, at least won't
be as bad as a prison sentence. At best can be a form of rehabilitation.

~~~
eloisius
And when you don't do your community service because there's no consequences
(because jails are already full and because you can't squeeze water from a
stone), what happens?

~~~
baroffoos
You also have to pay someone to constantly supervise them which is just as
expensive as just paying someone to do the job.

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dboreham
Not a new idea: few years ago police here planted GPA trackers in packages to
catch a thief repeatedly stealing from our subdivision package box. It turned
out the packages ended up at the home of the newspaper delivery person.

~~~
Skunkleton
Did he get the job, or was his GPA too low?

~~~
vokep
this made me laugh way too hard

good one :) I mean tbh its not that great, anyone could see it, but still
caused me to laugh so I say that's pretty good.

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janitor61
On the other hand, If you have any used motor oil or hazardous waste to
dispose of, you can place it in an Amazon box and leave it on your doorstep.

~~~
eridius
Pretty much guaranteeing improper disposal. I highly doubt anyone who steals
packages off doorsteps is going to bother to dispose of substances like that
correctly.

~~~
lathiat
I had a package stolen a few weeks back, for the first time as far as I know.
It was Disney Baby Swaddles. Guy was pretty derro (dodgy) looking guy. I hope
he enjoyed his swaddles.

Caught him on my Ring camera sadly my front door is an alcove that is about 1m
deep so the motion detection only triggers at the last second. Thus I only got
him as he was turning around and got the side of his face and not the front.

~~~
matthew-wegner
Surprised Ring doesn’t have a buffer to pull from to go back in time for
motion detection (typing on phone or I would go look).

Blue Iris and most NVR software lets you specify an arbitrary length buffer.
It eats some memory, but nice to get context. I very much doubt Ring exposes
an RTSP stream locally though.

~~~
lathiat
The problem is that my ring is battery powered, so the camera is not always
recording. It's triggered by the motion detection which is PIR.

In most situations it has a fairly long (many meters view) of people
approaching but unfortunately due to the alcove my door is in people literally
appear <1m away from it. And while it starts recording pretty fast there is
maybe a 1-2 second delay.

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ajdhsjakafjt
In Germany the packages are usually given to a neighbor. Amazon's own delivery
service sometimes leaves it in front of your door, but mostly in houses with
multiple flats. When it's gone, they just deliver again.

Does it work differently in the US, so are packages usually left at the
doorstep?

~~~
dpark
Yes, I have packages left on my doorstep constantly. I live in an area where
package theft is uncommon (I’ve never experienced it or had a neighbor tell me
they have), so just dropping packages on my porch is extremely convenient.

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ElijahLynn
Just read about this a few days ago in the local news, they caught one in
Aloha/Beaverton, Oregon (about 30 minutes west of Portland, OR)

[https://www.kptv.com/news/deputies-delivery-driver-for-
amazo...](https://www.kptv.com/news/deputies-delivery-driver-for-amazon-
arrested-after-taking-bait-
package/article_af33f1e4-fc8c-11e8-b3f5-1fc92bbbdab3.html)

This is where a lot of Intel employees live as Intel's headquarters are here,
just to give a picture of the area.

~~~
gnicholas
> _Intel 's headquarters are here_

Do people refer to Hillsboro as Intel HQ? There sure are a lot of folks there,
but down in SV people seem to think they're at HQ. I don't work for Intel, but
my startup went through their accelerator a few years back and I met a bunch
of people through the program.

~~~
ElijahLynn
Hrm, maybe I'm wrong about that. But they have at least 4 campuses in this
area that i have seen and cover a massive footprint. Maybe it is better for me
to refer to it as manufacturing headquarters. When I moved here I was
pleasantly surprised to learn that most of their product was manufactured here
as opposed to foreign.

I even became friends with one of the technicians on the "binning" team, who
tests all the chips and determined what clock speeds they will be sold as.

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kachurovskiy
I'm using Paketsafe for 1.5 years, pretty happy with it. The welcro came off
the lid with time but I just glued it back with silicone. The bag itself is
steel-lined.

[https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01L7DYJD2](https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01L7DYJD2)

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cozzyd
One of the big advantages of living in a high-rise with a doorperson is not
having to worry about getting packages...

~~~
IshKebab
Or having a job. I've only worked at one place that didn't allow delivering
packages and they relented a few years ago.

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PHGamer
I am curious though, do they notify the home owner the package is not theres.
what if the home owner takes it in? Curious

~~~
moneil971
Amazon and others now send you a picture of the package on your doorstep, so I
guess they'd let you know?

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quickben
I often wondered what's the point of that. I received the delivery email, I am
still not at home, what would a picture do that the email doesn't?

~~~
Wehrdo
Never had that experience, but I presume to prove it was delivered?

~~~
donarb
Photos also prevent customers taking advantage of companies who are ready to
refund or replace “stolen” packages.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
How so? Presumably packages are generally stolen after they've been delivered?
So their photo proves it was on my porch, but it doesn't disprove that someone
came along and stole it shortly after it was delivered... (my camera provides
that video, however).

~~~
inerte
I once got a delivery notification, and when I got home he package wasn’t
there. I thought someone stole, but then I read on the delivery notes that the
package was put inside the mailbox.

It was 24 cans of soda and several other items. No way it was actually
delivered that way.

So either it wasn’t and the delivery person lied, maybe to still get the
delivery as completed (and therefore paid or count against a quota), or it was
delivered and then stolen. I had no idea what it was, but called Amazon saying
that I never received the package, and mentioned its delivery notes said the
very large package was put inside the mailbox, clearly impossible. They re-
sent my order promptly.

My point is that it’s super easy to say “hey Amazon you never delivered, send
it again”. The picture is for the consumer as much as it is for Amazon, now
they have irrefutable evidence that the package was in the right place for a
while.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Ah, that makes more sense. Yes, since delivery drivers can have impossible
quotas / inefficient-but-mandatory routes etc. they have been known to throw
things over fences etc., requiring a photo 'on the porch' does counter that
(if not the rest of the catch-22).

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pkaye
We have some cheap furniture on the front porch which they can hide the
package behind which they usually do.

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jiveturkey
poor title. the police did this, not amazon.

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CryptoPunk
Good to see private enterprise stepping in to show leadership on solving
social problems (e.g. property crime) that the government has failed to take
any initiative on.

~~~
chadcmulligan
I always think when I see criticisms of the failure of the US system to solve
problems like this that maybe you should all get together and make some sort
of collective system, lets call it a 'government' and then everyone should pay
some money towards it, we could call it 'taxes' and see how that works. I'm
Australian though, we all pay taxes and things are funded, people still
complain but seems to work. Granted perhaps some of the tax money is wasted,
and maybe we pay more than we should if it was all farmed out to private
enterprise but it seems the alternatives are worse. IMHO if you pay less and
less taxes then social systems will fail, you may call it socialism, or
communism or whatever but personally I'd prefer paying just a little bit more
and have those systems work. I prefer it to extreme capitalism, or whatever
the current US system is called.

~~~
austhrow743
Australian here. The US government spends more than ours by gdp percentage and
we have very similar tax burdens.

Your comment reads like you think we live in Sweden.

~~~
chadcmulligan
Yes I did think that when I said it (re sweden), but if they spend more by gdp
why does it seem their systems have so many troubles? I find that very
confusing, maybe the flaw is the amount of privatisation? I've worked in a few
corporate and government positions and the idea that private enterprise is
efficient I find a bit of a giggle, maybe its just BS?

Edit: it is strange, here's the US breakdown
[https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-
bud...](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-
budget-101/spending/) and the australian breakdown
[https://www.taxsuperandyou.gov.au/node/131/take](https://www.taxsuperandyou.gov.au/node/131/take).
The US spends a bit more on defence, but not as much as I thought it would and
spends more on health than aus does (as % of GDP). Though not sure if this
includes state taxes, maybe someone more knowledgable in these things can
explain

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throw-far-away
Consider the several major factors in a given theft:

\- economic hardship and/or thrill-seeking behavior - the former is influenced
by economic conditions, economic equality and substance abuse

\- perceived value of item

\- perceived risk of getting caught

\- perceived penalty if caught

