Porch Pirates Are Stealing AT&T iPhones Delivered by FedEx (msn.com) 126
Porch pirates across the country for months have been snatching FedEx packages that contain AT&T iPhones -- within minutes or even seconds of delivery. From a report: The key to these swift crimes, investigators say: The thieves are armed with tracking numbers. Another factor that makes packages from AT&T particularly vulnerable is that AT&T typically doesn't require signature on delivery. Doorbell camera videos show the thefts in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Michigan, Georgia, Florida and Texas. The details are similar: A FedEx driver drops off a box with an iPhone from AT&T. Then a person walks up -- sometimes wearing an Amazon delivery vest -- and plucks the package off the front step. The heist can be so quick that in some videos, the FedEx driver and thief cross paths.
"They know what's getting delivered and the location," said Detective Lt. Matt Arsenault from the Gardner Police Department in Massachusetts, which is investigating several recent thefts. "They meet the delivery driver at the front door and take it." Since the pandemic, parcel carriers have reported a rise in porch thefts as workers have returned to offices and fewer people are home during the day to receive packages. Now, a spate of thefts that began a few months ago is targeting FedEx deliveries for AT&T. The two companies said they were working with law enforcement to investigate, and declined to disclose how many such packages have been stolen.
"They know what's getting delivered and the location," said Detective Lt. Matt Arsenault from the Gardner Police Department in Massachusetts, which is investigating several recent thefts. "They meet the delivery driver at the front door and take it." Since the pandemic, parcel carriers have reported a rise in porch thefts as workers have returned to offices and fewer people are home during the day to receive packages. Now, a spate of thefts that began a few months ago is targeting FedEx deliveries for AT&T. The two companies said they were working with law enforcement to investigate, and declined to disclose how many such packages have been stolen.
I still don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a very backward way to deliver packages: dropping them on the porch, in plain sight.
I don't get it. Why is this still happening?
Re:I still don't understand (Score:4, Interesting)
This is very easy to figure out.
There's three possible scenarios, and I'll put my money on "inside source"
a) Inside source - the phone is ordered online / over the phone / from a store / third party store / third party online sales
When the label is printed (AT&T has used Fedex exclusively since the 2000's and only UPS and USPS employees ever get phones delivered by UPS/USPS, all others are Fedex) the warehouse schedules the Fedex delivery, and the trucks for each neighborhood (Eg zip code) are expected to show up at certain times.
In this case, the inside source is either AT&T's warehouse or Fedex's drivers.
b) The order is made online and the shipping information is being intercepted in the warehouse.
c) The order is made over the phone and the shipping information is intercepted by the sales (probably outsourced) or (likely outsourced0 customer service agent.
All I'm gonna say is that the weakest link in AT&T's shipping process is that anyone (eg stores, customer service, tech support, warranty exchange) can look up a customer's phone number and look at the shipping status of a phone.
As for "Why do couriers drop phones off during the day" .... because people should be working at home. If you order a phone and you aren't going to be home for the delivery, then you should be having that phone dropped off at your office.
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As for "Why do couriers drop phones off during the day" .... because people should be working at home. If you order a phone and you aren't going to be home for the delivery, then you should be having that phone dropped off at your office.
My actual question was: "Why dropping a package off on a porch, unattended, is still a thing?"
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Here in Brazil, if there's no one home, a package simply doesn't get delivered. After three failed attempts, you get a notice to go get it at the post office. You have one or two weeks to do so, depending on shipping type. If you don't show up, the package gets returned to the sender.
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At the fucking delivery office.
It's not a novelty, you know.
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In the first case, the seller should resend the package.
In the second case, Amazon should reimburse you.
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As for "Why do couriers drop phones off during the day" .... because people should be working at home. If you order a phone and you aren't going to be home for the delivery, then you should be having that phone dropped off at your office.
That is just an unrealistic expectation for most package deliveries. You usually don't know when it's going to be delivered until after it's been ordered and the delivery address provided. Even if they provide one, it's often just an estimate. I ordered something that actually told me a delivery date up front of tomorrow, but I ended up getting it last Thursday. I work Thursday, I don't work Friday. I don't have an issue with porch pirates where I live, but I was lucky in this case as UPS showed up as I was
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Same here in Eastern Europe.
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it's an american thing, don't get it either. my guess would be very low population density but ... doesn't really make sense either so ... maybe just a bizarre tradition?
where i live (and i guess mostly everywhere) packages get delivered in person, if absent then to a neighboor or deposited somewhere according to either instructions specified in advance on the order or by the recipient contacted via phone. if it is something of some value then it probably needs a signature or even a pass code. if all fails
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Same here. Sometimes, when they call me and I am not home, and the package is not fragile, I tell them to toss it over the fence, or, if valuable/fragile, I remotely open the garage door, and they place it inside. I have surveillance cameras in the garage, as well as outside.
There is a PIN code for the vast majority of parcels, and the delivery person is liable for 100% of the parcel value if they deliver without a PIN code.
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Population density is part of it. The other part is that most Americans who don't work from home also do not live very close to where they work. Often it's a 20+ minute drive to and from their place of employment, so people leave home fairly early in the morning, often stop for groceries or other errands after work, and arrive near dusk. They're simply isn't someone home to accept the packages.
This is less true in the larger cities, and yes, the drop boxes can work. But the drop boxes are not everywhere
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And I say the above as someone who works from the office, but worked from home until mid-morning today so that I could sign for a particularly valuable delivery. I'm fortunate to have that option...many don't.
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also UPS has started charging for the option to have the package held at a pickup location for me to pick up that requires signature. not everyone wants or can pay. I think fedex is leaning that way as well.
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There is one medi
Re:I still don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
The logic goes like this: Taking shit that's not yours is stealing, and you don't do it. If you can maintain this, you don't have to turn the entire society into something resembling a prison or an insane asylum, where everything is locked up, vandalism-hardened, and shittified. And you can have a lot of nice things.
Where I currently live, the big home stores leave lawn mowers, pallets of mulch, and fencing supplies out in the parking lot overnight, maybe with a token cable lock to serve as a speedbump. Where I used to live, that shit would be be gone by morning. Hell, it would be gone by midnight.
People ride their bikes places and leave them in bike racks while they shop inside. Where I used to live, bikes disappear when you look away, like a videogame effect. It's pretty damn nice to be able to bike somewhere and have some default assumption your shit will be there when you get back. Japan is even better.
There can be high-trust micro-societies. I've been in street markets overseas where the vendors will just put a yardstick across their doorway when they go off to lunch, leaving high-value electronics and stuff just sitting out where anyone could grab it. There's enough other vendors watching to ensure it will be safe. That comes with a dense community of people who have a common stake in the community. You can have nice things like safe street markets when you have a high-trust micro-society, even if the rest of the society isn't. Jane jacobs talks about leaving keys with the storekeeper on her street when she needed somebody to come to her place while she was gone. You can do that when you have a real storekeeper on your street who you know by name who owns his shop and has been there for years and has a real stake in maintaining his reputation in the community. You can't do it at a corporate Starbucks staffed with a rotating cast of teenagers who don't even live in the city because they stopped building urban housing in 1970 and nobody can afford to live there anymore.
High-trust is a societal superpower. The way you achieve high-trust varies. At small scale you can do it by having everyone part of a common community, where everyone knows everyone and has personal relationships that would be costly to damage. You can do it at larger scale by having people belong to a common religion, so they follow the rules even around strangers or in anonymity. And you can do it somewhat by having effective law and order and policing, so that people who do it anyway face consequences large enough to make it not worth it doing.
When we were having a wave of porch-pirate crime even in my high-trust town, I asked my colleagues in Paris if that happens there. They just laughed and said nobody would dream of leaving a package on a doorstep in Paris, because it would be stolen instantly. High-trust vs. low-trust is a big scale.
High-trust is on the way out in America. Car-dependent transportation policy and NIMBY/BANANA development already destroyed America's small towns and urban neighborhood living. Increasing secularization and diversity is vastly eroding common religious links. And modern liberal doctrine is that enforcing the law is racist and classist, so we should just let people get away with petty crime or, when they commit it, just release them to do it again. So all indicators point to America being a post-high-trust society either now or very soon.
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I've been in street markets overseas where the vendors will just put a yardstick across their doorway when they go off to lunch, leaving high-value electronics and stuff just sitting out where anyone could grab it.
(gratuitous-pedantry)If you're overseas, it would be a meter stick(/gratuitous-pedantry)
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High-trust is on the way out in America.
Trust was completely destroyed in the 1980s. What you are seeing now is the last remnants of it being swept away. (The 1970s is arguable as the seeds were there in the 60s with the government response to the hippys)
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It's still happening because we collectively tolerate someone taking our things.
UPS and Fedex have very distinct delivery vehicles and a dress code.
Amazon is a clusterfuck of random vehicles, half the time around here it is a rental from the local Ryder affiliate. The dress code is 'dress to not be run over'. The thieves may or may not be actual Amazon d
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Yeah, because performative 'tough on crime' bullshit has worked so well...
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finger, another finger, then the whole hand. don't like it then don't steal.
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Re: I still don't understand (Score:2)
Everything i order signature required is dropped off without one anyways. Fedex says its leftover from covid.
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I think drugs and booze are more strict. When I order whiskey online they require me to sign for it (and show ID). Otherwise fedex just dumps it on my porch.
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Why not a simple, sturdy box with an open lock, which the agent would click in after inserting said package?
Re: Lock box (Score:2)
Why not a simple, sturdy box with an open lock, which the agent would click in after inserting said package?
In this case, the thieves know about the deliveries beforehand.
If I were a porch pirate, I'd simply fasten the lock before the delivery, then wait for the delivery driver to leave the package next to the box.
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Again... this is easily resolved, we're in 2024, after all, not in the 1900s.
Also, the driver should never leave the package in the open, period. None of the delivery companies allow their drivers to do so here, even if I ask them to.
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It could work, even for multiple deliveries, if you have a simple programmable keypad lock. They are not that expensive.
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The courier has one job: delivering the package safely and securely to the customer.
If the courier doesn't do that, they don't do their job properly.
And before you reply, consider this: In a 3rd world shitty Eastern European country, there is no such thing as parcels dropped on porches. Virtually all couriers call the customer before arriving, they are not allowed to mark a parcel as delivered without a PIN code which the customer provides, and if a delivery is not possible, they try 3 times in different da
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In that case, good luck risking thefts, I guess :)
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There are few good alternatives
A large lockbox might be a solution, but it might be too expensive or too big to fit in the space available.
Requiring a signature only works if someone is home at the time. This is fine for the retired and unemployed, but workers are not home during the day and taking a day off work is not practical.
Maybe some sort of one way portal in the door or wall would work, but this requires installation work and many would consider them ugly
they don't have time to wait for some to come to t (Score:2)
they don't have time to wait for some to come to the door at times they just Pitch them and run!
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But that's not the customer's problem. Why would people accept that?
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But that's not the customer's problem. Why would people accept that?
Because it's CONVENIENT. That's the answer to most of your objections. Some people don't want to have to stay home or travel to some pickup location; they just want to order stuff and receive it.
The companies sending the stuff (e.g., AT&T, Amazon, Wal-Mart, whatever) want to sell as much stuff as possible, and making deliveries (and returns) as convenient as possible encourages people to buy more stuff. If this increases loss, theft, and fraud, that doesn't matter, as long as it's covered by the increas
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I don't know, man, this seems very strange to me.
I live in Europe, and this type of mentality is pretty much un heard of.
Your explanations, albeit most likely correct, lead (to me) to the following conclusions:
1. People in the USA are lazy and/or they don't like their neighbors.
2. Delivery companies don't give a shit about the well-being (so-to-speak) of the parcels they carry.
3. What is considered "convenient" in the USA is considered nonsensical here. Why would I incentivize thieves?
4. There is little-to-
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There's just not a better option for a lot of people.
Frequently no-one's going to be home to accept the package. Picking up at the USPS / Fedex / UPS facility instead can take time (30+ minutes, depending). Package lockboxes are possible (amazon does them) but also have their limits (esp. package size) and cost money to run / can't be put everywhere so there can be that time issue again. Signature delivery requires someone at home. Office delivery is fine, but doesn't work for all workplaces. Some apar
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Frequently no-one's going to be home to accept the package.
We have three delivery attempts here.
We also have neighbors who can accept the package instead.
We have notifications telling us when, during the day, is the package going to be delivered (usually, 2 hour windows), so that we could make arrangements if we are not home.
We have delivery-company issued public multiboxes all over the country, where you can have the package delivered.
Picking up at the USPS / Fedex / UPS facility instead can take time (30+ minutes, depending).
So, you're saying people are too lazy to go there? They would rather accept the possible loss/theft of their package?
Some apartment complexes have secure delivery areas and give the delivery people codes / kesy to access them, but there would be a lot of infrastructure work to make something similar for houses.
No, it's not d
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Because a lot of employers won't let employees have packages sent to work, were they get handed to a live human being inside the building instead of left in a public space with no one around.
It's been 20 years since I've had a package sent to my home address.
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Because a lot of employers won't let employees have packages sent to work
What??? Why???
In all corporations I worked for (even USA-based ones), this was never a problem.
"Where is the money, Lebowsky?" (Score:2)
Pretty weak FP and I see that you tried to clarify in another branch, but I can answer your question as it stands.
The thefts are happening because the iPhones are valuable when stolen. Therefore the real answer in solution terms is to cut the thieves away from the money. From a technical perspective, this seems to be obvious. For example, what if the MAC addresses were tracked so the stolen iPhones were always traceable? Of course the SIM had been pulled, but there are other options. And in particular there
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The thefts are happening because they are easy to occur.
My question was why is the delivery process made that way?
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That's a very narrow question, but the basic answers are "because it isn't illegal to support criminals" and "doing it that way helps increase Amazon's profits".
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Well, you could ask to require a signature, which results in the whole "Sorry we missed you" cards and the effort to now drive halfway across town to a FedEx depot to pick up your package, or to sit around all day waiting by the door.
You want delivery at night? Well, that's possible, but it costs more money because now you have to find people willing to do night shift. And
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All these issues have been resolved throughout Europe.
As a matter of fact, I am not aware of any other country where parcels are simply dropped on porches, although I haven't researched very much.
So... what gives?
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This is a very backward way to deliver packages: dropping them on the porch, in plain sight.
I don't get it. Why is this still happening?
Because most residences in the US don't have a secure vestibule or even a mail slot like we do here in the UK. Also people are lazy and want things delivered to their door.
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This is a very backward way to deliver packages: dropping them on the porch, in plain sight.
I don't get it. Why is this still happening?
Because it is convenient to Capital.
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My actual question was: "Why dropping a package off on a porch, unattended, is still a thing?"
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Put it on the darned porch FFS. A locked, 150-pound, 4 feet sized (in all axis) strong dropbox is much harder (and much more conspicuous) to steal than a small package left on the porch.
Jesus, do I have to explain everything?
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4 feet sized (in all axis) might constitute an unnecessary danger for the thieves. You risk coming home and find a dead thief caught in the box because he suffocated since you took too long to get home. Similar stories have already surfaced for containers where people give away their used clothes etc. Thieves try to get stuff from the container and end up falling into it unable to get out.
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No, it's not all homes, stop exaggerating. Not all homes need that, not all homes even allow that, not all people order expensive stuff online, and so on.
In the end, it's about whether each single homeowner deciding whether they are OK with the potential theft of their stuff and whether they want to do something about it.
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Huh, interesting.
Here, neither chooses. It's the courier company's policy to implement a secure confirmation, either through a PIN code (mostly used), ID (generally used for official documents) or phone call + in-person delivery. That way, it is clear who has possession of the parcel at any given time.
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Do you have a better idea?
Dropping packages on the porch has been fine for decades. In many parts of the country, it's still fine.
Porch piracy is largely a crime of opportunity. That means the criminals are people in your neighborhood who don't see anything wrong with stealing from their neighbors. Odds are good that they likely don't even know what it is that they're stealing, it's just for kicks.
This is a social problem, not a technical problem. We don't see porch piracy as problem for everyone, just
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Here in Europe we receive a note in the mailbox saying we weren't home (even if we were) and our package is available to pick up at a central location.
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Here in Europe we receive a note in the mailbox saying we weren't home (even if we were) and our package is available to pick up at a central location.
Twenty years ago, packages delivered while we weren't home were automatically taken back to the main distribution warehouse. Why isn't that done nowadays? My guess is cost. It's much easier and efficient for the delivery company to drop off the package and wash their hands of what happens afterwards. The delivery company cares about how many packages can be delivered and charged for. The security of the package is only a concern when the companies paying them money complain.
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Do you have a better idea?
Yes, plenty, and none of them are in fact original, they have been used for years or even decades. Just look at how other countries deal with package deliveries.
Dropping packages on the porch has been fine for decades. In many parts of the country, it's still fine.
The same could be said about pretty much anything, from outhouses to horse carriages and so on.
But here's the news: the world evolves, and with it some habits should change. What a weird idea, I know.
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Exactly. Transfer of ownership needs to happen in person, or via a secure process.
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My stuff is fine; I don't live in a place where parcels are dropped on porches, thank God.
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Is it illegal for Fedex to have a pickup point where you can show your ID?
If there's no requirement for signing then it should be on the sender to prove that the recipient has had it in their hands.
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it normally is
Who is at fault here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Porch pirates deserve whatever they get. However...
AT&T typically doesn't require signature on delivery
Why would you not require signature on a small, easily stolen package worth several $hundred? Seriously?
Re: Who is at fault here? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Greed. A delivery driver waiting at the door for a signature isn't back in the van on their way to the next delivery.
This doesn't make any sense. FedEx doesn't make the decision to require signature or not. AT&T does (just like Google does when you buy a Pixel from the Google Store and Samsung does when you buy a device from them). And why would they care if the FedEx people are in the truck on their way to the next delivery?
Re: Who is at fault here? (Score:5, Informative)
No, but FedEx charges more if requiring a signature, about $10.
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No, but FedEx charges more if requiring a signature, about $10.
Sure, but looking it up, it's just shy of $7 per package for you and me walking into a FedEx and shipping something. It is going to be way, WAY less for a large commercial contract. I'd actually be shocked if it's more than $1-2 on that big of a contract. But OP's post implies it's a FedEx decision anyway, since they'd be the ones profiting from a driver back in the truck to the next delivery.
2024 rates: https://www.fedex.com/content/... [fedex.com]
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That's the non-adult signature rate. But interestingly, that schedule is less than what I get comparing rates with their calculator for a small FedEx box of one pound between Boston and New York, where the difference in retails rate is $9.43 for an adult signature versus $8.15 in that PDF
https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/ground.html [fedex.com]
Re:Who is at fault here? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is home to sign for it because they are at work.
Maybe UPS and FedEx should deliver packages in the evening. But when are people home and still awake? It's not terribly consistent.
I have had personal packages needing signatures delivered to work, but Management wasn't that keen on the idea.
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Which is why I have such pricey and sensitive packages delivered to my work address. My Shipping and Receiving folks will sign for it (if needed) and set it aside from the company's shipments, in a secure and climate-controlled space until I can retrieve it at leisure.
I realize this is not available to everyone, but it sure is nice for me.
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I have had personal packages needing signatures delivered to work, but Management wasn't that keen on the idea.
My bosses (including the owner of the company) do the same thing, and they're smart enough to not be hypocrites. (Plus, we're a retail store, and we get UPS and Fedex pretty much every day anyway, and the cashiers are well trained in how to sort them. So it's actually pretty easy to handle.)
Re:Who is at fault here? (Score:5, Interesting)
The system can't handle the backlog if you required a signature on most things valued over a few hundred dollars. This isn't 20 years ago - the volume of home courier receipts in most areas is so large that even just attempting multiple deliveries before dropping them at regional centres for customer pickup would overrun the capability of of the delivery vans to house the day's content. Amazon did the math a long time ago. It's cheaper to deal with the theft than to wait for signatures.
If you'd have told be in 2000 that in 2024 I'd be receiving more than 10 deliveries in a month I'd have laughed at the notion. Now, on the rare occasion I receive a package that requires a signature, I find it a large pain in the ass.
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Exactly. Suppose Fedex was delivering 1 million iphones in a week. Odds are (and I'm sure they have more exact numbers), at least 500k of the reciepents wouldn't be home. That means Fedex has to send their delivery driver back to 500k folks. Many of them are just going to sign the door tag to get the package delivered the next day (which waives the signature requirement anways). If they won't sign the door tag and won't have anybody at home during the day (most people don't), then they have ot hold it at a
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Longstanding Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Many years ago, when the iPhone 4s was coming out, I had my phone stolen by someone who evidently had access to phones in the Fedex distribution center (or perhaps somewhere else in the distribution chain). I was delivered an empty iPhone box with no phone in it. Fortunately, AT&T sent me a new phone at no charge.
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What happens to the stolen phones? Given that Apple owns them why don't the justb remote brick them?
Or is it the case that they aren't that secure after all and can be unlocked or stripped for parts?
Insider Threat (Score:3)
Just where though? Somebody at AT&T or somebody at FedEx?
Re: Insider Threat (Score:2)
Tracking numbers? (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is my question as well.
According to TFA, the two people caught by police flew in to TX and rented a car in order to drive around neighborhoods.
This seems to imply that there was more information available to these individuals than just tracking numbers since, AFAIK, tracking a package doesn't reveal any address information (I don't recall the last time I tracked a package though).
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Update: Perhaps this is unique to FedEx?
https://www.fedex.com/en-ae/cu... [fedex.com]
When I track a package using USPS, the street address is never revealed, only the city, state and zip code.
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Due to phone release schedules, there are known windows of dates when delivery drivers are dropping off large numbers of iPhones. TFA mentions the thieves are picking up the phones quickly after they're dropped off. It wouldn't be hard for thieves to tail the FedEx trucks at a minor distance and watch the drivers to see what packages the
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It's almost certainly an inside job (Score:2)
Because call center employees are paid so little they're willing to take incredibly stupid risks with potential jail time for a relatively small amount of pay. These days though you can't even afford a single bedroom on a call
Why is there still incentive to steal phones? (Score:4, Insightful)
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How come when a phone is stolen, the phone serial number (IMEI) isn't blacklisted, rendering the phone useless?
the criminals sell them to another country to a criminal group with access to manufacturers toolkit for unlocking them
Re:Why is there still incentive to steal phones? (Score:4, Interesting)
You can usually change the IMEI. I've done it to get "unsupported" phones on AT&T's network.
Data leak (Score:2)
An easy way to catch them (Score:2)
Order a phone sent to a house with lots of bushes. Have someone wait in bushes with a tazer and a few large zip ties. Call police after you have trussed up burglar. Lather, rinse, and repeat as needed. :)
sounds like an inside job (Score:2)
for porch pirates to get to packages that fast, it got to be an inside job.
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It works pretty much the same way here in the USA. If the package isn't in your hands, the seller is liable. If the seller refuses to remedy the problem, then you just issue a charge back or charge dispute with your financial institution.