Consumers frustrated by opportunistic criminals dubbed “porch pirates” looking to ride a holiday wave of online shopping now have a handful of options available to throw a wrench in their plans.
Thieves have taken notice of the exponential growth in online shopping and the number of packages being left unattended on front porches, scooping them up before homeowners get back to collect them. As shoppers turn increasingly to the internet for a majority of their holiday purchases, the number of thieves has grown.
United Parcel Service projects that, when all is said and done, the company will have delivered about 750 million packages between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, nearly double its normal daily volume. The forecasted volume is a record high, about 5 percent more than 2016’s holiday volume of more than 712 million packages.
Chattanooga police working to combat package theft nabbed two suspects Wednesday afternoon in the North Shore area.
A victim who had a security camera installed at his home on Snow Street said he received an alert around noon that packages were left on his porch. Several hours later, he got another alert notifying him that someone was on his porch. He pulled up the camera on his phone and saw a man and a woman take the packages.