Philly Residents Frustrated By Package Thieves This Holiday Shopping Season
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Check out this brazen burglar...
He walks up to a home in Northern Liberties and appears to get away with someone else's package.
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Another camera caught a separate incident where neighbors say someone rode up on a bike minutes after a FedEx delivery and allegedly took off with a handful of packages.
This kind of holiday package theft has been the talk of the town for many residents in the area. "You feel violated," said Dave Bauer.
"Maybe 20 percent of the time, the packages don't make it to me," said Kirk Schillinger of Fishtown.
The opportunity is there for this type of crime. UPS says it expects to deliver a record-breaking number of packages this holiday season; 700 million globally between Black Friday and New Year's Day. That number is up 14 percent from last year.
"I work hard for the money I earn to get the things I want and you should just respect that and not steal things," Zareen Sattar said.
"I feel bad that you're in a place of need that you need to steal somebody else's stuff, but I can't imagine it's good energy to bring back to yourself," said Alexandra Cutler-Fetkewicz.
Many neighbors have security cameras and others post directions for delivery men on where to leave boxes if no one is home. Plus, there are resources available to help prevent the headache of lost of stolen package claims and missing items.
"You just got to protect yourself and be smart about it," said Scott Conti. He picks up his packages from Liberites Parcels, which holds items until the owner can claim them, similar to Amazon lockers.
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There are other ways too. "Me and my wife get our packages sent to work because we know we can get packages sent reliably there," said Matthew Murphy. Ultimately, neighbors say package theft shouldn't be an issue at all.
