SAN ANTONIO – Buyers, beware of package thieves ahead of the holiday season.
SafeWise, a home security company, named San Antonio as the fifth-worst metro city in the United States for package thefts in 2021. The only other Texas city to land in the top 10 was Austin, which ranked sixth.
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The Alamo City landed behind Denver, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Seattle, which ranked one through four, respectively.
SafeWise states that the rankings were derived from 2020 FBI larceny-theft data and Google Trends data on areas with the highest number of searches for “missing package” and “stolen package.”
About 64% of people in the U.S. have had their packages stolen in the last year, according to SafeWise. Over a lifetime, three out of four consumers said they have had a package stolen.
“Package theft is a crime of opportunity. The more packages left for longer periods of time on a porch, the more likely they are to be stolen,” said Dr. Ben Stickle, a criminal justice and theft expert and SafeWise advisory group member. “As the Christmas gift season gets into full swing, there will be a significant increase in packages on a porch.”
“Add to that, people are busier this time of year and have their routine shifted as they may work later and spend more time away from home shopping or visiting with family and friends, so packages are left sitting exposed on the porch for longer.”
Package thieves target Amazon packages the most, followed by FedEx and United States Postal Service packages, the report states.
Based on a survey of 1,000 Americans, about 54% plan to shop online for this year’s holidays more than they did last year.
Read the full report here.
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