• Share

PRINT

When my friend called, she was upset, confused and resigned.

Through her front window, she had just witnessed a crime. She was the victim, for the fifth time in the last year.

She lives alone in an old-ish house on a quiet suburban street. She’s in her 70s. She has had three major surgeries in the last year. Going out for any reason, especially shopping, is getting to be a burden for her.

So she orders most of her basic stuff online. It’s delivered to her front porch.

Where it is often promptly stolen.

This 21st-century phenomenon is called porch piracy. Thieves follow delivery vans as they make their deliveries. As soon as the van is gone, and no police are in sight, the pirates grab the goods and disappear.

According to a federal government study, porch piracy is responsible for $1.5 billion in losses each year in the United States. Senior citizens are disproportionately the victims.

Why? For the same reasons they are often victims of other crimes. They are vulnerable and confusable.

So many older people are reluctant to cry ouch, especially if they live alone. If they report a porch piracy, they worry that they’ll be blacklisted from future deliveries (they won’t be).

They sometimes get discombobulated about the items that were heisted. If FedEx says they were delivered, but they’re not outside the front door, did I really order them, or is my mind playing tricks on me?

They’ve had their share of senior moments.
Perhaps this is yet another.

Of course, pirates know all this and bank on it. Even so, a porch pirate has to be very bold to strike when a victim is at home.

Perhaps the owner has mounted some electronic security gizmo that can snap a picture of him. Yet if he covers his face — most porch pirates do — he can beat this first line of defense. Bingo, he has a box of steaks or a raft of expensive clothes that he didn’t have three minutes earlier.

How should senior victims of porch piracy fight back?

Experienced police officers say the best medicine is to fetch a delivery from the porch as soon as it’s dropped off.

Of course, that isn’t always possible, because the homeowner might be busy elsewhere in the house, or out back in the garden, or off on a trip. Pirates can strike and be gone in mere seconds.

But many pirates are repeat offenders, police say. If they’ve hit a particular porch once, successfully, they’ll often hit it again.

The last thing a senior citizen needs, especially if he or she is disabled, is not to be able to count on deliveries of important drugs or medical supplies. Yes, retailers will usually refund the purchase price of stolen goods. But that doesn’t help a senior who was counting on a lifeline item on a particular day.

Being an ornery sort, I can’t help but recommend a saucy countermeasure I first heard about many years ago.

A man who lived in a high-rise apartment subscribed to a newspaper. It was duly delivered each day before dawn. It was duly stolen, day after day.

The man did not want to get up at 5 a.m. every morning to get a jump ahead of the thief. So he played the Ingenious Card.

One morning, before roosters crowed, the paper was delivered. The man ran a string under his front door.

On the outside end of it was a hook, to which he attached the paper. On the inside was another hook, attached to a stack of pots and pans.

As soon as the thief yanked on that day’s about-to-be-stolen paper, there was a huge, metallic crash. The thief never returned.

This trick would work against porch pirates only if there’s enough time to attach a booby trap. But how satisfying it would be to scare the living daylights out of a pirate, especially one who had struck before, and who was threatening to shrink the life horizon of a senior citizen.

My friend the five-time pirate victim said she’ll try the hook trick. I can’t wait to hear the results. A sharp clatter of a few saucepans might teach her porch pirate a lesson that he has long deserved.

Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist.