NJ, PA cities where holiday gifts are most stolen by porch pirates
With Thanksgiving having been so late this year, we're all feeling the time crunch as Christmas and Hanukkah are (very!) quickly approaching.
One way to make things a bit less stressful is to buy things online. It's quick and easy and it allows you to shop whenever you have a couple of extra minutes.
The downside, however, is something that is an insanely large problem: porch pirates stealing your stuff before you can bring it into your house.
Porch pirate facts
- An estimated 120 million packages were snatched from porches across the U.S. in 2023, according to safewise.com, which cost Americans a staggering $16 billion
- Some experts estimate there are +/- 300,000 incidents of package thefts every day in America
- According to Vivint, over the past year, online searches for terms like "porch pirates caught" have jumped 1,600%, showing just how big an issue delivery theft has become
Protect your holiday deliveries from the Grinch
- Get delivery updates and alerts so you know exactly where your packages are
- Require a signature so your packages won't be left unattended
- If you can’t be home to bring your packages in, have them delivered somewhere else, such as to a neighbor's house or work
- Invest in security enhancements at your home, like a doorbell camera
Porch pirates target these NJ, PA cities
As for exactly where you are most at risk of being the victim of a porch pirate, there is some good news and bad news.
Vivint has developed a "porch pirate index" based on porch piracy-related online searches per 100,000 residents in each U.S. state and the country’s 100 most populated cities.
Overall, both New Jersey and Pennsylvania scored low — on a scale of 0 to 100, the Garden State scored 23.5 while PA got 22.9. Massachusetts faired the best with a 15.9 while North Dakota pulled an 80.1.
Of course, that is cyberspace... what about the real world?
For that, we turn to a report from Safewise that looked at the worst metro cities for package theft in 2024.
Worst American cities for package thefts in 2024
1. New York City - Newark - Jersey City
In 2024, there were an estimated 9.2 million incidents of deliveries being stolen at a staggering cost of over $945 million in the New York City metro, which includes Newark and Jersey City.
2. Philadelphia - Camden
This year, Philly (which includes Camden and Wilmington, DE) had almost 4.2 million porch pirate attacks at a cost of $450 million.
3. Chicago
Nearly 2.7 million porch pirate incidents this year were reported in Chicago at a cost of almost $262 million.
Washington and Houston rounded out the top five as both of those cities also had thefts over $200 million.
Long story short, keep an eye on your deliveries over the next few weeks and if you are concerned about having something delivered while you aren't home, maybe it'll be easier to just buy it in a store.
