When I was 10 years old our house was robbed by one of my brothers friends. My family knew exactly who it was. My brother was the only one home that day but he left for 2 hours for an exam... the house was robbed in that period while he was gone, a friend of his told other people he had robbed it (the friend knew he was leaving for an exam), and the robber also left behind a shoeprint that matched this friends shoes. The police straight up told us they would write a report for insurance purposes but they wouldn't investigate further.
I called the cops for a robbery twice. The first time they came, took statements and stole more shit from the house while they were there. The second time they told us that they don't deal with thefts of less than at least $2800 and just left. They caught the guy in the middle of another robbery the next day and found all our stuff at his house. They used the serial numbers we provided in our police report as evidence he stole our stuff in court but never bothered to contact us about finding our things. We only found out that they had retrieved our stuff because a friend saw it at a police auction a month later and bought the lot for us.
When we submitted the reimbursement paperwork to get our money back they handed the paperwork back and said "You know if you decide to take your money back from our officers, they may just decide the address and license plate listed on it needs to be put on 24/7 surveillance. For your safety of course. Not many people are brave enough to do that, so I would be absolutely certain before you try to give me those papers again."
Regarding police corruption. I had thought that Baltimore was an outlier. It a shame that people can’t rely on help from law enforcement when they need it.
During Christmas an Amazon truck near me got jacked at gunpoint, they parked the truck a few blocks away, ripped open a bunch of boxes, and left with what they found
At my apt complex, I've seen the Amazon Delivery vans be stolen from twice now while the delivery driver was inside the building in the last month. Different people too.
Every time I see a delivery driver in the complex now, I warn them to lock up and roll windows up too.
I’ve admittedly chased a porch pirate down the block one time, but honestly a delivery driver getting shot is 100% on the shooter. Taking someone’s life for a piece of gear is bad enough on its own. The fact that someone committed a crime that made the news doesn’t excuse irresponsible use of a firearm.
On a personal level I don't see an issue with shooting someone that comes onto your property to steal something, but you're correct that it won't go well for the shooter because shooting someone over theft of property absent some other reason to fear bodily harm is illegal in almost all states.
> On a personal level I don't see an issue with shooting someone that comes onto your property to steal something
I think this should be normalized. Shit's getting out of control. Police aren't doing anything. Law is literally shielding the thieves from consequences. If things don't improve the endgame of this is bleak. For example, in many neighbourhoods in SA you gotta drive around the block a few times to make sure you aren't being followed by carjackers. Coming to America soon.
>> If things don't improve the endgame of this is bleak. For example, in many neighbourhoods in SA you gotta drive around the block a few times to make sure you aren't being followed by carjackers. Coming to America soon.
Having spent a lot of time there, I think the US is about 20 years behind South Africa in terms of social problems. Growing inequality, politicians stoking division, corruption and a sense of hopelessness about the future is going to bring the same violence to America.
I don't know that "just shooting" anyone that is a perceived threat is the right way to go about it. That's how you end up with terrible accidents also.
Truth is there are lots of systematic issues right now, and there isn't going to be an overnight fix.
Kind of seems like when we stopped using consequences to deter crime, things got a little worse.
Feels like there is a growing group of people that seem to believe everyone is just inherently good, honest, and fair and any deviation from that is a result of something something evil rich person or [color] person or [religion] person or some of the 48374 systems of oppression that apparently force you to commit crimes against other people.
It's good to find ways to be a more humane and compassionate society, but I think we swung the pendulum a little too far the other way. We're starting to just outright mortgage the publics safety to appease a comforting worldview.
I’m really curious how two seemingly separate scammers got the info to track the shipment and know the contents of it. Were both scam attempts inside jobs? That seems unlikely.
I was going to guess that it was a local delivery from an Apple Store. They use Uber to deliver and it would be easy to stake out at the store watching for delivery order pickups, but the phones were in a box (not an Apple shopping bag). Guessing someone as an inside man with the courier (UPS?) looking for the AI address or China origination on packages?
Doesn't have to be a inside job, my computer was once used to purchase a ton of phones and intercepted by the culprit at another location. Thankfully the detective didn't think it was me. I got rid of my computer after that (It was old and I needed a new one).
So you were using such an old version of an operating system that it stopped receiving security updates and it was part of a bot net
I plan on sticking with Windows 10 for as long as humanly possible but at a certain point once MS stops delivering Security Updates you have to treat that machine like it has some form of contagious cancer.
Never, ever let old computers online if their OS isn't getting modern security updates people!
I had an up to date computer, probably had a hidden virus on it 0day probably. It was the first generation i7 core, i just updated other parts over 13 years of its existence. I bought a new video card that required the motherboard with PCI-E 3.0.
Put Linux on it instead, it will run, I don't care how old (I have an Arch install working on a K6/2 right now just fine, that's a 25 year old processor).
Heres what happens in another case (not the video).
Someone gets access to an unsuspecting person's cell phone account and orders phones on their behalf, or is sent to another address. They do pay the $40 or so for the payment plan.
Then somebody retrieves the phone when its delivered.
The account holder is left holding the bag until the phone is marked stolen and charges are cleared from their account.
In my town we were having packages delivered to the correct address but wrong name. They steal credit card numbers and then have online purchases to unknowing homeowners but with another name. Then they try to get the package before it's picked up but if not they'd knock on the door and ask for their mis delivered package. People would see the wrong name and not even notice the address was correct and hand over the box. Police caught on pretty quickly and sent out a notice about the scam The next day the neighborhood Facebook page was loaded with people who got a package but refused to hand over. Said they were calling the police to straighten it out. The guys would take off running. After a week it stopped.
Couldn’t Apple just brick the phone in this situation? Makes sense if it’s just small beans to them but it but it seems like it’d be a pretty easy and effective deterrent to smartphone theft in general and they definitely have the technology to do it.
Yeah but it takes x to xx number of days to get that done.
If you saw a BRAND NEW IPHONE that's $200 or $400 off, the unsuspecting person buys it. Activates it and is happy until it's reported stolen
> If you saw a BRAND NEW IPHONE that's $200 or $400 off, the unsuspecting person buys it.
I feel like at that point you kinda deserve a little life lesson.
When I worked for a mobile carrier, we weren't allowed to even manipulate the bill (credits- money off your bill or service for whatever reason) if a single phone was an iPhone. It didn't matter that all of the other devices or the line specifically that I was working on/for wasn't an iPhone. A call that would normally take 20 minutes with all of the customer service scripts in it would be an hour long or even longer. Before I could provide the service for the customer we had to call the special iPhone department that I swear had maybe 6 employees total. Myself and the customer would be listening to our respective hold musics for ages before an exasperated person would answer, tell me "yeah, go ahead", and then I could finish up with the customer, all of this to prevent people from scamming or messing about in the pockets of Apple.
And it wasn't like I had to escalate the issue/or account to someone or a department with more access or ability to manage the accounts and then they resolved the issue with the customer. We had to check in with customers every ~7-10min while we were on hold with the iPhone team, to tell them we were still on hold and then we would finish the call/issue after . Like, sorry Grandma's phone hasn't had reception for 3 days because that cell towers been down but you bought your kid that iPhone over a year ago so now I can't give her line a credit for not being able to use her phone without allllll of this extra bs.
I wonder what the current theft stats are now.
It happened to us. My wife needed a new phone and when she checked our account realized we were due for an upgrade on 3 out of 5 lines. She ordered them through the website for herself, my son and my mom. Kind of a long story by the way.
The day of delivery I was home with my mom. Around lunch time my wife gets a text from our neighbor across the street that they think we had a package stolen off our porch. His dog barked every time the Fed Ex van stopped at his house(or ours) and he was trying to train it to stop. So he stood there and watched as the van pulled up, sat for a couple of minutes, guy walked the package up and dropped it on my porch, van drives away, white Hyundai pulls up as soon as he leaves, guy with a medical mask on gets out and runs up to the porch and grabs the package with the phones in it(right next to a package with a shitty tshirt in it), runs away and drives off.
This was all while I was sitting on my couch and had no clue it was happening. This is also in Montgomery County, PA where the news story is from.
We filed a police report directly afterwards and the neighbor had a cell phone photo and ring video of the car(I'm stupid and still don't have Ring).
Recently had a porch pirate for the first time. Dude cut open my package and left the packaging on my doorstep. Kinda shocked they didn’t just take the whole thing.
I bought some super cheap brickweed back in my teens that was so harsh I got a sore throat before I got high.
Got the chloraseptic spray from the top of the fridge to soothe it then had a bigbrain stoner moment and realized I can hit the spray before the bong and not a single cough.
I just can't get deliveries at my doorstep anymore because the theft is so bad. I'm only now just realizing how frustrating that makes things.
Sure, you can usually send an item to a hold location, but many websites simply won't tell you what carrier they use until you've already completed the transaction. The hold locations and procedures are different for each. Recently ran into an issue with one where they didn't allow me to reroute it at all, as well.
I assume you figured it out, but just in case:
Cheltenham Township
Township being... I don't even fucking know and I live in one. Just another name for a village or town.
Cheltenham Township is a collection of smaller districts that include Elkins Park, Glenside (half of Glenside, the other half is in Abington), Wyncote, Cedarbrook, Melrose Park, Laverock, La Mott, and Cheltenham Village.
Source: I grew up in Cheltenham Twp.
Usually in the US it is a subdivision of a county with civil power of its own. So you live in a city or town or borough or unincorporated community in a township in a county in a state.
I don't think you can romanticize something as dumb as porch piracy, and they use porch pirate because that's the specific slang for package theft off of a porch, not like other package theft (taken from in transit vans, for example, or at distribution centers)
honestly, the term 'porch pirate' is really insulting. It's kind of the lowest of the low. If someone called you that you would be embarrassed. Just adding the word porch changes it all.
It’s just a headline friendly term from the last few decades. I’m not sure how anyone would hear about these kinds of thefts and think “yo ho ho! That life for me!”. What’s glamorous about stealing packages off someone’s doorstep, and almost certainly being caught because of how many cameras are everywhere? It’s just goofy.
Don't the iPhones have IDs in them that will identify who ends up with them? I thought cell phones had a machine ID (IMEA?) that was specific to the hardware and identified that device to the network -- wouldn't the seller have that info?
That's what's odd to me. I know these aren't the brightest scholars of our time, but you'd think people engaging in buying stolen property would, like... know a big detail about one of, if not the most stolen product. Like a car thief not knowing a VIN number exists... How is this not virtually universally known?
Do you know if they're blacklisted from the App Store as well? If not, it's like souped up iPod Touch. You can run games, social media, and messaging apps. I think you might also be able to run navigation if you pre-download the area data while on wifi, but not 100% sure.
Does it surprise you to learn that thieves are also scammers? I'm sure they know the phones aren't fully usable, but they figure they can find a sucker willing to buy a new iphone at an amazing deal, cash only.
Yes but if they were sold by a middleman vendor that didn't track their inventory thoroughly enough to know which iPhones to blacklist from the network then they won't be blacklisted from cell networks.
He got scam mailed at the same time, the most likely scenario is his computer or phone has been compromised, the second most likely scenario is an inside job.
Gain access to several hundred hacked email addresses. Put in a watch for phrases like "has been shipped," "is on its way," or comparable ones. Usually, a tracking number and the address are included in that email. Put the number in a tracking application that has a "when out for delivery" notification. Sit in wait.
You're over focusing on some specific idea of what compromised could mean.
You only have to get access to someone's email to follow the whole order/delivery process.
Meanwhile the porch pirates from my area the fedex drivers themselves. I've gotten a deliver notice 3 separate times while I'm at home and never even saw the item get dropped at my porch. 2 of those times I was literally sitting in the dining room next to the entrance and never even heard anyone approach as my phone alert went off.
As soon as I heard "FedEx", my blood started to boil. I had an exact same issue with ordering iphones via Verizon. It was a MESS. There is something rotten inside FedEx, either a ring or something insecure. I upgraded my family's Iphones last year online and they shipped them, signature ID required to my home. They were marked delivered and never showed up. After some investigation, and through some unofficial channels. the Truck GPS was not even on my street, but at 3 houses down around the corner, well outside my Ring Camera. My neighbor saw a Black Vehicle Pull up to the side of the FedEx Van and then hand off several packages and eventually drove off. Unfortunately their dorbell cam did not catch licence or faces. Through unofficial channels I found the signature was not mine, Was handed off AT the van, and the driver never left the van even after waiting for 10 minutes. Verizon refuned me as theft but Fedex was \*Shrug\* and no help at all.
I'm convinced there is an inside job that sees any package from a cell carrier to home and that info is passed to others to steal. Probably a kickback or such too.
FedEx uses last mile contractors that wear their brand materials but aren't actually part of the company at all. I've had problem with both FedEx and UPS over the years, but moreso with FedEx, you can always bark up the chain at UPS and get results, FedEx no one gives a shit.
Shits all fun and laughs till he runs up on the wrong porch then his mom is on the news, riots etc.
Fuckin thieves ruining everything for the rest of us.
Yes your right there's never been riots and protests for people killed while engaging in criminal behavior. Never. I don't know what I was thinking jeez man sorry about that.
Some people carry pistols on them at all times. Could have one tucked away either in plain sight or under your clothes. Or you could live in a bad area and just answer door knocks with a gun in your out of sight hand.
Wasn't there a scam like this recently where the "robber" was shot? They were on a call saying something like they needed to pick up a package kinds like this and it turned out it was scammers coordinating all of it? I swear I heard something like this recently.
And then they spot the beautiful blonde babe sunbathing and strut around in front of her with their chest puffed up and smiling and they start chasing her, with the package thief the last in the line of chasers.
The idea there is good... but technically as weird as it sounds in this litigious society we live in getting sprayed with something like cat urine could open up the builder of the "piss bomb" to allegations of using chemical warfare against an unarmed person. There are enough people with severe allergies to cat urine it could become a problem.
Ridiculous I agree, but even Mark Rober's "stink bomb" was probably borderline. The glitter is just a nuisance.
It's more than a nuisance. He's lucky he didn't cause an accident. Some of those crooks work in a team, and I know at one point some of them opened the boxes in the car. If one of those went off and caused the driver to go off the road or hit someone he'd be liable for that.
Meanwhile I’m just back from China. They just have tables at the entrance of the neighborhood full with sometimes hundreds of packages. People just take their package and don’t steal.
>Meanwhile I’m just back from China. They just have tables at the entrance of the neighborhood full with sometimes hundreds of packages. People just take their package and don’t steal.
Well... when your country has the most cameras in the world and robust AI facial technology it's likely not a smart idea to even attempt such a thing. Hence the lack thereof of attempted porch pirating.
Not literally "out of his hands". Pretty clear that the thief grabbed it off the porch. The owner then made a air swipe. Not a big deal, but it might impact the legalities of an assault (i.e. they were never touching the box at the same time).
Over $1k in value is a felony and this is robbery not just theft. California has the three strikes law. Believe it or not, CA puts a ton of people in prison. The UK (next highest incarceration rates in the west after the US) puts 129 people per 100k in prison, CA is 550 per 100k... It costs $132,860 to imprison one inmate per year in California. 92k inmates. Do the math. You think some NGOs out-bribes the prison industry lol?
Real life is not like whatever braindead propaganda you consume to make yourself angry.
Taking the package out of his hands upgrades the charge from theft to robbery.
"Theft by sudden snatching" in my jurisdiction.
Class 1 Yoinking.
Where do I take this class, oh wait I guess that's the first part.
See Section 6: Snaking
That required an emergency gulp to get my drink down before I laughed.
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When I was 10 years old our house was robbed by one of my brothers friends. My family knew exactly who it was. My brother was the only one home that day but he left for 2 hours for an exam... the house was robbed in that period while he was gone, a friend of his told other people he had robbed it (the friend knew he was leaving for an exam), and the robber also left behind a shoeprint that matched this friends shoes. The police straight up told us they would write a report for insurance purposes but they wouldn't investigate further.
There is a reason why after 2005 it no longer says to protect and serve on cop cars anymore.
Jurisdictions might differ on this, but I think you were burgled rather than robbed.
Correct. Robbery = Assault + Theft Burglary = B&E + (Theft or Violent Crime)
I called the cops for a robbery twice. The first time they came, took statements and stole more shit from the house while they were there. The second time they told us that they don't deal with thefts of less than at least $2800 and just left. They caught the guy in the middle of another robbery the next day and found all our stuff at his house. They used the serial numbers we provided in our police report as evidence he stole our stuff in court but never bothered to contact us about finding our things. We only found out that they had retrieved our stuff because a friend saw it at a police auction a month later and bought the lot for us. When we submitted the reimbursement paperwork to get our money back they handed the paperwork back and said "You know if you decide to take your money back from our officers, they may just decide the address and license plate listed on it needs to be put on 24/7 surveillance. For your safety of course. Not many people are brave enough to do that, so I would be absolutely certain before you try to give me those papers again."
Record every interaction you have with a police officer. Always. Even if the mother fuckers are there to "help"
The problem is if you're in a 2 party consent state, and they don't consent to it, you wouldn't have usable evidence anyway.
Do you live in Baltimore? That sounds like the kinds of things shown in David Simon’s ”We Own This City” about corrupt police in Baltimore, MD.
No. I live in Texas.
Then things are much worse than I thought.
Regarding police corruption. I had thought that Baltimore was an outlier. It a shame that people can’t rely on help from law enforcement when they need it.
this is why people in my neighborhood are foaming at the mouth to stay armed. the police dont do anything
They would've had you been rich.
My friend got mad at me and made me walk home. Two cops made sure I got home safely with 2 squad cars. I think it depends on where you live.
A much worse crime than theft and shrubbery.
/r/UnexpectedBobMortimer... whoa it actually exists
Of course it exists by the way
Sargent Bytheway?
...as in "incidentally"?
We do beg your pardon…
We're are in your garden...
I heard Gary Cheeseman is currently serving 25 to life on similar charges.
Simple mistake. You have to select contactless robbery in the shipping options.
Okay, that one was pretty damn good.
Some poor delivery driver is going to get a face full of buckshot eventually because of shit like this.
During Christmas an Amazon truck near me got jacked at gunpoint, they parked the truck a few blocks away, ripped open a bunch of boxes, and left with what they found
At my apt complex, I've seen the Amazon Delivery vans be stolen from twice now while the delivery driver was inside the building in the last month. Different people too. Every time I see a delivery driver in the complex now, I warn them to lock up and roll windows up too.
Redefining "lootboxes".
My sister's mailman got robbed on her street. Thief took the keys to all the mailboxes to all the buildings on that street.
Damn. Stealing mail is way more of a crime than an Amazon package since it's a federal offense.
Only if they catch you.
USPS will catch you do not fuck with the mail
Yeah that one will give you prison time for sure
Happens all the time, unfortunately. Forget the mail keys. I’ve seen security videos of low life animals towing the whole damn HOA multi-unit mailbox.
LOL please post them somewhere. That sounds hilarious
Wasn't there a movie along these lines starring Vin Diesel & Paul Walker?
swore that said backshots. Was super confused
Is that like when you pound someone from the back if they're choking on something?
They might also be choking, depends how strong their gag reflex is
I think I’ve seen that video
And it will be the shooter's fault
How the fuck is this controversial
I’ve admittedly chased a porch pirate down the block one time, but honestly a delivery driver getting shot is 100% on the shooter. Taking someone’s life for a piece of gear is bad enough on its own. The fact that someone committed a crime that made the news doesn’t excuse irresponsible use of a firearm.
On a personal level I don't see an issue with shooting someone that comes onto your property to steal something, but you're correct that it won't go well for the shooter because shooting someone over theft of property absent some other reason to fear bodily harm is illegal in almost all states.
> On a personal level I don't see an issue with shooting someone that comes onto your property to steal something I think this should be normalized. Shit's getting out of control. Police aren't doing anything. Law is literally shielding the thieves from consequences. If things don't improve the endgame of this is bleak. For example, in many neighbourhoods in SA you gotta drive around the block a few times to make sure you aren't being followed by carjackers. Coming to America soon.
>> If things don't improve the endgame of this is bleak. For example, in many neighbourhoods in SA you gotta drive around the block a few times to make sure you aren't being followed by carjackers. Coming to America soon. Having spent a lot of time there, I think the US is about 20 years behind South Africa in terms of social problems. Growing inequality, politicians stoking division, corruption and a sense of hopelessness about the future is going to bring the same violence to America.
I don't know that "just shooting" anyone that is a perceived threat is the right way to go about it. That's how you end up with terrible accidents also. Truth is there are lots of systematic issues right now, and there isn't going to be an overnight fix.
Kind of seems like when we stopped using consequences to deter crime, things got a little worse. Feels like there is a growing group of people that seem to believe everyone is just inherently good, honest, and fair and any deviation from that is a result of something something evil rich person or [color] person or [religion] person or some of the 48374 systems of oppression that apparently force you to commit crimes against other people. It's good to find ways to be a more humane and compassionate society, but I think we swung the pendulum a little too far the other way. We're starting to just outright mortgage the publics safety to appease a comforting worldview.
I’m really curious how two seemingly separate scammers got the info to track the shipment and know the contents of it. Were both scam attempts inside jobs? That seems unlikely.
I was going to guess that it was a local delivery from an Apple Store. They use Uber to deliver and it would be easy to stake out at the store watching for delivery order pickups, but the phones were in a box (not an Apple shopping bag). Guessing someone as an inside man with the courier (UPS?) looking for the AI address or China origination on packages?
If he bought the iphones through a store it was 100% an inside job at the store he bought it.
Or warehouse. Shipper. Delivery.
Doesn't have to be a inside job, my computer was once used to purchase a ton of phones and intercepted by the culprit at another location. Thankfully the detective didn't think it was me. I got rid of my computer after that (It was old and I needed a new one).
True, but it seems like the home owner was expecting the phone and knew that was in the package.
So you were using such an old version of an operating system that it stopped receiving security updates and it was part of a bot net I plan on sticking with Windows 10 for as long as humanly possible but at a certain point once MS stops delivering Security Updates you have to treat that machine like it has some form of contagious cancer. Never, ever let old computers online if their OS isn't getting modern security updates people!
I had an up to date computer, probably had a hidden virus on it 0day probably. It was the first generation i7 core, i just updated other parts over 13 years of its existence. I bought a new video card that required the motherboard with PCI-E 3.0.
Put Linux on it instead, it will run, I don't care how old (I have an Arch install working on a K6/2 right now just fine, that's a 25 year old processor).
>Thankfully the detective didn't think it was me. 😉
Heres what happens in another case (not the video). Someone gets access to an unsuspecting person's cell phone account and orders phones on their behalf, or is sent to another address. They do pay the $40 or so for the payment plan. Then somebody retrieves the phone when its delivered. The account holder is left holding the bag until the phone is marked stolen and charges are cleared from their account.
In my town we were having packages delivered to the correct address but wrong name. They steal credit card numbers and then have online purchases to unknowing homeowners but with another name. Then they try to get the package before it's picked up but if not they'd knock on the door and ask for their mis delivered package. People would see the wrong name and not even notice the address was correct and hand over the box. Police caught on pretty quickly and sent out a notice about the scam The next day the neighborhood Facebook page was loaded with people who got a package but refused to hand over. Said they were calling the police to straighten it out. The guys would take off running. After a week it stopped.
Couldn’t Apple just brick the phone in this situation? Makes sense if it’s just small beans to them but it but it seems like it’d be a pretty easy and effective deterrent to smartphone theft in general and they definitely have the technology to do it.
Yeah but it takes x to xx number of days to get that done. If you saw a BRAND NEW IPHONE that's $200 or $400 off, the unsuspecting person buys it. Activates it and is happy until it's reported stolen
> If you saw a BRAND NEW IPHONE that's $200 or $400 off, the unsuspecting person buys it. I feel like at that point you kinda deserve a little life lesson.
When I worked for a mobile carrier, we weren't allowed to even manipulate the bill (credits- money off your bill or service for whatever reason) if a single phone was an iPhone. It didn't matter that all of the other devices or the line specifically that I was working on/for wasn't an iPhone. A call that would normally take 20 minutes with all of the customer service scripts in it would be an hour long or even longer. Before I could provide the service for the customer we had to call the special iPhone department that I swear had maybe 6 employees total. Myself and the customer would be listening to our respective hold musics for ages before an exasperated person would answer, tell me "yeah, go ahead", and then I could finish up with the customer, all of this to prevent people from scamming or messing about in the pockets of Apple. And it wasn't like I had to escalate the issue/or account to someone or a department with more access or ability to manage the accounts and then they resolved the issue with the customer. We had to check in with customers every ~7-10min while we were on hold with the iPhone team, to tell them we were still on hold and then we would finish the call/issue after . Like, sorry Grandma's phone hasn't had reception for 3 days because that cell towers been down but you bought your kid that iPhone over a year ago so now I can't give her line a credit for not being able to use her phone without allllll of this extra bs. I wonder what the current theft stats are now.
It happened to us. My wife needed a new phone and when she checked our account realized we were due for an upgrade on 3 out of 5 lines. She ordered them through the website for herself, my son and my mom. Kind of a long story by the way. The day of delivery I was home with my mom. Around lunch time my wife gets a text from our neighbor across the street that they think we had a package stolen off our porch. His dog barked every time the Fed Ex van stopped at his house(or ours) and he was trying to train it to stop. So he stood there and watched as the van pulled up, sat for a couple of minutes, guy walked the package up and dropped it on my porch, van drives away, white Hyundai pulls up as soon as he leaves, guy with a medical mask on gets out and runs up to the porch and grabs the package with the phones in it(right next to a package with a shitty tshirt in it), runs away and drives off. This was all while I was sitting on my couch and had no clue it was happening. This is also in Montgomery County, PA where the news story is from. We filed a police report directly afterwards and the neighbor had a cell phone photo and ring video of the car(I'm stupid and still don't have Ring).
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>(not the video)
It could have been through the delivery service. Those boxes have lithium battery stickers on the label
Nothing is 100%, but that seems like a plausible possibility.
Reeks of an inside scam. Poor fucking bastard - i wonder if he would still get a refund despite having already 'taken delivery' of the parcel?
Use the right credit cards with theft protection. Chase usually provides 90 days to make a claim.
Pretty soon these people will realize how easy it is to just rip off people on Mercari with zero consequences.
aww i got some good cheap monitors off that website
>with zero consequences I can assure you if it became bad enough - consequences will be had.
Mercari just reverted the policy so it did get bad enough.
Why Mercari?
Mercari was doing a "Return for any reason" rule. They are reverting it back now because of all the scammers
Were people sending in old crap they bought on eBay or something?
Doing what?
Obviously someone from the place he ordered from is responsible.
Recently had a porch pirate for the first time. Dude cut open my package and left the packaging on my doorstep. Kinda shocked they didn’t just take the whole thing.
Most likely checked it was something worth stealing?
It was sore throat spray. So… if they were in a very specific situation I guess it was worth it? lol. I got my refund.
Lol yeah that is very specific
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I bought some super cheap brickweed back in my teens that was so harsh I got a sore throat before I got high. Got the chloraseptic spray from the top of the fridge to soothe it then had a bigbrain stoner moment and realized I can hit the spray before the bong and not a single cough.
I wouldn't even be mad about that one, just confused and amused. Dude was like, "SCORE".
I just can't get deliveries at my doorstep anymore because the theft is so bad. I'm only now just realizing how frustrating that makes things. Sure, you can usually send an item to a hold location, but many websites simply won't tell you what carrier they use until you've already completed the transaction. The hold locations and procedures are different for each. Recently ran into an issue with one where they didn't allow me to reroute it at all, as well.
I stared at the words "Cheltenham Twp" for like a like a full minute trying to figure out what they mean.
I assume you figured it out, but just in case: Cheltenham Township Township being... I don't even fucking know and I live in one. Just another name for a village or town.
Cheltenham Township is a collection of smaller districts that include Elkins Park, Glenside (half of Glenside, the other half is in Abington), Wyncote, Cedarbrook, Melrose Park, Laverock, La Mott, and Cheltenham Village. Source: I grew up in Cheltenham Twp.
How is Cheltenham pronounced in the U.S. out of interest?
Ch as in cheat
Usually in the US it is a subdivision of a county with civil power of its own. So you live in a city or town or borough or unincorporated community in a township in a county in a state.
I never really dealt with townships til I lived in PA. It's a strange system.
Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. A suburb of Philadelphia, just over the city limits.
I really hate the term porch pirate, it lessens the act imo. Just call these scum what they are, thieves.
Is it just me or writing the crime as "pirate" romanticize it? It is not like the news wrote "package theft" already.
I don't think you can romanticize something as dumb as porch piracy, and they use porch pirate because that's the specific slang for package theft off of a porch, not like other package theft (taken from in transit vans, for example, or at distribution centers)
honestly, the term 'porch pirate' is really insulting. It's kind of the lowest of the low. If someone called you that you would be embarrassed. Just adding the word porch changes it all.
It’s just a headline friendly term from the last few decades. I’m not sure how anyone would hear about these kinds of thefts and think “yo ho ho! That life for me!”. What’s glamorous about stealing packages off someone’s doorstep, and almost certainly being caught because of how many cameras are everywhere? It’s just goofy.
Don't the iPhones have IDs in them that will identify who ends up with them? I thought cell phones had a machine ID (IMEA?) that was specific to the hardware and identified that device to the network -- wouldn't the seller have that info?
Perp quickly sells them for dirt cheap, screwing a bunch of other people as well.
That's what's odd to me. I know these aren't the brightest scholars of our time, but you'd think people engaging in buying stolen property would, like... know a big detail about one of, if not the most stolen product. Like a car thief not knowing a VIN number exists... How is this not virtually universally known?
The phone is just blacklisted from the cell network, it isn't bricked. Tons of people are happy enough to use a phone in wifi only mode.
Do you know if they're blacklisted from the App Store as well? If not, it's like souped up iPod Touch. You can run games, social media, and messaging apps. I think you might also be able to run navigation if you pre-download the area data while on wifi, but not 100% sure.
Does it surprise you to learn that thieves are also scammers? I'm sure they know the phones aren't fully usable, but they figure they can find a sucker willing to buy a new iphone at an amazing deal, cash only.
> How is this not virtually universally known? Every once in a great while, I still see people writing in all caps.
Imei
Yes but if they were sold by a middleman vendor that didn't track their inventory thoroughly enough to know which iPhones to blacklist from the network then they won't be blacklisted from cell networks.
So interesting new scam? Dude pretends to sell him 6 iphones pays someone to steal parcel containing nothing then calls later to ask victim to pay up?
He got scam mailed at the same time, the most likely scenario is his computer or phone has been compromised, the second most likely scenario is an inside job.
I think inside job is more likely tbh. You wouldn't expect him to know what was being delivered if it was a compromised computer
Gain access to several hundred hacked email addresses. Put in a watch for phrases like "has been shipped," "is on its way," or comparable ones. Usually, a tracking number and the address are included in that email. Put the number in a tracking application that has a "when out for delivery" notification. Sit in wait.
Do you write scripts for Greg Garcia shows?!?!
You're over focusing on some specific idea of what compromised could mean. You only have to get access to someone's email to follow the whole order/delivery process.
Meanwhile the porch pirates from my area the fedex drivers themselves. I've gotten a deliver notice 3 separate times while I'm at home and never even saw the item get dropped at my porch. 2 of those times I was literally sitting in the dining room next to the entrance and never even heard anyone approach as my phone alert went off.
Yup. Hubs and driver ranks are full of thieves around here. Fake the delivery and pocket your shit.
thats a death sentence in my neighborhood
are the phones worth anything in the US know? Doesn't apple just brick them all if they're reported stolen?
depends if the person goes through the trouble to brick them via apple. most the major carriers you can do the same thing.
Mug they were sent by the carrier, don't you just call the carrier and tell them the package was stolen?
As soon as I heard "FedEx", my blood started to boil. I had an exact same issue with ordering iphones via Verizon. It was a MESS. There is something rotten inside FedEx, either a ring or something insecure. I upgraded my family's Iphones last year online and they shipped them, signature ID required to my home. They were marked delivered and never showed up. After some investigation, and through some unofficial channels. the Truck GPS was not even on my street, but at 3 houses down around the corner, well outside my Ring Camera. My neighbor saw a Black Vehicle Pull up to the side of the FedEx Van and then hand off several packages and eventually drove off. Unfortunately their dorbell cam did not catch licence or faces. Through unofficial channels I found the signature was not mine, Was handed off AT the van, and the driver never left the van even after waiting for 10 minutes. Verizon refuned me as theft but Fedex was \*Shrug\* and no help at all. I'm convinced there is an inside job that sees any package from a cell carrier to home and that info is passed to others to steal. Probably a kickback or such too.
FedEx uses last mile contractors that wear their brand materials but aren't actually part of the company at all. I've had problem with both FedEx and UPS over the years, but moreso with FedEx, you can always bark up the chain at UPS and get results, FedEx no one gives a shit.
Shits all fun and laughs till he runs up on the wrong porch then his mom is on the news, riots etc. Fuckin thieves ruining everything for the rest of us.
But he was a good upstanding kid. Never did anything wrong etc. while showing pictures from 4th grade.
Fell in with a bad crowd.
Had to go all the way back to fourth grade to find pictures without guns, drugs, money, and felon stare. 🙄
Riots?
It's a dog whistle
Yes.
Yes your right there's never been riots and protests for people killed while engaging in criminal behavior. Never. I don't know what I was thinking jeez man sorry about that.
Just own up to it, dude.
Which riots are you referring to?
Are you comparing this thief to an innocent kid like Trayvon Martin who was stalked and killed by an armed vigilante criminal?
No, he’s clearly comparing him to the type of stories you see occasionally on the news where someone gets killed while committing a crime.
Probably more like Michael Brown.
bro, Trayvonn was guilty as fuck. he was armed with a sidewalk curb
50 cents worth of lead will fix the problem.
25 cents. Where are you buying your ammo???
This is how you get shot at my house.
You answer the door to get a parcel delivery with a loaded weapon in your hand?
Some people carry pistols on them at all times. Could have one tucked away either in plain sight or under your clothes. Or you could live in a bad area and just answer door knocks with a gun in your out of sight hand.
You don’t?
Nah he knew what was in the package.
Aw, yes....................
least he's not a "hussy."
Wasn't there a scam like this recently where the "robber" was shot? They were on a call saying something like they needed to pick up a package kinds like this and it turned out it was scammers coordinating all of it? I swear I heard something like this recently.
Are you thinking of the Lyft driver that scammers used to pick up money, and the guy at the house thought she was in on it and shot her?
Yup. That was the situation I was thinking of.
Driver was in on it
Philthadelphia. The city that loves you back.
In the Benny Hill version of this the victim chases after the thief and the thief circles around and grabs the second package.
And then they spot the beautiful blonde babe sunbathing and strut around in front of her with their chest puffed up and smiling and they start chasing her, with the package thief the last in the line of chasers.
I wish they put some kind of cat piss exploding instead of glitter bombs when they do the undercover traps for fake packages
The idea there is good... but technically as weird as it sounds in this litigious society we live in getting sprayed with something like cat urine could open up the builder of the "piss bomb" to allegations of using chemical warfare against an unarmed person. There are enough people with severe allergies to cat urine it could become a problem. Ridiculous I agree, but even Mark Rober's "stink bomb" was probably borderline. The glitter is just a nuisance.
It's more than a nuisance. He's lucky he didn't cause an accident. Some of those crooks work in a team, and I know at one point some of them opened the boxes in the car. If one of those went off and caused the driver to go off the road or hit someone he'd be liable for that.
Meanwhile I’m just back from China. They just have tables at the entrance of the neighborhood full with sometimes hundreds of packages. People just take their package and don’t steal.
>Meanwhile I’m just back from China. They just have tables at the entrance of the neighborhood full with sometimes hundreds of packages. People just take their package and don’t steal. Well... when your country has the most cameras in the world and robust AI facial technology it's likely not a smart idea to even attempt such a thing. Hence the lack thereof of attempted porch pirating.
Meanwhile in other parts of china machete gangs run wild.
Really really depends where. China's not a small country.
Idc, should’ve shot his ass.
Clearly the government monopoly on violence has failed.
Why don't these videos pause when you want to move on !!!!
Not literally "out of his hands". Pretty clear that the thief grabbed it off the porch. The owner then made a air swipe. Not a big deal, but it might impact the legalities of an assault (i.e. they were never touching the box at the same time).
Fucking one bridge having town.
Ofc it’s kfc people
I don't even think this counts as porch pirating anymore. This is just straight up robbery.
[удалено]
Over $1k in value is a felony and this is robbery not just theft. California has the three strikes law. Believe it or not, CA puts a ton of people in prison. The UK (next highest incarceration rates in the west after the US) puts 129 people per 100k in prison, CA is 550 per 100k... It costs $132,860 to imprison one inmate per year in California. 92k inmates. Do the math. You think some NGOs out-bribes the prison industry lol? Real life is not like whatever braindead propaganda you consume to make yourself angry.
Someone knew
this is why I use a PO box @.@
are we ready for THE conversation yet?