Salt Lake City Named In Top 10 Areas Where Porch Pirates Strike Most
Dec 2, 2019, 6:48 AM | Updated: 7:48 am
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – According to a new survey, Salt Lake City has one of the biggest porch pirate problems in the nation.
According to the study from SafeWise, California has the biggest problem, accounting for 30% of all thefts nationwide. San Francisco is the No. 1 city in the state for package theft, with 24 incidents per 1,000 people.
In Salt Lake City, there’s a theft rate of 27.5 incidents per 1,000 people.
“Salt Lake City climbed seven spots to become the second-worst metro in the country for porch pirates,” according to SafeWise. “Even though Salt Lake City’s larceny-theft rate is higher than San Francisco, fewer searches throughout the year for “missing or stolen package” kept it from topping our year-round list.”
Rounding out the Top 10 are Portland, Oregon; Baltimore, Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago, Austin, Texas; Denver, Los Angeles, and Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, California.
According to the survey, more than half of the metro areas in the Top 10 list are also high-tech hubs, including the Salt Lake City area.
Experts advised consumers to install a doorbell camera to dissuade potential thieves, or consider having packages delivered to your workplace.
Other options include picking up your packages at the post office, an Amazon Locker, or your local UPS or FedEx store.
“To see where porch pirates run rampant, we analyzed 2018 FBI larceny data in metro areas across the U.S.,” according to SafeWise. “Then we compared it to Google Trends data in those areas with the highest search for ‘missing package’ and ‘stolen package.’ We then compared average search interest over the past 12 months to search interest during the holiday season to find the metro areas that are most vulnerable to package theft during the holidays.”
