How Often Porch Pirates Steal Amazon Packages In Atlanta

ATLANTA, GA — As Amazon gobbles up more of your business, porch piracy has exploded. According to The Package Guard, 11 million homeowners have had a package stolen during the past year and the average value of those packages was between $50-$100. A new study says package theft is much more rampant in some cities — ahem, San Francisco — than others.

But Atlanta is high on the list as well, coming in in the top 10.

Shorr Packaging Corp., authors of an extensive package theft study last year, sought to identify the worst places in America for package theft by looking at geo-targeted Google search data. Their new study, released this month, ranked Atlanta number nine overall in stolen Amazon packages, sandwiched between Baltimore and Sacramento, Calif. The rankings were determined by looking at the ratio of residents per search.

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The authors noted that the number of searches does not represent the actual number of packages stolen; it only represents a “very small fraction” of victims of Amazon packages theft who chose to Google that phrase. Shorr used Google AdWords to come up with rolling monthly averages for the search phrase in America’s 50 most populated cities. It then calculated the prevalence of searches by figuring out the number of searches per capita, as well as the inverse of that ratio, persons per search.

Here are the 10 worst places in America for Amazon package theft:

1. San Francisco
2. Seattle
3. Minneapolis
4. Boston
5. Portland, OR
6. Washington D.C.
7. Oakland, CA
8. Baltimore, MD
9. Atlanta, GA
10. Sacramento, CA

Shorr noted a couple “fascinating trends” though that could be gleaned from the latest analysis.

"Take, for example, the fact that package theft is pervasive in many of the country’s most notable technology hubs, including San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston and Washington, D.C.," the study said.

The authors also pointed out there is a high concentration of wealth in those cities, which could mean there are more packages to steal (wealthier people order more things) or that the packages contain more valuable items.

Shorr checked its findings against the FBI’s national crime statistic and found that many cities with high larceny-theft rates also showed high search prevalence for "Amazon package stolen." Among those cities: San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Cities that showed low rates of both larceny-theft and search included El Paso, Detroit, Mesa and Virginia Beach.

"The two most significant outliers in these regards were Boston and Tucson," the study found.

Tucson has the highest larceny-theft rate, but a rather average prevalence of search. Boston, meanwhile, had the fourth highest prevalence for search, but has one of the lowest larceny-theft rates in the country.

If you’re looking to be proactive and prevent porch piracy, there are several tips you can try. In some areas you can sign up for Amazon Key and have the deliver driver leave your packages inside your home. It’s a bit cumbersome and pricey — you’ll need to by a kit for $200 — but it could save you hundreds if you buy expensive stuff.

You can also have the driver leave your packages at a lockbox rather than at the front door, or simply require a signature for delivery.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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