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Comment by kingosticks | Hacker News Reader

Are many Ring units sold outside of the US? I see them advertised as a way to combat this "porch pirate" thing. But to me, as someone living in the UK, the idea of a delivery person leaving a package on my doorstep for someone to steal is mad. If I'm not in I expect another delivery attempt or for the package to be taken to the secure local* depot where I can pick it up. If they decide to leave it outside my door and it gets stolen, I fully expect (and will get) another one delivered at no cost to me, other than the time penalty. Why is this even a thing? Is this a new thing that Amazon created with their delivery strategy and now you also get to buy the solution from them?!

And if it's just a security camera watching my property/car, then a dumb one sounds fine and cheaper. Not to mention it'll actually look like a security camera which is arguably more valuable as a deterrent.

* rarely that local.

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Deliveries left unsecured on a doorstop is a common practice in the US, typically found in low-crime residential areas. It was by no means invented by Amazon -- it's been a thing for a long time.

I feel like Europeans often forget just how big the USA is. I live in a major metro. Just like in EU, it would be ludicrous to leave a package on someones doorstep.

But if you live in a rural area, things are completely different. Which from my understanding is the same as EU for the most part.

Its pretty common in non-rural areas in the US. I live in a suburban area and its normal. Some of my coworkers who live downtown have had issues with porch pirates, so I'm assuming they have porch drop off as well.

In the past 20 years, I've lived across the major metro areas of Seattle, Silicon Valley, and now Los Angeles. in all places, it's been common practice for delivery companies to leave packages outside unless the shipper has specified otherwise for a high-value or theft-prone item.

Over literally thousands of deliveries during that time, the number that have disappeared mysteriously is under 1%. In fact, more have not been delivered at all (i.e., fraud on the part of the delivery person) than have been stolen.

1% is pretty high theft rate. 1% means if you get a package every week, once in 2 years one will be stolen. Or it means in a city of 100,000 1000 people will have thefts of their packages.

"Around the country, more than 1.7 million packages are stolen or go missing every day" (no indication what % this is)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/nyregion/online-shopping-...

A different way of looking at it is, with ~5 packages that were likely stolen out of 2,000 or so delivered, that's about a 1/4% loss rate, which is much lower than the typical retail store suffers from shoplifting.

So, it's pretty much priced into their margins already.

This is very common even in higher density suburbs. Unless an area is known to have a crime issue, it's standard practice in the U.S. to leave the package on the front steps. I've lived in the burbs for the vast majority of my life and have never had a package stolen. Despite common media portrayals, the U.S. is mostly a very nice place to live.

If you have a good income

Indeed, pretty much for most Europe would be: not signed -> not delivered. Either they call before hand (if the delivery company has the phone number or they can fetch it), have another attempt to deliver, or leave the parcel in a self servicing pick up area, dropping a note in the mailbox with the code to open.

So they don't leave it on your doorstep, but they put the code in your box? That sounds even better for thieves! Get the code from the box, go to the self-service area, type in the code, and walk away without any suspicion, since that's what everyone else there does!

In UK, and most of Europe AFAIK, the "mailbox" is a hole that goes through to inside the house. The thief would probably have to break in to the house to get the code. Porch pirates are specifically avoiding breaking-and-entering.

Here in Australia if I'm not home and miss the attempted delivery of a package a card will be left in my mailbox. The card has a barcode on it and will tell me where to pick the package up from, typically it is from my local post office.

When I bring the card to post office they scan the barcode then send someone out back to fetch my package they ask me for some ID and check the name and address on the id with the name + address on the package. No fuss no drama. The idea of leaving package on doorstep seems bizarre.

>So they don't leave it on your doorstep, but they put the code in your box? That sounds even better for thieves!

In most of Europe a mailbox looks like this: https://imgur.com/ppSrO1W

Most delivery companies in my part of the US allow you to specify what will happen if you're not there when they attempt delivery. You usually have options like "try again later", "deliver to my neighbor", "let me pick it up", and "leave it on my doorstep".

Most people prefer to have it left on their doorstep because the other options are a bit of a hassle.

>If I'm not in I expect another delivery attempt or for the package to be taken to the secure local* depot where I can pick it up.

It's not the lack of localness that's the problem for me in the UK, it's more that most depots are only open 9-5 when people are at work. If you have anything resembling a long commute (particularly by public transport) then you can get really screwed over, especially if you can't drive for whatever reason you pretty much have to take half a day off to collect your package in many cases.

I'm in the US, and I have a UPS depot that I can walk to if I miss a delivery with signature required, and that depot is open from 10AM-9PM seven days a week. The absolute maddening part is that, instead of taking undelivered packages to the depot at the end of each day, they wait until the next business day!

I try to avoid using UPS when I can, since they are the most user hostile delivery service in my area. I have more of a chance of getting a package on time when they leave it on my porch unattended.

This is part of why FedEx has been doing deals with companies like Walgreens, where some locations are open 24x7. This is in addition to their FedEx Office (was Kinko's) locations, some of which are open 24x7.

Amazon has "Amazon Lockers" that are available in many places in the US, many of which are open extended hours, and some of which are open 24x7.

These are not the only options.

Even the USPS has Post Office Boxes, and many US Post Offices have external spaces where the PO Boxes are accessible 24x7.

So do you just always have someone at home? Or do your packages always go to the secure local depot?

Neither is really a great option in the US because:

most families have both adults working.

Other than a handful of cities, people are so spread out that having enough secure depot's in the right locations would be astronomically expensive.

> enough secure depot's

...like a Post Office?

You solved it! Except the post office won't accept Fedex or UPS packages, and if you try to have a package delivered to one, UPS and Fedex will refuse the shipment.

https://www.quora.com/Will-FedEx-deliver-my-package-to-my-lo...

You can redirect FedEx packages to any local Walgreens up to midnight before the delivery day. UPS has something similar with CVS. For me this is even more convenient than USPS due to more locations and longer hours. It works even for signature-required packages.

https://www.walgreens.com/topic/promotion/fedex.jsp

https://www.cvs.com/content/ups?linkId=77387667

That's cool and something I didn't know about, but I'd still argue it does nothing to solve porch pirates in 90% of the country. CVS and Walgreens are non-existent in rural America outside of large towns/cities.

Most people in the US live near a large town or city. The coverage metric that's interesting is people, not area.

When I last lived in a rural area, the UPS guy would leave packages inside my unlocked car.

If only post offices were used they'd become a huge bottleneck in many cities due to queuing and also packages get delivered by many other private companies. So lockers (Amazon locker, DHL locker) or designated drop off locations that can be a regular store or kiosk also pick up the slack.

The options then are

-send it to your workplace if it is allowed

-send it to an amazon locker and pick it up on the way home.

If you have it sent to your house and you're not in, a lot of the time it gets dropped off at a neighbours house. I've taken in a few parcels when I've been working from home.

All of that. Additionally, Royal Mail stuff goes to the local sorting office which for most people is pretty close by. Services like "Click and Collect" let you deliver your parcels to local shops. Amazon don't want to support that because it's a cost they cannot control.

It is true that the local depot for other parcel service (DPD etc) can be quite far away, but those services usually offer a a number of repeat delivery attempts or an option to leave with a neighbour.

The number of working adults in a household is irrelevant to delivering parcels securely.

> send it to an amazon locker and pick it up on the way home.

That's not always a realistic option. I'd have to go pretty far out of my way to get to the nearest Amazon locker. And it only works if your packages are coming from Amazon.

In Sweden most packages are delivered to third party businesses that sign agreements with the delivery companies. Places like gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores.

Nowadays there are companies that offer evening time home delivery so that you can always be there.

So basically like Amazon locker

we have this here in the USA too. UPS has what's called "access points" where things can be delivered, or are dropped off if they can't get you. Some packages are signature required, so if no signing, it gets sent there. Convenience stores, etc.

It's just mostly people aren't used to doing that and are hard to change. People often just send packages to work or a friends house instead. With access points, they can and will return a package to sender beyond a certain time.

> People often just send packages to work or a friends house instead.

I'd say that about half of the packages that get delivered where I work are for individuals getting their personal stuff.

In the UK most building have a "porter" so most deliveries go straight to him/her, he/she signs and then drops off the packages INTO the flats (yes some keep keys of all flats). In the USA you have something similar, building manager(?).

That only works in metropolitan areas. In the suburbs, it's single family houses.

I don't really understand it either. Just seems like a way to preserve costs. Only thing that would come to mind is that the US is less densely populated compared to Europe, making delivering them to neighbors/local depot a lot more time consuming

I don't know if the density part is really relevant. One the whole, they are comparable. Country to US it varies, and States (US) to other countries it varies even more [0]. I have lived in several very densely populated cities and they all still do porch drop off. I think this may just fall down to a cultural difference than anything else.

[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Hifamb4LTgQooDBYj/worth-reme...

Personally I don't even want a smart TV with a camera or an Alexa in my house but a friend was just proudly telling me about his new Ring doorbell and I know one neighbour with one. (both in the UK).

> But to me, as someone living in the UK, the idea of a delivery person leaving a package on my doorstep for someone to steal is mad.

I think it's true that across most of the U.S. if it weren't safe to leave a package at one's house then people would be up in arms demanding that the police do their jobs. ISTR that the U.K. crime rate is about 2½ times that of the U.S.

> secure local* depot where I can pick it up.

This was such a terrible experience the 2 times in my life that I've been forced to do it, that I still remember both of them vividly almost 15 years later. You can be sure I'll never do that again regardless of the purchase or price. There is nothing for sale anywhere on this earth that would be worth it.

> If they decide to leave it outside my door and it gets stolen, I fully expect (and will get) another one delivered at no cost to me, other than the time penalty.

That's exactly what happened the one and only time I've had a package stolen from my porch. It was an external hard drive worth around $100. Amazon sent me a new one immediately. I even tried getting the serial number out of them (at the request of the police) and they were like "haha, no. Here's free one day shipping on your replacement, and we consider this matter closed."

The benefit of something like Ring is that criminals will know what they are and that somebody has very likely just been alerted to their presence.

I speak from experience when I say they tend not to care about traditional 'dumb' cameras as, generally, nobody is going to be watching them until after the act.

About 20% of our Amazon deliveries are left on our doorstep, usually behind our bin or otherwise obscured somewhat from the road. I live in Enfield.

> 90% here in Austin, TX.

If you live in San Francisco, SealedPackages.com solves this exact problem

Crassus!

American suburbs are relatively high trust environments (and used to be much more so). It’s quickly fading though.

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