Wallyhood tipster Erin wrote to let us know about some mail theft in the neighborhood. While she didn’t specify the exact location (I imagine she’s not in the mood to advertise her address!), we’d all be better off thinking about mail safety, particularly this week. Here’s Erin’s note:
Hello,
Just wanted to give my fellow Wallingford neighbors a heads up about mail theft. I came home last night to find a box ripped open on our front porch, and the contents removed. The address on the box was for a family in Ballard. There was another package for my boyfriend that was halfway opened, but it appears that nothing was taken. My roommate’s mother sent him a package and it appears that it was taken from our porch.
I spoke with the local Post Office and was told that there wasn’t anything they could do, but to tell your mail carrier to not leave anything on your porch.
Hope no one else runs into this problem, but I don’t suspect that we were the only house hit!
Thanks, neighbor! Hope it doesn’t happen to you again either!
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I was just going to post something in the forums about this. We found an empty Amazon box on our porch yesterday afternoon, with a Wallingford mailing address 6 blocks away. When I went to that address, there was… an empty Amazon box on their porch. This one had the label torn off, so I couldn’t backtrack any further.
When we checked our Amazon account, a package was left for us at 2PM; I came home at 3PM, so maybe someone is following the OnTrack trucks…
Would you happen to have gone to my house on Densmore (with a white rocking chair on the porch) and left the empty box? There was another box on our porch that had the mailing label torn off as well. If you did, thank you. I was able to get Amazon to help replace the stolen item.
Yup; thought you’d want to know…
I’m associated with “static” above…please file police reports! I have been in touch with Seattle PD and without police reports showing a trend of these they won’t really start to look into it. It took all of 5 minutes to file the report. Go to http://www.Seattle.gov/police
Click on the right side for file police report.
Be prepared with the item information and retail price. Otherwise the only real information they needed was my personal info.
I just spoke with a Fed-Ex delivery person on my doorstep and she said that she appreciates that neighborhood people are being watchful and that delivery drivers are being extra careful to see if they are being tailed. Her comment was, “How sad is that when most of what is getting delivered is for kids.” I sent her to Wallyhood for current scoop.
Thanks everybody! I’m sometimes frustrated that our mail carrier won’t leave things by our door, but then I am reminded why that’s the case.
Many thanks, Talar and “static”, I filed a police report just now. Appreciate your help. Hope you all have a good holiday – I feel lucky to be living in such a great neighborhood with thoughtful neighbors.
So what’s the deal with leaving empty boxes behind? That seems odd.
Dispensing with the evidence that the items you have on you belong to someone else, I suppose. In case they get pulled over or approached by the cops?
Yeah, leaving the boxes is a dead giveaway for the victim, at least. In checking w/ family, it turns out we had another package stolen last Friday, too. We wouldn’t have even known about that theft without this one having happened.
I was able to track the phone number on what remained of the shipping label of that other empty box that was left on my porch and it turns out that box contained a camera. It was taken from a home in Magnolia. She will file a police report as well.
My in-laws routinely buy stuff and leave it in their very-smoky house for months end. They then ship it in a smoky box, which triggers my asthma. (Yes, there is a point here…) So last week, I came home and found a smoky box on the porch. Called the hubby, he said leave it there and he’ll take care of it when he gets home. So I kicked it out of the way of the door, lying flat.
About 1/2 hour later, I hear the distinct sound of someone running up/down our stairs and porch. I work at home and here this all the time when UPS/FedEx comes by. So I figure, a package is here.
Go downstairs, and find my in-law’s package sitting vertically about 2 feet from where I left it. Apparently it wasn’t good enough to rip open. I kinda wish whoever it was had taken it.
Erin may wish to contact these folks – they recently had a package stolen from their front porch in Ballard and replaced with an empty belonging to someone else: http://www.myballard.com/2010/12/18/package-stolen-replaced-with-fake/