Grinches May Try to Steal Christmas Early—BUPD Offers Tips to Thwart Holiday Package Thieves
BUPD offers tips to thwart would-be gift thieves
Holiday packages left in unlocked foyers tempt thieves: the BUPD advises moving them inside the locked part of the building when you see them. Photo by iStock/Andrey Nikitin
Here’s How to Protect Your Holiday Packages
BUPD offers tips to thwart would-be gift thieves
- BUPD is warning students to guard against holiday package thieves
- Best tip: put your and neighbors’ deliveries inside locked part of building
- Also consider having packages shipped to Amazon storage, not to your home
’Tis the season to give gifts—and to steal them from unlocked apartment vestibules. The Boston University Police Department is getting a jump on the gift-swiping season, advising shoppers doing early holiday buying in light of COVID-19–induced supply delays to have packages shipped somewhere safer than unlocked areas.
“We do have plainclothes officers that go out” to monitor for thefts, BUPD Captain Anastasios Giannopoulos says. “We know there are target areas,” notably South Campus, and officers have started monitoring those.
“If the criminals know that the cops are out there, they’re not going to be in this area,” says Giannopoulos. “This isn’t [just] a BU problem. This is an all-over-the-state problem… We just want to make sure there are officers with a presence there. And not just plainclothes officers; a lot of times, we’ll assign units to be in areas like Buswell Street or Park Drive. A lot of times, [would-be thieves] seeing that presence of the police cruiser there, they don’t want to be in that area.”
The best tip, he says: if you see a package left in a foyer, do the recipient a favor by placing it inside the foyer’s inner door, which typically locks.
“If you see a package when you go in your building, and it’s in that open vestibule area, when you unlock your door to the building, throw it inside that secure area,” Giannopoulos says. “That was a huge thing for us” last year. “That seemed to work a lot.”
Other tips from the BUPD:
- If you won’t be home when a package is scheduled to be delivered, consider rescheduling or rerouting the delivery through the company’s tracking service to a more secure location.
- You can arrange for packages to be sent to Amazon pickup facilities, where lockers keep items safe, rather than to your apartment. One such facility is right on campus, at 870 Commonwealth Ave.; you can check Amazon’s locker locator here to see if there are more convenient sites near you.
- Ask a trusted friend to pick up the package for you.
- Check if your neighbors saw a missing package or held onto it for you.
- If you have renter’s insurance, it might cover stolen packages.
- The gift buyer might be able to use the purchase protection features on their credit card, or contact the retailer for a refund.
- File a claim with the shipping company. You also can report theft to the BUPD at 617-353-2110.
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