HOUSTON, Texas – It’s no secret that when the holidays roll around, thieves head out on the town to see what gifts they can get by stealing them off your front porch.
Porch pirates. Package pilferers. Mail marauders. Whatever you want to call them, we all know what they are. If you haven’t had a package stolen, odds are you know someone that has.
On Wednesday, not one but at least two families in Houston’s Third Ward joined the unfortunate club of people who’ve had someone else steal their packages.
But here’s the catch: one family says that Amazon is almost helping the thieves scope out their boxes.
Typically when you get a delivery from Amazon, it’s in a brown cardboard box or one of those white bubble mailers.
Well, their delivery one nine packages was delivered in an even bigger yellow and black tote.
Security cameras outside of Kenzel Fallen’s Southmoore Boulevard home shows the deliver driver lugging the tote that would give Santa’s sack a run for his money.
The driver left the tote and all of her packages sitting outside her front door, right in plain sight for anyone walking or driving by to see.
Gage: “I’ve ordered a lot on Amazon, but I’ve never once seen them leave the big case.”
Kenzel: “Me either. That was the first time that I saw something like that. I didn’t understand why they would have something that seems to be screaming, ‘Hey! I’ve got something good inside. Please come and get me.’”
It worked. An hour later a man wearing a red shirt, Nike sweatpants and a baseball cap popped up on her Ring camera. The man opens the tote and tosses all of her nine packages into another container that he casually walks away with.
“I’m sure when he zipped open that ginormous case, he probably thought, ‘Oh! I hit, like, the jackpot.’ And he had to have been so disappointed to find just dog food bowls and diapers,” Fallen said.
This wasn’t his only hit. At another home less than a mile away on Ardmore Street, a man wearing the same clothes is caught on camera stealing another package.
“Very clearly the same guy for sure,” said Brandon Wright.
The man stole a Christmas present mailed to Wright’s home by his husband. This time the package was just sitting out and not in one of those big totes.
“It’s pretty bold. It’s bold,” Wright said. “I can’t imagine what would make somebody so desperate that they would just take that kind of a risk.”
So what’s the deal with the big yellow totes? Amazon says they’re used by delivery drivers and are supposed to go back to the warehouse at the end of the day. They’re not supposed to be left behind.
“We thank KPRC2 for bringing this to our attention and are actively investigating. We’re working with the customers to make things right,” said an Amazon Spokesperson in a statement.
“It was pretty easy for someone to just come and quickly grab it and go,” Fallen said.
She isn’t the only one to receive one of the totes.
KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding also got a tote dropped off at his home in the Montrose area on Wednesday. Inside, his packages were still there. But now both are left wondering what to do with the giant container.
Amazon tells KPRC 2 News that they are working on a solution and will provide more information in the near future.