Couple discovers genius Amazon package hack to trick porch pirates

Molly Byrne
porch pirates

A couple devised a genius trick to protect their Amazon packages from porch pirates after 40 parcels were stolen from their property.

To combat thieves, also known as porch pirates, Sarai Vazquez and Martin Jurado from Denver, Colorado, used fake Amazon packages and placed them on their porch.

That way, when a porch pirate stole their packages, which had proven to be a problem for them, they’d be going home without anything valuable.

The couple even filled their decoy packages up with trash before taping them closed, just so the thieves would get the point.

Couple lost 40 packages due to porch pirate thievery 

When asked about the constant theft, which cost the couple about 40 packages, Vazquez and Jurado said it would be ‘within minutes’ of receiving an Amazon package, that it would be stolen.

“It was like within a matter of minutes that we would get our things taken,” Vazquez said. “We would get a picture of the package being in the front door. We’d come to the front door and it was gone.”

Before coming up with the idea of putting fake, trash-filled boxes on their porch for the thieves, the couple purchased a locker to store their deliveries in, but it became too much of a hassle to go and constantly pick them up.

Denver couple said thievery slowed down after they started putting trash in used Amazon packages on porch.
The Denver couple said thievery slowed after they started putting trash in used Amazon packages on the porch.

Once their genius trick began to work, Vazquez said they had little to no trash left inside their home, as the porch pirates unknowingly stole it. “We don’t even have to pay for trash service anymore at this rate.”

However, the thieves ultimately caught onto what the couple was doing, and after a few months, they frequented their porch much less.

“We’re like, ‘Dang this package has been here a few days, what’s going on?’” Vazquez said. “It was like three months ago that they just stopped.”

Porch thievery isn’t uncommon, either. DoorDash orders have been known to be stolen from customers’ porches. Earlier this year, a man went viral after he caught his neighbor stealing his DoorDash order. He then notified the police, leading to a possible eviction of the perpetrator.