Mounties in Grande Prairie are hoping a few helpful tips will help prevent your packages being plundered by porch pirates this holiday season.
Corporal Mathew Howell says if you are planning on ordering packages to your house, to try and aim for someone to be at the house during that time. Howell mentioned that you can request for the package to be put somewhere safe, but the people delivering the packages don’t have to follow the request.
“Those notes don’t necessarily have to be followed, it’s recommendations or request’s, but they don’t have to follow them,” he said.
Howell mentioned that installing cameras could always help, but if a porch pirate was wearing a mask, the camera could only help a little bit. But if you are shopping with Amazon specifically, to use one of their drop-boxes around town for packages.
If you plan to shop on Facebook Marketplace, or Ebay for example, Howell suggests to try and meet with the buyer or seller face-to-face, and try to stay away from e-transfer if possible.
“There is always a risk with e-transfers, they can be cancelled, reversed or anything else.”
Howell added that if you do plan on meeting someone in person to do a transaction or maybe a child swap, that many police stations across the province has an area for these exchanges.
“Most police stations, if not all of them do have a safe exchange place. It can be for Facebook Marketplace exchanges or could be used for parents to do a child exchange.”
