ST. LOUIS — It's happened to nearly all of us, you get something delivered to your front porch but by the time you get home, someone's stolen it.
There's a new product that's being sold on Amazon.com that is designed to protect your package from 'porch pirates'.
It costs about $35 plus shipping online.
We asked Anthony Gutierrez to test it out for us.
"It doesn’t seem like there’s an end in sight," Gutierrez said. "I had a bunch of mail stolen, DVDs were put in there, about 8 letters."
Gutierrez tried to come up with another solution for fighting package thieves — building an elaborate box — but none of the major carriers follow the instructions to use it.
That's what made him eager to test out the Porch Pirate Bag.
He said, at first glance, it looked promising.
"I’d be willing to try it my only thing is bikes get stolen with cables on there. I wonder if they’re really desperate if they’d come with cutters and cut it," he said.
Here's how it works.
First, you wrap the bike lock around something sturdy like a post. The combination lock is supposed to mean only you and the delivery person and unzip the canvas bag that contains the package.
You then set the combination lock through the bike lock.
The instructions recommend giving the big carriers a call to let them know the combination.
We let Anthony try out the Porch Pirate Bag for seven days.
His verdict - it didn't work for him.
Anthony thinks this perceived deal is actually a dud. The biggest reason: the big carriers aren't on board.
"I called FedEx. They said they don’t deal with any type of code so that wasn’t an option. UPS said they don’t have a file for people to write down a code so they would take a code but they would have to take it down for every delivery. And that seemed like a lot of trouble," he said.
He also sees issues with the size of the bag.
"This would not even fit my food club shipment," Gutierrez said.
He also thinks it would be pretty easy to cut the cord or lock.
"You could easily cut that. People have stronger locks on bikes that they still get stolen," he said.
Anthony said he sees why the bag sells well. It's just not something he'll use.
"It would be someone who doesn't get as many packages as I do," he said.
Anthony also tried to give the combination to his lock to the U.S. Postal Service but said he waited more than 40 minutes on hold before giving up.
We reached out to the makers of the bag to see why the big carriers aren't really on board with using this product, but so far, we haven't heard back.
