Philadelphia postal worker praised online after Ring footage shows his creative solution to prevent porch pirates from stealing packages
- In a viral TikTok video, a postal worker named Franco, according to viewers, is seen skillfully hiding packages from porch pirates
- Porch pirates are thieves who steal packages through the front door or other places near the main entrance of a home
- In 2022, almost two million residents had a package stolen Pennsylvania
A Philadelphia postal worker has gone viral after a resident posted a video on TikTok of himself hiding packages from local porch pirates.
After confirming the address of the package, the man, who viewers say is named Franco, is seen taking a step back and checking his surroundings for porch pirates in the video.
Footage shows him moving the welcome mat a few centimeters and placing the package underneath.
The video, recorded with a Ring camera installed at the entrance door, ends with him patting the package under the mat to make sure it wasn’t obvious to the robbers and leaving.
After the package address is confirmed, the man, who viewers say is named Franco, is seen taking a step back and checking his surroundings for porch pirates in the video.
Footage shows him moving the welcome mat a few inches as part of his ‘creative solution’ to fool porch pirates
The video, recorded with a Ring camera installed near the entrance door, ends with him carefully putting the package into place. He puts a mat over it and knocks on the package to make sure it isn’t obvious to the robbers as they leave
The 13-second video, uploaded by @pricklybootlegger on the video-sharing app, has been viewed nearly three million times at the time of publication.
She described it as “POV: Your mailman delivers your package while you’re not home, but you live in Philly” and captioned it, “and my husband thanks my husband.”
But it looks like her house isn’t the only one where he uses this trick. Many viewers noticed that he was also their mailman and showed appreciation for him.
One user claimed: ‘He’s also my mailman and he hides our packages too!!! Icon behavior’.
Another user said: ‘The look of seeing no one sees him do it is so real.’
Most viewers called him a hero and said he “needed to be protected at all costs.”
The country has been struggling with the problem of porch pirates for some time now.
Porch pirates are described as thieves who steal packages through the front door or other places near the main entrance of a home.
Senator Frank Farry explained, “Porch piracy is a growing trend with the evolution of online shopping and the large number of people shopping online and having packages delivered to their porch or door.
‘It often happens that the packages that are purchased have a nominal value. They are items with a lower amount and that results – if the person is actually arrested and convicted – in the penalty being an offense.’
In 2022, an estimated 260 million packages were stolen from doorways across the United States, with an estimated $19.5 billion lost to theft.
In Pennsylvania, almost two million residents had their packages stolen. Last year, package theft in Philadelphia rose 16 percent.