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The holiday season is a time for charity, sweet smells, feel-good cheer — and taking. That is, it’s also a time when thieves generally strike and mail is a prime target. That prompted one local mail carrier to speak out about Seattle package theft.

“The people that are doing this … they’re kind of heartless in some aspects,” said T. Jay, a postal worker in the Seattle area.

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“These are people’s Christmas gifts,” he said. “These are toys for kids. These are things people have sent from a long way away, and it’s heartbreaking every time we hear that somebody’s package was stolen.”

T. Jay — Seattle’s self-proclaimed “Punk Rock Mail Man” — said that he is approached about a missing package at least once a week. Sometimes there’s a misunderstanding, but often it’s a case of package theft. He took to recently to offer some advice for online shoppers during this holiday season. After all, those online items have to get from the warehouse to your door. And postal workers, UPS, or FedEx will likely drop those packages off.

“I’ve seen this, we’ve already had issues with people following trucks and stealing packages this year,” T. Jay said. “If you think you are going to catch it in time, you most likely are not. If they are out to catch these packages, they are going to get there and they are going to get there fast.”

“Every time you see a Black Friday ad, somebody who wants to steal your packages also sees that ad,” he said. “They know it’s coming. This is the time of year, people, unfortunately, have decided this it is the time to hit.”

Package theft tips

But all is not lost. T. Jay’s Reddit post as a few tips to get around package theft, but if there is one piece of advice he recommends above all else:

“Watch your tracking,” he said. “All the companies offer tracking. If you know something is coming, have a little bit of pre-planning and maybe have someone there or leave a note for whatever service comes to your door. Make sure we know what you want us to do. We are all more than happy to accommodate for a myriad of issues.”

This is particularly important in some areas more than others. T. Jay notes that when he works around downtown Seattle, a lot of those deliveries go to places such as offices and that cuts down on thefts. But other areas have different factors.

“I’ve notice in areas like Capitol Hill and Eastlake you see a lot of (package) theft,” T. Jay said. “And in a lot of apartment buildings, you see a lot of theft. People are either gaining access (to the building) or unfortunately in some cases even people who live in the building take them.”

“Speaking from my own personal experience, when I have been working in the Eastlake area, Eastlake got hit pretty hard,” he said. “Mainly if you live in an apartment, that’s the people I say to keep their eyes open as much as they can. If you have a package coming, get to it as soon as possible or get someone else to pick it up.”

Another thing to keep in mind is what package is coming to your door — especially Amazon packages. If it has the label of everybody’s favorite online retailer, thieves may be more attracted to it. And it’s important to bear that in mind — Amazon requires that if a person is not home and leaves no instructions, carriers are often instructed to leave the package.

“People don’t realize that if it’s marked ‘carrier leave if no response,’ (which Amazon often is) we have to leave it,” T. Jay said.

“People see the (Amazon) box and they see new merchandise … when you’re looking at priority mailers when you’re looking at normal first class mailers, these may not be high-dollar items,” he said. “It may be cookies from grandma or something like that. But typically with Amazon, they see that and know somebody spent some money to get that to their house.”

Essentially, people have to be as aware as the carriers themselves.

“I know I can speak, not just for us at the Postal Service, but after talking to some people who work for UPS or FedEx, we watch for (theft),” T. Jay said. “We have cameras behind our trucks so we can see if somebody is following us. We keep our head on a swivel to see what is going on.”

“Once we get it to that door, we try to keep an eye on it as much as possible but at some point, we have to leave the area,” he said.