The holidays are here and shopping online is at its peak for gift-giving to friends and family, but many people around this time are on the lookout for porch pirates. However, if you're in these seven Florida cities, you might not have to worry as much.
A study done by Safewise reveals that three of the Sunshine State's major metro areas — which include all seven cities — made the top five least likely to see porch theft.
Miami-Ft. Lauderdale took the crown at No. 1 and bumped up 14 spots since last year. Tampa-St. Petersburg is in second place and the Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne area made the fourth rank for porch pirates to strike the least.
The data was conducted by Criminal Justice Professor and Author Dr. Ben Stickle and home security company Vivint. They relied on Google Trends and FBI larceny-theft numbers to rank the cities because there is no clear national database to track package theft.
A graphic of Florida and the places least likely to experience porch theft.Safewise & Vivint
For such high-tourist volume areas, Floridians worry the most about this issue. Safewise research says 57% have expressed their holiday concerns.
Around 35% of people who have had their package swiped say they had some form of a video camera in place.
Ways you can prevent theft aside from having security cams in place are to opt in to delivery alerts, require signatures for your packages and make sure your porch or doorway area is properly lit.
If you've fallen victim to porch pirates, it's recommended you file a police report and contact the sender as well a the carrier.