Short answer
Porch piracy is the theft of packages left outside a home or building after delivery, usually from a doorstep, porch or shared lobby. The carrier scan says delivered, and the customer never sees the parcel.For an online store, porch piracy arrives as one of the hardest tickets in the queue: "tracking says delivered, but it is not here." The store cannot see the doorstep. The package may have been stolen, left at a neighbour's, put in a parcel locker, marked delivered a day early, or delivered to the wrong address. A small share of claims are not true at all. Support has to respond fairly without knowing which case it is.
The first useful step is checking the facts the store can see. When was it marked delivered, and where, if the carrier records a location or photo? Was the address complete, including the apartment number? Has this customer reported missing parcels before? Many cases resolve with a day's wait or a knock on a neighbour's door. Others need a carrier claim, a replacement or a refund, according to the store's policy.
The common mistake is treating every report as either theft or lying. Automatic replacements reward the rare false claim. Automatic refusals lose honest customers who did nothing wrong. A clear, consistent policy, applied with the order facts in front of the agent, avoids both.
Delivered but not received: first checks
| Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Delivery date and time | early scans sometimes arrive a day later |
| Carrier delivery location or photo | shows porch, locker, mailroom or neighbour |
| Address on the order | a missing unit number explains many cases |
| Customer history | repeated claims change the response |
Faced with a "delivered but missing" message, Aide first compares the carrier's delivery scan with the address on the order, then suggests where parcels usually turn up: a neighbour, a locker, the mailroom. If that does not settle it, a person takes over with everything already gathered. Whether to reship or refund stays a human call. Staff can create a $0 replacement order right inside the thread, and no refund goes out without a teammate's approval unless the store changes that default. A delivered but not received template shows a fair first reply.