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SALT LAKE CITY — A new study shows the Salt Lake City metropolitan area is the second most likely in the country for residents to have a package stolen by so-called “porch pirates” over the holidays.

Between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, 164 million Americans are expected to shop, and the National Retail Federation estimates nearly half of those purchases now happen online. And while shopping in your PJs is efficient and convenient, it’s also more convenient for thieves.

The study from SafeWise found Salt Lake City trails only Austin, Texas, in likelihood for holiday package theft, as porch pirates look for easy targets among the packages delivered to your front door.

The study also found:

Half of the top package theft metros also land in the top 10 for larceny-theft overall— Salt Lake City (1), Seattle-Tacoma (3), Miami-Fort Lauderdale (4), Raleigh-Durham (6), and Atlanta (7).

Texas has the most incidence of high holiday package theft, with three metro areas making our list: Austin, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth.

Half the metros on our list are from Texas and Florida—Texas has three and Florida has two.

Only three of the top 10 metro areas that are most likely to have stolen packages also make the top 10 for porch theft during the rest of the year—Austin, Salt Lake City, and Seattle-Tacoma.

Miami-Fort Lauderdale scores zero for stolen package searches year-round, but jumps to 31 (out of 100) during the holidays, making it the third most likely place to get your holiday packages pilfered!

Surprisingly, New York City is the least likely place to have a package swiped during the holidays.

The national metro theft rate is almost 17 incidents per 1,000 people, and three of our most risky metros stayed under that—Dallas-Fort Worth, Tampa-St. Petersburg, and Boston.*

Photo: Safewise

Experts recommend shipping orders to your place of work instead of your home, using new pickup locations offered by many online retailers, or even installing a surveillance system to deter thieves.

The least likely places to have a package swiped were Portland (Oregon, not Maine), St. Louis and New York City.

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