The end game is squeezing margins down until only house thieves are motivated to take such jobs, and either disclaiming responsibility or trying to manage it so few enough people get attacked/robbed/etc by predators signing up to deliver for whatever the ultra-budget-shipping thing is. And of course in the end the whole thing gets automated, but until then the strategy is to squeeze shipping as hard as possible, because employing safe people is part of the margin and it's cheaper if they're a lot more ephemeral.

This all sounds like FUD. Have you personally had any problems with delivery people or have any data on problems in the aggregate?

Why would a house thief waste time delivering packages?

Not only would that not help your thieving at all, but the company that hired you having all your info on file would make you much more likely to get caught. Assuming you are robbing houses you can deliver too.

Putting on a fake delivery uniform and carrying around boxes that aren't meant to be delivered makes a lot more sense if you just need to case the houses before robbing.

Nobody has a career of being a "house thief", it's always a crime of opportunity. Given the low barrier to entry for delivery, they are good jobs for people coming out of jail or people with low education levels. So Joe Schmoe comes to your house, sees easy access to your backyard where your expensive BBQ sits, and wonders "shit, I could make a quick hundred bucks stealing that tonight, I already have the truck to move it!"

> Nobody has a career of being a "house thief", it's always a crime of opportunity.

plenty of people have life long careers of house burglary.

here are two, but there are very many others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/16/burglar-with-crim...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/12187965/Career...

You don't need to get a job delivering packages to rob someone's house.

Nor would it be a good idea or helpful in any way to a thief. You would be robbing homes that someone somewhere has a list of, which is tied to your name.

The research opportunity certainly increases the ROI

> Have you had any actual problems with these "fly by night" shipping companies? Do "schmoes" not work at Fedex and UPS?

Yes. Fedex, UPS, and USPS drivers clearly have a much better grasp of how to correctly handle delivery exception scenarios. That's probably because they actually train their employees, and schedule them so they can learn their routes. You're never going to get that with with the short-term gig-economy randos Amazon hires.

We have had problems with them marking items delivered that are not, but I know USPS has done this, and I expect UPS and FedEx have as well. It's not a big deal, especially since Amazon will send replacements without issue, but it is a little annoying. It is strange to receive mail from someone wearing a wife beater, and, in my experience, the drivers are much curter than USPS, UPS, or FedEx drivers, but I haven't come across anything that would cause me to file a complaint.

I have never seen a UPS employee throw a package at my house

There is an entire website dedicated to UPS employees throwing packages: http://dontthrowmypackage.com/category/ups/

It happens. https://www.google.com/search?q=ups+employee+throws+package&...

Ha. I'll assume you are being sarcastic.

I doubt it. We just moved, but in our previous neighborhood, we knew the UPS guy who did our deliveries. It was always the same guy, and he was great! He even gave us some great tips on where to vacation! I knew about his family probably more than he knew about ours.