Package thefts: it's not just for the holidays

RALEIGH, NC (WTVD) -- A Raleigh man says that he became a victim of package thieves for the second time this month.

Matt Durbin shared the same surveillance video with ABC11 that he shared earlier with Raleigh police.

The first thief showed up on February 5.

A man walked onto Durbin's porch and calmly walked away with two packages.

A man stole this package off Matt Durbin's porch.

Even though police have the video, Durbin knows that catching the thief won't be easy.

"They could have easily just been driven into the area to look for opportunities to steal like this. So, yeah, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack," Durbin said.

Exactly two weeks later surveillance video shows a teenage boy with a lacrosse stick come onto the porch, ring the doorbell and run away.

A kid with a lacrosse stick is seen running off Durbin's porch.

"He was waiting to see if I would come to the door and to get the package," Durbin speculated.

After no one answered the door the boy returned with a friend and walked off with the package that was on the porch.

The kid with the lacross stick returns with an accomplice to steal Durbin's package.

Durbin hopes he and police will have more success identifying the teenagers.

"It'll be easier to find who these kids are than perhaps the other gentleman," he said. "The way they left the scene it looked like they were running perhaps on foot they went straight out through the front yard. So I would have to believe they are either in my neighborhood or one of the adjoining neighborhoods."

Durbin knows that online shopping has seen growth and that he is not alone.

"It's incredibly easy so you can do it at night, you can do it on your phone, whenever you want. And so it's way too easy to just with the click of a button get something and then it shows up within a couple of days," he said.

So he's not going to let a couple of porch pirates change his ways. "I think I'll continue to do it but I'm also going to be a little bit more proactive about getting those packages off my porch as soon as they are delivered."

He now knows video or pictures of thieves don't guarantee their arrest, but he believes it is helpful, so he upgraded his surveillance.

"I've not gotten a better security camera so I can get a better screen shot of who that person is so that I can share that with the authorities."