'Postmates' delivery man caught stealing packages from San Francisco apartment
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KTVU) - Residents at a San Francisco apartment building say using a certain mobile app delivery service may come with too high of a price.
They say they a Postmates deliveryman actually stole holiday packages from people's doors and it's all caught on camera.
Surveillance video shows the Postmates employee getting buzzed into the luxury apartments at the corner of Van Ness and Greenwich just before 2 p.m. on December 11th. He drops off a package on the seventh floor and then swipes at least three other packages from other doors, placing the stolen goods in his bag. He casually walks out of the building four minutes later.
"It was shocking to see that these delivery people are delivering one and picking up five," said Caxton Rhodes, a resident at the building.
Postmates is a mobile app delivery service mainly for food, with headquarters on Market Street. Hundreds of Yelp reviews for Postmates in San Francisco and in Los Angeles give the company only one out of five stars. Rhodes said he attempted to call Postmates, but couldn’t find a number.
"I think it' s a known issue with these companies actually, and I don't think they do any background checks or anything on these people," said Rhodes.
And while customer reviews of Postmates are not favorable, the company was given a Better Business Bureau rating of "A."
Postmates says it does subject its employees to background checks and sent KTVU an email saying:
"Nothing is more important to us than the well-being of our customers. When notified of this incident, we immediately removed the courier involved from the Postmates platform."
SFPD says its inspectors are trying to determine if the Postmates deliveryman will be charged with felony burglary, grand theft or petty theft.
"For them to take advantage of this situation, it's really unfortunate," said Officer Robert Rueca with SFPD. "We expect better from them and their employers that they do the right thing."