UPS man steals iPad mini mere hours after FedEx delivers it

The holiday season apparently brings out the worst in delivery personnel. Almost exactly a year since a FedEx delivery mantossed a computer monitor over a fence — possibly irritated at the sheer number of deliveries he had to make — a possible “partner in crime,” a UPS delivery man, did something even more heinous.

A UPS delivery man did more than make a delivery; he stole something at the same time. Optimization, of course. Fortunately, customer Al Alverson had a lot of tools at his disposal, and a lot of urgency, too, with Christmas coming. With all that, he was able to get the stolen item, an iPad mini, back by Thursday afternoon.

Apple requires a signature for every delivery, but it is possible to leave a signed slip at the door, and that’s what Alverson did. He wasn’t going to be around to receive the item, but he needed it quickly, as it was a Christmas present for his daughter.

Thus, he knew the iPad mini had been delivered and was missing. In addition, not only could he track the FedEx delivery using their website, he had something else up his sleeve: a security camera.

The footage showed that the FedEx delivery of the iPad mini took place at 9:45 a.m. At around 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, though, a UPS delivery man dropped off another package. That wasn’t all, though: After briefly leaving, he returned to the porch, took a closer look at the Apple package — which he could tell, since it was from Apple, was valuable — then walked off with it.

Alverson ended up posting a nicely edited video (embedded) to both Vimeo and YouTube after the theft. Why not just call UPS? He did, but was dissatisfied with their reaction.

After posting the video, Alverson was quickly visited by a local deputy as well as a UPS investigator on Thursday morning, with the result being that he received an iPad mini replacement on Thursday afternoon.

It’s unclear why UPS officials didn’t make an effort until Alverson made the issue public (he also went to local meda), as it would have been easy to check their delivery records to determine who the delivery person was. In fact, once they engaged in the matter, they easily tracked down the thief and fired him immediately.

UPS said he was a temp worker, a seasonal employee who was hired due to the increase in package volume during the holidays. After UPS came through, Alverson removed the video from both YouTube and Vimeo. However, several mirrors of the security footage have been posted online, included the one embedded.

In addition to being fired, the delivery man was arrested by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and charged with theft.

Delivery men should have learned to be alert from last year’s incident. The monitor-tossing event was captured on security camera video, just as this one was, with the required result and a video apology from FedEx, too.

In this case, it’s ironic that last year’s miscreants were victims this year.