According to forecourt security specialist VARS Technology, drive offs linked to fake, tampered with or cloned plates, as well as vehicles that have no registered keeper with the DVLA, made up 12.8% of reported UK drive-offs over the past 12 months.
Of those, cloned plates made up the largest proportion, with 5,449 incidents. Fake plates were significantly lower at 902, like due to the VARS ANPR system providing staff with the make, model and colour of the vehicle a given licence plate is registered to.
With this information, staff are much more likely to spot fake plates before they have a chance to steal fuel. A further 3,203 vehicles were found to have no registered keeper with the DVLA.
In total, claims linked to fake or cloned plates or without a registered keeper totalled 9,554, or 12.8% of the 75,625 claims submitted to VARS by forecourt operators during 2024.
This included both drive offs and no means of payment incidents that the driver failed to settle within a two-week period. In dealing with these claims, VARS Technology recovered more than £2.8 million in lost fuel costs on behalf of the UK forecourt sector.
VARS Technology Director John Garnett said: “Habitual fuel thieves are by now well aware of businesses like us that work to protect forecourts and while that is generally a good thing, it does create new problems. The first is that it risks pushing the problem away from forecourts that are well protected onto neighbours that don’t have the same level of protection against drive offs.
Secondly, many thieves are deriving new ways to try and circumvent our systems, and it is an ongoing process to try and ensure we keep one step ahead.
“The use of fake, tampered with or cloned plates is growing, and is particularly hard for forecourts to guard against. Our system allows staff to quickly see the make, model and colour associated with a given number plate, allowing them to spot attempts at fuel theft using fake plates. For forecourt operators without that kind of protection, however, it is an extremely difficult issue to tackle effectively, particularly if reporting incidents to the police doesn’t get them anywhere.”
VARS Technology also warned that a lack of support from the police for the issue was exacerbating the problem. An investigation earlier this month by Forecourt Trader that police forces failed to identify a suspect in reported drive-offs in 94% of cases. There has been substantial media attention to the growing issue of shoplifting in the UK, but the forecourt industry, and the businesses like VARS that work to protect them, are warning that petrol stations face similar issues.
John Garnett continued: “VARS Technology as a business came about because of just this issue: forecourts don’t receive the support they need when it comes to tackling fuel theft. Police forces are under-resourced and under-funded, and the process of attempting to recover fuel debts themselves is just too time-consuming and difficult to be practical.
“With the margins on fuel so narrow for forecourt operators, one drive off can be enough to put a huge dent in their profits on fuel for the day. Many forecourts are experiencing multiple drive offs a week, which is a very real threat to the viability of what are often small, family-owned and run businesses.
More details www.varstechnology.co.uk
or email enquiries enquiries@varstechnology.co.uk
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