We now know where we stand with Europe, while the performance of the home nations in the Euro football championship has kept us all on a knife edge. And we’re delighted to have recovered a massive £500,000 for forecourt retailers during the first six months of 2016.

This success means that the BOSS Payment Watch scheme has now recovered £2.5m on behalf of retailers. We’re not standing still but constantly looking at ways to improve the way we work with retailers, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Recent updating of the report forms that capture evidence, and the way cases are then referred to Home Office Action Fraud for police investigation, have improved our success in recovering money owed to retailers. Combine these improvements with the growing use of the BOSS Electronic Reporting System (ERS) which is easy to use and provides more reliable and accurate information in a more efficient manner. It also gives retailers the ability to include photographic and video evidence. Greater use of ERS will help to speed up actions taken to recover money owed from No Means of Payment offenders.

The new and improved ways of working means that more than 4,500 instances of multiple offending have been referred to Action Fraud during the past year, resulting in numerous successful prosecutions.

There are many genuine customers who inadvertently refuel and then discover they have no means to pay. A simple and easy method to either return and pay or make a payment remotely helps to improve customer relations. Where unscrupulous offenders seek to take advantage of retailers, BOSS is here to ensure that persistent offenders are pursued and brought before the courts.

So far this year BOSS members have been repaid over £10,000 in compensation awards from court cases. However, compensation isn’t always awarded, especially if a custodial sentence is imposed. For example, in April, Nottingham Magistrates sentenced Craig Salmon to 10 weeks imprisonment for multiple No Means of Payment offences.

The fight against forecourt crime continues, and while incidents can and do take up considerable time, BOSS remains committed to taking all the necessary steps to protect its members.

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