Fuel thieves are driving off with smaller amounts than previously, gambling that forecourt operators will not pursue them legally because of the lower value.
That is the view of debt recovery and number plate recognition specialist Vars Technology, which says that its data from 2024 showed a jump in the number of drive-offs for smaller volumes of fuel, with the average value of the 61,000 incidents it handled falling from £48.64 in 2023, to £44.19 last year.
Some of the £4.45 reduction will come from lower fuel prices, says Vars Technology. But it points to the fact that no means of payment (NMOP) incidents, in which customers tell staff they cannot pay for their fuel, saw almost half the decline in value of drive-offs, indicating that something else was at play.
The average cost of almost 25,000 NMOP incidents it dealt with fell by £2.25 to £59.55 last year. And, says Vars Technology, the average value of a drive-off was more than £15 lower than the average NMOP incident.
“Fuel prices hit their lowest level in three years in September, which will have had some impact on the reduced average value of a drive-off incident. That doesn’t account for the stark difference between drive-offs and no means of payment though,” says Vars Technology director John Garnett.
“In 2024 we saw a jump in the number of drive-offs for smaller amounts of fuel, typically between £20 and £30. As the presence of ANPR protection and debt recovery services on forecourts becomes more widely known, it seems that some drivers are gambling that if a theft is for a smaller amount, they are more likely to get away with it.
“The reality is that they aren’t, and once they have stolen fuel once, they will be unable to do so again across any of the sites that use our shared ANPR protection. They will also be robustly pursued for the full value of the fuel, as well as admin costs,” says Garnett.
In fact, the company recovered over £2.8 million in fuel costs last year for its customers, which was 51% higher than 2023. And the Vars ANPR system also alerted staff to blacklisted vehicles 706,000 times throughout the year, up from 374,000 in 2023, preventing, it says, millions of pounds of drive-offs before they happen.
Throughout 2025, Vars Technology is offering forecourt operators its service for free for up to three months, allowing potential customers to switch to the Vars platform from a competitor’s, as they see out their existing notice period.
