Shell/Budgens forecourt operator Goran Raven has reduced drive-offs by at least 80% since installing automatic number plate recognition technology at his site in Abridge, Essex.
Having lost around £30,000 to the crime over the past four years, Raven expects that the Big Brother equipment, fitted by Eurotank nine months ago, will pay for itself in a year and a half.
“I will already have saved thousands of pounds. Previously, on a bad day, we could have had five or six drive-offs, and then have a two or three week gap,” says Raven. “There is no logic to when we have drive-offs, although they rarely take place during rush-hour when the culprits are worried about getting trapped on the forecourt with all the other vehicles there.”
Most of the fuel stolen is to a value of £35 to £40, but instances of more than £100 being taken is not uncommon, says Raven.
As well as preventing organised theft, Raven says that the technology has been useful in protecting his fourth generation family business in other ways.
“Since we’ve had Big Brother, an elderly couple filled up their car, bumbled around in the store and used the toilet, and then left without paying,” recalls Raven. “This was clearly a genuine mistake, but next time they came onto the site the system picked up their number plate and we could show them from the CCTV cameras what had happened.”
Raven recently appeared on BBC evening news highlighting the problem of drive-offs after the broadcaster obtained Freedom of Information request data from Forecourt Trader showing the scale of the problem in constabularies across the UK. Raven told the reporter: “People see the Shell sign but we’re actually a fourth generation firm that have been selling Shell fuel since 1929.
“Any losses from this station fall to me, I make those losses not Shell.”
When we spoke to Raven this Thursday morning (September 4) he was expecting another TV appearance this evening on GB News, with journalists planning to come to his site later today.
