Pricewatch Group is investing £28,000 in installing the Big Brother Watch-it anti fuel theft security system at four of its 10 Sussex forecourts, in a bid to clamp down on drive-offs, which have been costing the operator as much as £50,000 a year.
Staff training and more of a focus on cracking down on the issue has started to see the cost of this crime begin to decline, but “it is still a big problem”, says Pricewatch general manager Tom Buckley.
He is initially installing the system at sites at Wivelsfield, Selmeston, Eastbourne and Bolney, and if it is successful it will be introduced at the remainder of its sites, says Tom.
The attraction of Watch-it, says Tom, is that it alerts the cashier of a potential drive-off by comparing the make, model and fuel type of a vehicle with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database. It uses AI for the pump controller to check the fuel chosen matches the rest of the vehicle’s details.
“Drive-offs are a huge problem for us,” says Tom. “Our worst hit site at Wivelsfield is losing £150 a week and that does not include no means to pay. That is heartbreaking with all of the hard work that everyone puts in to make the business successful.
“The staff are busy with so many things to watch out for and then when you throw in false number plates, it gets very hard to stop.The Big Brother Watch-it system actually alerts staff not only if a number plate should not be on a vehicle, but also if the wrong type of fuel is being chosen for a vehicle based on a registration plate,” says Tom.
Tom says that he opted for Watch-it because it should cut down on the number of cases that his business puts forward for debt recovery, a process which can alienate genuine customers who have forgotten to pay for their fuel and then face hefty fines during the retrieval process.
“We prefer to stop the problem happening in the first place rather than going through debt recovery in which fees can be quite a lot of money, which leads to customers who did forget to pay feeling disgruntled with our business, that’s where Watch-it makes the difference” says Tom, who currently also uses competitor equipment from Fuel Guardian, and Forecourt Eye.
Watch-it, Big Brother’s smart security technology platform, which integrates CCTV footage with the till system, also provides an automated debt collection service. It automatically generates a drive-off report without the need for forecourt staff to go through CCTV footage which saves site managers a couple of hours per week, says the business.
Other operators that have chosen Watch-it include AY&Y Patel, Raven’s Budgens at Abridge in Essex, Petrocell, and an undisclosed major oil company.
