Fuel retailers in Forecourt Trader’s Top 50 Indies have saved an estimated £8.17m over two years following the installation of anti-drive-off systems.
Vars Technology estimates it has prevented £6.87m worth of drive-offs thanks to 156,200 ‘blacklist’ alarms being activated at Top 50 Indies forecourts since September 2023, with cashiers being alerted when vehicles with registrations associated with crime pull onto forecourts, preventing them from authorising pumps without pre-payment.
Vars’ debt-recovery arm, meanwhile, recouped a further £1.3m following successful drive-offs and delinquent No Means of Payment incidents over the same period, bringing total projected savings of £8.17m over two years for firms using the company’s systems.
Those figures demonstrate how incomplete official data for forecourt crime is, with police logging only 131,000 drive-offs worth £6.55m over five years.
Of all Top 50 Indies, 26 use at least one of Vars’ systems tackling tackle fuel theft, debt recovery, parking management and shoplifting. Turning to individual sites, if MFG’s 1,210 forecourts are excluded from calculations, 39% of all filling stations run by Top 50 Indies have been kitted out with at least one of Vars’ products.
Independent fuel retailers have also contributed significantly to Vars’ blacklist since its 2021 inception, adding 30,400 registrations – roughly a quarter of the total number of vehicles on the list.
Vars’ director, John Garnett, says his firm has worked with Top 50 Indies “from the very start of the business”, with feedback from independent retailers helping the company “deliver exactly the kind of system that major forecourt retailers need”.
Garnett added that “while most backlisted vehicles are linked to fuel theft, our customers are also protected against thousands of vehicles linked to issues including retail theft, aggressive behaviour, or fly-tipping”.
Kumar Sharma, director of Sharma Garages, which operates a dozen forecourts and is a long-standing Vars customer, said the firm’s systems have evolved “into a core part of how we operate”, with Sharma saving an estimated £120,000 so far this year, and the company recovering money from 85% of reported thefts.
Sharma staff have added 1,500 registrations to Vars’ blacklist, with Kumar Sharmar describing the security-tech firm as “a business-critical partner” that “gives us the confidence to focus on delivering the best service possible for our customers, knowing that our sites are safeguarded against one of the industry’s most persistent challenges.”
