UK phone retailers lock shop doors while trading to tackle rising thefts

3 days ago

Mobile phone retailers are locking their doors during trading hours and considering using “kill switches” to disable stolen devices, as incidents of theft increase more than ninefold in some high streets due to organised crime,VodafoneThree, which operates the largest retail network with 650 stores across the UK, has experienced a 967% increase in theft incidents in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2024,“In recent months, the telecoms sector has seen an alarming surge in aggressive robberies and attempted robberies in stores, particularly across London and the south-east of England,” said a spokesperson for the company,“VodafoneThree has seen a nine-times increase in these types of incidents,”In response, the company has introduced measures including a locked door policy in some stores, which requires security guards to open the store’s doors to customers during trading hours, rather than them remaining open at all times.

“This is a disappointing, but necessary step,” the spokesperson said.The newly formed mobile phone company, which employs 4,300 staff at its stores, defines an incident as a robbery, or attempted robbery, by groups of two or more masked individuals who enter a store and threaten staff to gain access to stock cages to steal devices.Retailers have repeatedly raised concerns over increased levels of shoplifting in recent years.Virgin Media O2, which has 305 stores with about 2,600 employees, has seen more than double the number of robberies and attempted robberies in the first half of this year compared with all of 2024.The company, which is undertaking its biggest ever investment in boosting security at its stores, said the number of attempted robberies had at least doubled annually for the past three years, albeit from a low base in 2022.

The investment in new security measures includes increasing the number of security guards, a locked door policy in crime hotspots, installing new panic alarms and enhancing security monitoring systems.The company said it had already reduced the number of successful robberies where the measures had been introduced and, like VodafoneThree, it was collaborating more intensively with the police to catch thieves.Virgin Media O2 said more than 40 people had been arrested and charged since last July, and the robbery success rate had halved between 2022 and this year.Will Houldsworth, the director of retail at Virgin Media O2, said: “We have seen an unacceptable increase in attempted store robberies over recent months, driven by the activities of organised criminal gangs targeting mobile phone stores in London and the south-east.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotion“Through implementing a ‘locked door’ policy at certain stores at higher risk, and investing in more security guards, panic alarms and enhanced in-house security systems, we’re fighting back and protecting our people and customers.

“We’re continuing to work with law enforcement, and with other providers experiencing similar issues, to tackle this problem and secure arrests and convictions.”In June, a select committee of MPs accused Apple and Google of profiting from customers having to replace smartphones stolen in multimillion-pound street phone-snatching operations that police said were carried out by organised criminal gangs.The Metropolitan police provided evidence to the House of Commons science and technology committee which said they had been trying for the last two years to get smartphone companies to prevent stolen devices from accessing their cloud services so that they were no longer “smart”, therefore dramatically reducing their resale value.Representatives for Apple and Google pointed to other security features built into phones.While the select committee session focused on mobile phone thefts from members of the public – 80,000 devices of all kinds were stolen in London alone last year – smartphone sellers are understood to be keen to see the introduction of some form of mechanism to make unsold phones that are stolen from stores inoperable – a so-called “kill switch”.

For example, in Apple’s own stores it has enhanced security measures that effectively make their phones unusable if they are taken out of the retail outlet,When asked for comment Apple pointed to a post on its website last month about how it “protects user data and deters iPhone theft with advanced security protections”,Apple said it collaborated “with law enforcement agencies across the globe” to tackle device theft and “counterfeit parts operations”,A recent report by the device insurer SquareTrade estimated that 80% of stolen devices were Apple products,The company said it had seen a 425% increase in “snatch-related” insurance claims in the UK between June 2021 and May this year.

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