Category Archives: Mobile Phones

Immobilise, Mobile Phones, Police

Trafford Residents are urged by Police to register on Immobilise

The crime reduction advisor for Trafford is urging residents across Trafford to make their valuable less attractive to theives this Christmas by registering them on Immobilise.

PC Tony Crompton has said about the Immobilise Property Register:

Many items we recover from criminals are not given back to their owners as, without some proof of ownership, we do not know who they belong to.

Spending five minutes registering details of your Christmas gifts and other valued possessions for free on immobilise.com means that their details are instantly available to us and all other forces across the country.

If an item is stolen you can update your record to tell us, so if we or any other force find your MP3 player, watch or bike, we have proof it belongs to you.

To read the source article in full please go to: www.communitynewsgroup.co.uk

Crime, Immobilise, Mobile Phones, Police

Police warning over security issues

The Ipswich Evening Star reported on Suffolk Police’s current campaign to remind to take crime prevention measures over the festive period to keep their valuables safe:

With stories every year about families having their Christmas presents stolen, the police have issued some simple measures to reduce the chances of this happening. These include not leaving shopping bags of presents in view in cars and not leaving presents, especially expensive ones, under the Christmas tree where they can be seen through a window.

People can register their valuable Christmas presents at an online database (www.immobilise.com). The serial number can be registered, which will help keep property safe and reunite stolen items with their rightful owners.

Inspector Ben Cook from the crime reduction department stresses the importance of being careful this Christmas.

He said: “Only place the packaging of gifts outside your property on the morning of your rubbish collection to avoid advertising what valuable items you have.”

“Residents should ensure they have some lights on timers during the darker evenings. Do not give thieves any opportunity to ruin Christmas.”

To read the full story please go to the Ipswich Evening Star Website

Crime, Immobilise, Mobile Phones, Police

For thieves Christmas is a time for taking

For most of us Christmas is a time for giving, however as the West Midlands Police festive crime awareness campaign suggests, Christmas is also a time for taking.

Officers are launching a crime awareness initiative today (Wednesday 3 December) to put crime prevention awareness at the front of people’s minds as they prepare for the busy holiday season.

Robbery, shoplifting, vehicle crime, fraud and petty thefts traditionally rise at this time of year and people can easily fall prey to thieves as they may not be as security conscious as usual.

December’s dark nights give burglars plenty of cover to break into houses. Householders are reminded not to leave valuables and presents where they can be seen by passers by looking into the house.

The top five valuables burglars look for are:

  1. cash
  2. jewellery
  3. computers, including laptops and play stations
  4. credit and debit cards
  5. mobile phones

It is not just consumers that need to be more wary at this time of year, trades people are also urged to be wary and to proactively register items on immobilise.com:

Trades people are reminded to remove tools from their vans overnight, to postcode their equipment and register any tools with serial numbers at www.immobilise.com

The top five things stolen from vehicles are:

  1. auto accessories including hub caps, number plates and car badges
  2. audio items such as CDs
  3. car radios and CD players
  4. tools
  5. other on display items such as satellite navigation systems.

To read more please visit the West Midlands Police press site.

CheckMEND, Crime, Immobilise, Mobile Phones, Police

Cheltenham Police Urge Students To Keep Their Accommodation Secure

Gloucestershire Constabulary make some sensible recommendations for students:

Cheltenham Police are reminding students to keep their accommodation secure. The warning comes after two student homes in the town were burgled last week.

Sergeant Mark Stephens from Whaddon Safer Community Team, who are responsible for policing issues at the Francis Close Hall, Hardwicke and Pitville campuses said: “Sadly student houses are an easy target for burglaries as with several people coming and going from the property they are easily left insecure.”

“If you add up the cost of everything you own, ipod, television, bike, laptop and mobile phone, you’ll probably be surprised at the amount it comes to.

“Along with the financial ramifications of losing these items it can also be very upsetting and devastating to your university work if any of your notes were stored on the stolen items.”

In addition to registering property on the Immobilise Property Register, Cheltenham police also make these sensible suggestions:

  1. A remarkable number of burglaries occur because a window or door has been left open, so make sure you keep them closed.
  2. Do not leave cash or valuables on display in your room and make sure valuable items cannot be seen from the window.
  3. During the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays take all items of value home with you.
  4. Make sure your property is insured.
  5. Get valuables security marked.

To see the orginal article in full go to: Space – University of Gloucestershire Students Union

Immobilise, Immobilize, Mobile Phones

Where to go to have your mobile phone stolen

A recent report by the London School of Economics and Carphone Warehouse describe some interesting statics and recommending registration on Immobilise.com:

It’s even more likely you’d get your phone pinched in London than in New York. Why? The figures, sponsored by Carphone Warehouse and produced by the London School of Economics researchers, suggest that 15% of British adults “have had their phones stolen.” The equivalent for US adults is 7% only. And 10,000 mobile phones are stolen each month in the UK…

Link to original article: http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/4323

Immobilise, Immobilize, Mobile Phones

You are twice as likely to get your phone nicked in London than in New York

This interesting report on techdigest discusses why you are more likely to get

your phone stolen in London than Newyork:

A Carphone Warehouse “Mobile Life” report reckons that 25% of adults in London have had their phone nicked, compared to 15% in the rest of the country. 14% of British teenagers have had their phone stolen, compared to 9% of teens in the USA, and 7% of adults. In London in 2007, there were three robberies per 1000 people, whereas in New York, there were only 1.61

For the full article go to: http://www.techdigest.tv/2008/10/stattack_youre.html

CheckMEND, ClaimsCheck, Mobile Phones, Recipero

Compulsory registration of mobile phones in the UK

The concept of making everyone register their handset in the UK is greatly misunderstood and is being hyped up by the press. Did you know that any contract mobile phone owner’s information can already be accessed by the Police using either a request under the RIPA or DPA procedures? So why should be people using PAYG phones not be subject to the same system? this is all this is about and it closes a loophole used by criminals that make it harder for the Police to identify stolen handsets or handsets used in connection with dubious activities. The only argument surely is whether the owner’s information is subject to the safeguards afforded by RIPA. If you use the DVLA registration of cars as a proof of concept, the Police can tap in your registration number and see the owner’s details in a heartbeat without having to make any formal requests so why not do the same with mobile phones?

CheckMEND, CheckMEND USA, Mobile Phones

Check before you buy and only then you shall be rewarded

2 Comments

I have just been watching BBC News and one of their features was ‘Why shopping online could reward’.

The feature really focused on the fact that shoppers who like to spend their money online could also be earning at the same time and used an example from a woman who would only purchase items once she had sold a few on eBay and made a small profit.  Great example of how online shopping can really work well with the current credit crunch. However, I do wish the BBC had highlighted some of the risks involved in online shopping, like CNBC have done.

Yesterday we launched in the US and have already seen some coverage including from the Denver Post and it states we aim to curb the cybercrime of selling suspect second-hand goods. Hopefully there will be more to follow.

Anyway, hopefully the USA launch will be just as successful as the UK. According to the US Census Bureau the population of USA currently stands at 304,381,960 with:
• One birth every  7 seconds
• One death every 13 seconds
• One international migrant (net) every 29 seconds
• Net gain of one person every… 10 seconds

From the global population of internet users 27% are in the US and having read a lot of online articles and blogs e-fencing is proving to be a problem which the US are struggling to control. E-fencing laws have been discussed as being essential to combat organised retail crime. However, CheckMEND should now be an answer to their prayers, so let’s see how it goes.

This is what we do best and we have had plenty of stories from people who didn’t discover CheckMEND in time…

For example; Andrew Gudelajtis, from Mansfield, bought a Vodafone Nokia mobile phone from eBay for his wife. The phone arrived in a sealed box and was sold as being brand new, but after using it for six weeks the mobile phone stopped working.

He decided that he should use CheckMEND to check the IMEI number on its database. The search came back and identified the phone as being stolen or blocked. Unfortunately Andrew was then unable to re-trace the eBay seller and is left with a phone that doesn’t work and at the moment he is pursuing Vodafone to see if they can help – either by unblocking the phone or chasing the seller.

Hopefully he will have some luck at some point, but it is a great example of why you should use ‘CheckMEND before you buy’ or insist on sellers having a CheckMEND report. Or as I mentioned within my last post we should push for eBay to insist all sellers conduct a CheckMEND report!

Any questions – please fire them this way!

CheckMEND, CheckMEND USA, Crime, Mobile Phones

What’s Hot… stolen mobile phones

Following our last post on £5 billion stolen goods for sale online, it seems that online auction sites are taking the heat, but as Identity Resolution Daily points out, if they reduce, what is termed as e-fencing – selling stolen goods online –  they will lose most of their revenue.

However, if these auction sites ignore the statistics, and continue to allow themselves to be marketplaces for selling ‘stolen goods’ will mean that they will soon become high profile case studies for us.  Beware – You will get caught

There has been much discussion within the mobile tech community on whether CheckMEND is a good deal which our very own bat phone cleared up:

Hi, just to let you know CheckMEND ‘trade’ account is such only because that’s who they think would be interested in it. In fact the vat number and co number are optional at registration and they only thing ‘trade’ about it is a minimum £25 worth of checks purchased at registration. At the moment though you get 50 checks for this so paying only £0.50 instead of £2.99 for your first fifty checks and only £1 per check after that.

Of course reselling checks is against the terms and all your certificates will have the account holders details on so giving them away becomes awkward too but if you may check several phones in future (the credits never expire) it’s a good deal.

Declaration: I work for the parent company but this isn’t an advert, I just want to put right the misunderstanding about trade accounts. I’ll pass on the confusion and perhaps the web guys will modify the website.

We have some hard hitting facts for you, collated from our CheckMEND database.

Mobile Phone stats from CheckMEND

  • Of the £5bn Stolen goods for sale online, it is estimated that £2.6bn of that can be attributed to mobile phones
  • Of all the checks carried out on CheckMEND over the last 18 months 67% were made on mobile phones. Which equates to 6,700,000 checks made through CheckMEND, were to check the IMEI number of a mobile phone
  • Out of every town in the UK you are most likely to be sold a stolen mobile phone in Leicester

CheckMEND has identified 3,522 stolen handsets in the last 23 days, that’s 153 a day and from these checks, it indicates the place you are most likely to be offered a stolen phone in order of likelihood are:

Leicestershire

Greater London – Finsbury Park, North London –600 policemen arrested 70 people!

Birmingham

Manchester

Cambridge

The Nokia N95 is the most checked phone as it is the top end of the price range for second hand phones, so watch out n95 users…

Please remember to protect your mobile phone and register your belongings free with immobilise www.immobilise.com.

After registering your property stolen your information will be fed to our CheckMEND database and we can stop all e-fencing criminals from re-selling your property.

CheckMEND, CheckMEND USA, Crime, Mobile Phones

£5 billion stolen goods for sale online… watch out!

4 Comments

Today we released a report stating ‘£5 billion worth of stolen goods are on sale online over the internet at any one time in the UK’. Even more shocking, every minute two items are identified as being stolen

We know this because we are the UK’s online stolen property checking service that identifies over 1 million stolen items every year.
Our CheckMEND blog will aim to keep you updated and up to speed on any online shopping crime, crime prevention topics and stolen goods statistics. We shall let you know what’s going on in the world of ‘hot goods’ and any relevant breaking news…
About us-

So that we are clear from the start, here are a few notes about us:

  • CheckMEND is a brand from Recipero Limited www.recipero.com, a company founded by entrepreneur Adrian Portlock and two other non-executive directors that had it’s official launch in July 2006
  • CheckMEND searches the UK’s largest database of stolen goods and blocked mobile phones with nearly 30 million records which can be checked by a perspective purchaser prior to purchasing an item. We can refer to it as a super database, but NOT a government run ‘stupid’ database
  • Since it’s launch CheckMEND has carried out over 10 million checks online
  • The majority of UK Police forces use the CheckMEND data to check the legitimacy of property many thousands of times a week.
  • In the UK CheckMEND is already recommended by ebay for the checking of mobile phones before purchase

To find out more about what we do watch our video online http://www.checkmend.com

Why are there so many stolen goods online?
The problem is being exacerbated by “faceless” selling on the growing range of online auction and classified sites and the new phenomenon of “Market Places” on social networks, like Facebook, eBay and specific online mobile phone shopping sites.

Plus with the backdrop of the credit crunch impacting on family purses, UK consumers are increasingly on the lookout for a bargain or are clearing out their clutter to sell online or at the local car boot sale.

For any of you bargain hunters out there always check with CheckMEND if what you are about to buy is stolen or you could find yourselves in a pickle!

The Bigger Picture
Not only can you protect yourself from the hassle of purchasing stolen goods and from the risk of prosecution for handling them… if we reduce the opportunities for thieves to sell stolen property, then surely the demand will reduce as well. Only last week the Design Council released a study that found that one in eight children aged 11 to 16 has been the victim of a “hot product” theft, in the past three years

Plus, think about it if you are selling your laptop on eBay and can prove, with a free to view certificate, that what you’re selling is legit then people would be more likely to buy from you, rather than the next person who can prove the background of the laptop they’re selling!

Stewert Mitchell from the Times wrote an interesting feature which named online auctions as ‘Unscrupulous thieves who con innocent buyers’ but authorities seem powerless. We agree but with help of checkMEND authorities are becoming increasingly powerful with more arrest being made each year.

Warning – what we have found:

We have found that on average one in ten items of second hand goods checked through CheckMEND is being identified as being reported as stolen. Since its launch in 2006, CheckMEND has recently carried out 10 million checks on items valuing over £1 billion.

The value of the goods identified as being stolen is around £100 million.
Here are some fast facts we have for you:

  • There are over £1 billion worth of insurance claims made in the UK every year from items being stolen
  • There are over 30 million items of stolen property listed on CheckMEND from the UK with an estimated value of £3 billion
  • 10% of all items of second hand goods checked through CheckMEND is identified as having been reported stolen
  • Over 10 million checks have been made through CheckMEND over the last 18 months
  • Over 600,000 checks are now made through CheckMEND every month
  • The total value of items checked over the last 18 months is over £1 billion
  • The value of the stolen goods identified as stolen is over £100 million