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

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.