By Jo Best, 14 July 2004 13:20
NEWS The police are fed up with people pretending their mobiles have been stolen – so the Met have decided to launch a campaign to warn phone users that lying about what happened to their handsets is a crime.
According to the Met, each year, 2,500 people report their phones have been stolen when they've really just lost them – one way of getting a replacement or upgrade on their insurance.
Scotland Yard said that the handset Pinocchios could be charged with wasting police time and deception if they were found out, as police time is being spent on false robberies and not real crime, as well as the situation inflating the figures of street crime.
Lying to get a new piece of kit isn't just the preserve of the phone users. A recent survey found that one in 20 Brits had defrauded their insurers to get the very latest mobile phones, cameras or music players.
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1. anonymous
I lost a phone, my fault, and explained to the insurance company that I'd lost it. The phone was covered for loss but the insurance company still insisted that I report the loss to the police and get a "crime" number. Surely this practice is a waste of police time.