"Help! I've stolen my own mobile phone"

NEWS One in four mobile thefts reported to the police are fake, according to a new government report. Mobile phone theft has become a big political issue, with 700,000 phones stolen last year, according to a Home Office report. However, more than 20 per cent of those could be faked for insurance purposes, according to research carried out for the government by the Mobile Phone Industry Crime Action Forum. One would-be fraudster even reported a theft on the very phone he was falsely claiming as stolen, according to the Independent newspaper. The caller quickly hung up when the operator pointed out to him that the number he was reporting stolen was being displayed on her caller ID screen. The government has just introduced very stiff penalties for phone theft. Have they got the wrong end of the stick?