Lost a site!!!!

[Style]

Lost one of my best sites today. Does between £6-700 per month. Had it 11 years. They go broken into last night and the CCTV shows the intruders heading straight to my machines in different parts of the building and walking straight out with them. Didn't touch anything else so were targeting my machines. So Ive lost a fully stocked Double Tomy and a sweet tower, had about £200 cash in too as I empty them once a fortnight but fill them every week. Little shits caused 2k worth of damage getting in, no other money left on site overnight so manager is saying he cant risk it anymore. Same thing happened about 4 months ago but they just took the sweet tower then. Bloody gutted!! Just needed to rant!!

[Quinch]

Totally sympathise, sounds like an awesome site if it was doing £600+ a month. I've had a couple nicked from sports centre type places over the years, often they have outdated security because they don't leave any cash on the premises so don't see the point in spending money to make it harder to get in.

It's worth remembering the police have had massive cutbacks in resources over the last few years and in most places burglary doesn't even warrant an attendance by the cops unless it's really high value or they have CCTV/DNA evidence. I lost a tower a while back where a guy smashed his way through security glass in a door then headed straight for my tower, the alarm was blaring plus internal security lights came on and he casually walked along, picked up the tower (still bolted to the stand) and stepped back through the door and walked off (no vehicle). Quite a lot of risk and effort for maybe £50 plus whatever he got for the tower if he sold it, I watched it all on CCTV afterwards.

I weigh up all sites nowadays and even ask if they've had any break-ins, if it looks at all dodgy (and if it's feasible) I'll chain the machine to a radiator/pillar or whatever I can or if I've got 2 machines in chain them together at least. I would totally recommend buying decent 6mm chain and good quality padlocks, also get a silicone gun and fill the aln key holes in the bolts that go through the base so it takes time to remove the tower from the base. Most burglars don't 'go equipped' with more than a big screwdriver as they like to travel light and if they are stopped carrying bolt cutters/crowbar or whatever they will likely get locked up so while you can never guarantee your towers won't get nicked you can at least make the burglar think it's probably not worth the hassle and go somewhere else

[radical.richard]

Andy

I can sympathise, similar but not in such a big way as you, but I lost a medium site because they got broken into, they took petty cash and had a go at the safe and f'ed it up enough trying to get into it for it having to be replaced, they also got about £20 from the tower, but I got the grief as the owner thought the spam heads broke in to get the few quid in the tower as it was in the public area . . . .

[Snackmore]

That's pants mate. Vending is such good fun, the times you lose sites when its nothing you have done wrong is so frustrating. I assume you pay them commission, surely that adds up over the year and benefits them? Even after this hassle?