Ding dong, the doorbell’s gone
Pricey video buzzers designed to put off burglars... become target instead
BURGLARS are stealing smart doorbells that were specially designed to deter them.
The video devices, costing between £89 and £449, film anyone who approaches the door – allowing homeowners to watch real-time footage of them on an app on their mobile phones.
But the doorbells have become a target for thieves who sell them on the black market. The Mail obtained videos showing criminals pulling gadgets off door frames in under ten seconds. Though they are filmed in the act, the burglars often wear balaclavas, making it hard for police to identify them.
The devices, which are made by Amazon-owned firm Ring, are motion sensored and notify householders of any activity via the phone app.
Jenny Barton, 37, said her £139 doorbell camera was torn off the front of her three-bedroom home in Eltham, south-east London. Footage from her camera shows a man in a balaclava pulling the device off her door in just six seconds.
Mrs Barton had previously turned off the notifications the device sends to her phone, so was not aware of the theft until a week later.
‘I logged back in to the app and I saw a video of this masked man taking it off the wall. It was gone in a matter of seconds.’
Several days later Mrs Barton, a customer services adviser, received a notification telling her someone was ‘ringing’ her stolen doorbell – though of course no one was outside her door. She said: ‘I decided to answer it and I saw a guy playing with the device in one hand and holding his own mobile phone in his other hand.
‘It looked like he was trying to set it up on his phone. It looked like he was on a building site. The funny part was that he had no idea that I could see him.’
The next time the device was activated, Mrs Barton turned on the bell’s integrated microphone and warned the man she had reported him to the police.
Mrs Barton then published a photograph of the man from the video and a warning about what had happened on a community Facebook page.
Six other homeowners in the area replied saying their Ring doorbells had been stolen. Scotland Yard said no arrests have been made in relation to Mrs Barton’s theft. The force is also investigating ‘a number of similar thefts in the area’.
Last month West Yorkshire Police issued a warning to homeowners after a spate of video doorbell thefts in Leeds.
Ring said doorbells are mounted with ‘security screws’ to make them hard to remove without proper tools. It replaces stolen doorbells for free.
A spokesman said: ‘In the event a Ring doorbell is stolen, the device becomes immediately unusable to a new owner.’
Thousands of packages are being stolen from doorsteps in an online shopping crimewave.
Delivery theft has risen by almost a quarter in the last three years with more than 2,578 cases reported to police, figures show. Opportunists, neighbours and couriers themselves are stealing goods. Paul Needler, of delivery box firm iParcelBox, said it is clear online shopping is behind ‘a new crimewave of thefts across the UK’.