A Byfleet shopkeeper has sent out a warning to her Surrey counterparts after £800 worth of stock was stolen from her store by suspected travelling thieves.

But Jo-Ann Brandon also believes Surrey Police could have closed the net on the culprits if they took her loss more seriously – with her own detective work throwing up links to near-identical thefts around the UK.

The incident happened at 12.30pm last Wednesday (October 23) when two men scoped out the shop while she was working alone in the High Road store.

The pair made calls and talked in a foreign language before amassing a large pile of handbags, insisting they were for wives and girlfriends in Kenya.

The first card payment was declined while the second went through a few minutes later, leaving Jo-Ann breathing a sigh of relief. But she received a call from the card machine provider a few minutes later saying the payment had been fraudulent, prompting her to phone 101.

The suspects are believed to have changed the machine’s use between the two transactions with other shopkeepers from around the home counties sharing similar stories with Jo-Ann.

She said: “I think they’re wanted in ten different counties as it looks like they’re prolific criminals who are part of an organised criminal gang.

“They’re not just chancing, they know what they’re doing and targeting specific shops. They’ve seen which card machines are used and do their due diligence.

“I’m just annoyed at the reaction from the police. They didn’t give any indication there was urgency and I didn’t even get a crime reference number.

“I wanted them to send a squad car out because they wouldn’t have got far.”

A spokesperson for Surrey Police said the investigation is at an early stage but enquires have commenced and are ongoing.