Management for the Southport-based mobile phone retailing chain called police in after notification from the credit company that six sales had been made on the same day at the Stourbridge branch using a stolen credit card. Police interviewed certain members of staff which resulted in the charges being made.

Police are still pursing enquiries with other Phone People staff and more charges are expected. Police are trying to trace a third female suspect.

The move is seen as a precursor to a possible flotation of the network from its BT parent to increase the market valuation of the network. BTWireless chief executive Peter Erskine acknowledged at a BT briefing last month that the network was saddled with too many poor-value pre-pay subscribers.

An informed trade source told

Mobile News:

BTCellnet realise they have missed out on lots of things by not having a proper strategy and losing contacts with dealers. They have allowed lots of dealers to have direct relationships with the other networks. They are struggling with a shrinking contract base. They need to address that. Especially if they are going to float. Any analyst will look at a networks business and put a higher value on a contract base.

If they are smart they will take advantage of the fact that Orange is now losing the loyalty of the independent dealer base and capitalise on that.

BTCellnet put on 670000 net new connections last quarter (April to June) but declined to give a break down on how much of this was contract business.

The disk which is designed to entertain and educate customers on latest offers and promotions is played repeatedly throughout the day and is currently in 25 stores with plans to fit the system in another 25 over the next six months.

A sequel is being produced which will focus on new technologies available now and future technologies.

The idea is to draw the attention of passers-by as well as people inside the store to various products.

Paula Butler (24) falsified refund vouchers which robbed The Carphone Warehouse of 2000 worth of phones and equipment.

She is likely to serve just six weeks with the remaining six weeks suspended.

Magistrate Roger Davies told Butler she had admitted a breach of trust and her crimes were so serious only a custodial sentence cold be justified.

First-time offender Butler was caught out after computer checks uncovered her trail of honesty the prosecutor said.

Butler of Eskdale Avenue Cheshum Bucks had been threatened with jail at an earlier hearing after pleading guilty to two charges of stealing a Panasonic mobile phone and an electronic diary both valued at 6499 in February and April.

She was described as hitherto being of excellent character and admitted and asked the court to take into consideration the theft of call vouchers handsets and accessories worth around 1300 taken between November last year and May when she was arrested.

Butler stole the property over a period of time at the Carphone Warehouses Covent Garden shop. To cover the losses she falsely recorded customer refund transactions.

But she was bound to be found out the court heard because the transactions are all computerised and the discrepancies eventually came to light with her name against the bogus dealings.

Butler admitted her guilt when interviewed by the police and said that the property had been given away by her as gifts for others.

They are Co-Star Electronics Dolphin Panorama The Accessory Zone Siemens Samsung Prime-mark NEC Motorola Intelliplus Hugh Symons Aspen and Alcatel.

Press who left NEC last Friday after 10 years Mobile News September 4 declined to comment on the tip that he was joining the motor giant But he did agree his new employer was a major multinational company not currently working in the telecoms industry.

His departure comes six months after Phone People sales director Paul Diffin and commercial director Scott Forbes left the company threatening to sue for constructive dismissal.

Meanwhile the Southport-based dealer chain said it is no longer looking for outside investment. Earlier this year joint managing director Amjad Baig confirmed that a deal was close to being announced. But Baig said last week the company was doing well from its 150 stores and no longer had any need to re-finance.

At the time of going to press JWE chief executive Tony Farmer would neither deny nor confirm a deal. No-one from GMC was available for comment either..

GMC headed by Graham Cornhill is now one of the top five independent dealerships in the UK with 37 stores doing 5000 connections a month.

JWE said in July it was looking for a buyer for the shops (Mobile News July 24) because of eroding profit margins and the dominance of pre-pay and voucher sales in the consumer market. The company was already in negotiations with a purchaser for its retail operation. But Farmer gave no hint as to the buyers identity.

Jacobson has worked for Compaq been managing director of a direct catalogue-based PC and supplies business and was UK chief executive of Software AG.

Ken is sales and marketing driven. I am confident he will bring a fresh new approach to the business said Ora founder and non-executive director Malcolm Hanson.

Vodafone UK chief executive Peter Bamford told Mobile News in an exclusive interview:

There is no doubt that exporting of pre-pay is a problem of the business and it is an industry-wide problem. We do monitor the levels of pre-pay usage very carefully.

There are certain characteristics and patterns of usage which can indicate the degree to which something odd has happened to a phone. In terms of absolute numbers of phones that there is no doubt some are going abroad. But as a percentage of our total pre-pay base it is small. We are talking probably over the last year about less than five per cent of total pre-pay ownership ending up out of the country.

Weve taken a number of measures over the past six to nine months to stop this as far as we can. We think we have succeeded in bringing the quantities fo pre-pay going abroad down significantly over the last four or five months. One measure is that there are certain circumstances or non-usage where we will claw back the activation bonus from the distributor.