Staff Reporter

But Bhupendra Karia (26) is already serving six-and-a-half years in prison for three counts of arson. The sentences for the latest offences will run alongside his time in prison for the arson attacks.

Karia advertised the Nokia 8310 phones on eBay and QXL. Buyers sent him thousands of pounds in cash and cheques.

At Newham Magistrates Court Karia admitted five charges of obtaining property by deception and asked for 10 other charges to be taken into account.

The court heard the phones were advertised at a tempting price.

The scam began on March 5 last year when Karia registered on auction site QXL as a seller.

He gave his real name and address and advertised 100 Nokia 8310s for 50 each.

A student logged on to the auction and entered a bid for 10 phones. He was later contacted by Karia and offered another 30 handsets for 1000 for the first 20 and 1250 for the extra 30.

The student met Karia at Plaistow station and gave Karia 1250 in cash and a 1000 cheque. He told the student he would call his supplier and arrange for the phones to be sent to the students address.

Karia later demanded a further 250 for the phones to be delivered by Parcelforce.

The student agreed but Karia gave him a false Parcelforce tracking number.

He was arrested and interviewed by police. A few days later on April 17 another customer logged on to eBay and found Karias ad for the phones.

This new customer gave Karia his bank account details and then paid 1875 by cheque for 25 phones. When the customer tried to contact Karias bank he was told that the account had been frozen by police who were investigating the con mans activities..

Karias lawyer said:

It was not a scam from the outset. He did have 50 phones initially and advertised 100 because he expected to receive a further 50.

The first 50 were distributed. This was not a sophisticated crime. The victims were making bulk orders to sell the phones on themselves.

Sentencing the crook David Richardson told him:

You were always going to be caught once this developed as it did. You took peoples money when you were in no position to supply phones to them.

The judge also made a confiscation order for Karias realisable assets of 2585 and ordered that victims compensation should come from this.

Kidds place is taken by Ender Yavas who moves from Motorola to be head of product management.

Her role at Samsung will be to oversee product launches and manage the mobile phone range. Samsung has also recruited former Vodafone employee James Davis as content manager and Nick Samuels as website content executive.

The move brings the number of devices on offer to 17 the most in the virtual networks lifetime.

The new handsets include three Samsung handsets – the C100 M550 and E400 – all due out this month and ranging in price from 99 to 199. Also available are two Nokia products – the 3310 and 3100 – both also available this month and costing 219.99 and 139.99 respectively.

Other new handsets include the Panasonic G50 for 119.99 and two Alcatel handsets the 735 and 332 ( 149.99 and 79.99). These three are all available from October.

The virtual networks most expensive handset is still the Siemens SL55 at 319.99.

The virtual operator is offering 35 free airtime with all phones over 79 when bought direct.

The saga of The Phone Peoples messy demise is revealed in the final report of the companys administrator Baker Tilly which has described the case as very complex and extremely difficult.

It emerged that Hutchison and City Phone had offered 4.3 million and 3 million respectively to buy The Phone People but pulled out during negotiations when they realised the extent of the complications.

A major problem was the 5 Star Warranty scheme which covered theft damage and loss of customers phones.

Former Phone People director Jason Pickthall claimed that the scheme had been transferred to him in exchange for an agreement to give up his shares and resign.

The administrator sued Pickthall who has since been declared bankrupt and overturned his claim. But the administrator later learned that the Financial Services Authority had declared the warranty agreements to be unlicensed and the scheme had to be closed.

Baker Tilly has confirmed that unsecured creditors would not receive any payment.

Although Orange and Phones 4U owe Phone People 1837000 and 141000 respectively both companies are offsetting these monies against debts owed to them of 2750000 and 275000 respectively.

Around 99.7 per cent of the worlds population now lives in countries with GSM technology claims the Association. Most new national adopters are emerging markets in South America Africa and Asia where landline penetration is low or non-existent.

Sony Ericsson had steered away from the clamshell design but following research into its popularity decided to enter the market.

The new GSM/GPRS clamshell handsets are named the z600 and z200. They are aimed at the mid- and high-end of the markets. Both come with colour screens polyphonic ringtones Java games and MMS capabilities.

The z600 is the higher-end model and comes with an integrated camera a ringtone creator programme and Bluetooth. Both models also feature Sony Ericssons Quickshare easy-use programming and come with changeable covers.

The personalisation theme is continued inside both models with a range of pre-embedded colour schemes and screensavers. The z600 also has new racing game V-Rally2 embedded into it.

Sony Ericsson has also launched a bar handset the t230 aimed at the youth market. This has a colour screen polyphonic ringtones and games. It is also MMS-compatible and works with an attachable CommuniCam camera.

All three handsets are set for October release. The z600 will cost the same as the t610 did on release (around 120 on contract). The z200 will be around 150 on pre-pay. The t230 is expected to be a contract phone costing up to 49 depending on subsidy.

Two new entertainment packages were also announced. The Gameboard EGB10 allows the z600 to be used like a games-machine console. The limited edition Bluetooth CAR-100 is a small racing car that can be controlled by a Sony Ericsson handset. It will cost around 100.

An agreement with Turner Broadcasting will also enable Sony Ericsson to offer Cartoon Network content on mobile phones.

Carphone Warehouse UK head Andrew Harrison said the level of 3 connections at Carphone Warehouse had dropped from 25 per cent to one per cent because not enough equipment was coming through.

3s new Motorola a920 is selling well but dealers and distributors are saying they cant get enough of the PDA-type handset.

The a920 has been selling really well. Weve had a lot of people come in and take it. Its a good product and people appear to like the touch screen said Paul Leonard of Sprint Communications.

Darren Turgel of Dorsets Planet Communications added: We are selling them as soon as they come in. We do most of our work with business customers and it is a fantastic handset for them. It has so many selling points and there is nothing better than it in the market at the moment.

However he added: Getting enough supplies of kit is a problem and we are waiting for new stock to come in. When we have the stock in we reckon well sell more off it than any other handset.

Bob Sweetlove of 3 distributor Hugh Symons said it was difficult to say how popular the a920 was because while we are shifting everything we get in we dont have large enough volumes to get to the break point to see exactly how much demand there is.

He went on: The handset has a large screen and some good functionality but you also have to remember that the tariff is very appealing. When the new NEC 616 comes out we will probably be able to say more about the a920s popularity.

Ian Robinson of MoCo Cell Link also said he was having trouble getting hold of stock.

A spokesperson for 3 said the network was unaware of any stock shortages and that it had recently ramped up production volumes.

The ST55 is exclusive to T-Mobile in its five European markets. It comes with a colour display and integrated camera with a 4x zoom. The phone also features 40-bit polyphonic ringtones.

It will cost 79.99 in the UK.

Four group divisions have been created. They are Telecoms Insurance Support and Distribution and Customer Management.

Telecoms runs the fixed offerings Opal and talktalk. Its chief operating officer is David Goldie.

The Insurance division is controlled by Jim Dale who is chairman of CPW Insurance

Support comprises finance (under chief financial officer Roger Taylor) IT (under group IT director Brendan Forster) and HR (under group HR director Richard Smelt).

Distribution and Customer Management runs retail customer management and online operations across the group.

Its chief operating officer is Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux while UK chief executive Andrew Harrison takes charge of the division.

Reporting directly to Harrison are:

Frank McHugh (CEO of CPW UK/CPW Services) Andrew Pinnington (MD of CPW Services) Jonathan Hook (MD for UK Retail) Chris Murton (MD of Online and Insurance) Anabel Hoult (group director of CRM development) Tony Jeffery (director of indirect distribution) Tristia Clarke (director of marketing) Nick Willcox (director of shared services) and Niall McPhee (director of repairs).