Dealers said they were amazed to receive the e-mail from Gary Acors Ericsson head of technical and support for the UK and Ireland last Tuesday reports Sherelle Folkes.

The e-mail read: Following the termination of our contract with Celestica as our GSP partner we recently contracted your service location via a Letter of Intent. This LOI was valid for a period of three months from 1 June 2004.

As part of the continued review of our service structure we regret to have to inform you that your accreditation as a Sony Ericsson Service Location will not be extended outside of a proposed one month notice period to expire on 30 September.

Acors softened the blow by thanking the dealers for their services and offered them the chance to be Flash Point centres:

We propose to offer you the status as a Flash Point in order to continue to offer customers an onsite software update solution. There will be no compensation paid by Sony Ericsson for this service but you will receive referrals from our call centre and be able to charge for out of warranty software upgrades. In addition to this we will arrange for collection from your location free of charge any Sony Ericsson product that requires a further level of repair.

Mark Finlayson managing director of Southampton-based Next Communications said Sony Ericsson had shown a callous disregard of the proper way to treat people.

Three years ago when Sony Ericsson set up the deal with Celestica it said it wanted to have the best service in the industry – its undoubtedly had the worst and this is entirely down to Sony Ericsson and its top-level management.

Jimmy Shenston of Cellular Services in Brighton said he was disgusted that Sony Ericsson thought it was acceptable to treat such longstanding clients in this way.

They are absolutely heartless. What a rotten bunch of eggs they are. We have been with them for over 20 years. But I have always distrusted them and hated their attitude towards service centres. (Cont P56)

Shenston said the Flash Point offer would be of no benefit to his business.

Sony Ericsson always treated us as convenience outlets for its own gain he said. It showed nil respect towards us and treated us like children. I dont know why I have stayed with the company.

To top it all it is asking us to continue to do services for it for free by becoming a Flash Point centre. I am just a service centre – I only repair Sony Ericsson and Nokia mobiles so this is affecting half of my business.

He went on: Luckily the Nokia side will keep me going. I have spent money on spare stock that I will not be able to shift in 30 days – what does Sony Ericsson expect me to do after that; just chuck it in the bin?.

Shenston is now urging customers to boycott Sony Ericsson.

David Wylie general service manager at Vanguard added: This was not something I would have expected from a player of Sony Ericssons stature. I find this whole situation very disappointing. It has come as a bolt from the blue.

Customers will be greatly inconvenienced. It wont have too much impact on our business but it is a contract we would rather have kept. Sony Ericsson is the only manufacturer that comes close to Nokia on service. Now Nokia is the clear leader.

Richard Dorman marketing manager for Sony Ericsson UK and Ireland conceded that he could understand why the e-mail may have seemed harsh but that it wasnt intended to upset anyone.

I can understand why the service centres may think its heartless he said. But the difficulty we had was in trying to notify them all at the same time. It was a case of trying to avoid Chinese whispers.

We thought that by sending an e-mail everyone would get the information at the same time instead of sending a letter or telephoning each individual concerned. We will be following up the e-mail with letters.

Gary Acors will be getting in touch with all of the individuals concerned to clarify any concerns and answer any questions. The measures were part of a programme to give customers the best possible service.

This is not down to the performance of these service centres. We are trying to create more alignment within the customer group. Occasionally things go wrong with handsets and we want to make the process when that occurs as clear-cut as possible.

Next month we will be launching a free postal service where customers can send their handsets to a central service centre for free. It will also be posted back free of charge.

The new tariffs will sit alongside existing VideoTalk plans but are aimed at people who want a simplified plan.

The tariffs are: Talk and Text 200 ( 20 a month for 100 voice minutes and 100 voice minutes) Talk and Text 600 ( 30 for 500 voice minutes and 100 texts) and Talk and Text 900 ( 40 a month for 750 voice minutes and 150 texts).

All the tariffs are available with 3s existing offer of half-price line rental for the first three months of contract.

Vanguard was one of four companies that had a contract with Unipart Technology Logistics to provide installation services for Vodafone.

Vanguards installation contract with Vodafone has been terminated as a result of a fall-off in demand for in-car installations confirmed Unipart and Vodafone. Vanguard was not available for comment.

The final termination of Vanguards contract with Vodafone was described by Unipart as fairly imminent.

A spokesperson for Unipart said: Following the government legislation on car kits there was a spike in demand which has since levelled out so we have had to reduce the supply base.

NCS Hyde Park Corner and Toad Group will now be doing the installation business for Vodafone. The decision to terminate the contract with Vanguard was purely a commercial decision based on demand. It wasnt to do with Vanguards performance.

In a statement Vodafone said: It was due to an overall reduction in demand and an overall decision was made to consolidate the vendors as a result. Thats why they missed out. We had to make a full assessment of what everyone has to offer.

Vanguard has had a run of bad luck in recent months. In July staff wages were held up due to a change of bank.

In addition there has been a string of managerial defections from the company.

The ringleader of a gang of Spiderman burglars who made millions from a series of Hollywood-style mobile phone thefts on Carphone Warehouse Phones 4U and Vodafone shops was told to pay back just 58000 even though his gang caused 2 million of damage. Peter Clarkson 26 was part of a team who triggered an industry-wide security review after they spent two years stealing 5000 handsets worth up to 2 million. Around 17 Carphone Warehouse stores and eight Phones 4U shops were hit.

Peter Clarkson together with his father also Peter William Dove 20 and Joseph Reed-Mooney 23 all admitted conspiracy to burgle to reflect weekly raids carried out over an 18-month period.

Blackfriars Crown Court today heard that the younger Clarkson who was jailed for five years made 409125 from the crime spree. But investigators could only find 58252.84 in assets in his possession.

Judge Alan Hitching ordered the crook to pay back that sum within six months or face an extra 18 months behind bars.

Clarkson is planning to launch an appeal against his sentence.

Two of the gang were expert climbers who were able to scale sheer walls of office buildings before breaking in to snatch the goods.

They then shipped the phones out to customers in Africa and the Middle East through businessman Abdul Awada.

Awada 39 even claimed back VAT on the illegal overseas sales.

As the cash flooded in the elder Peter Clarkson 49 cheekily named his business Salvage 4U after the high-street phone retailer.

The gang were caught after an 18-month operation codenamed Zarzu by the Metropolitan Police.

Awada who owned Century Cellular a phone shop in Greenford west London admitted conspiracy to handle stolen goods and was jailed for just 18 months in June this year.

The elder Clarkson of 10 City View East Dulwich was given an 18-month jail sentence which was suspended for two years.

Reed-Mooney 23 of 8 Wayhill House Lough Road Camberwell was jailed for four years while Dove 20 of Axminster Crescent Welling was sentenced to three years in a Young Offenders Institute.

His assets included 8000 in cash found at the offices of Platinum Salvage in Camberwell. They also included a 8910 Vauxhall Vectra and a 14255 BMW.

Officers also discovered that the younger Clarkson had 7187 worth of equity in a property at Sheerness in Kent. He also had 20550 invested in another home in Welling.

Judge Hitching also commended detectives for their painstaking work in trying to track down the criminals assets.

The gang began their crime spree in November 2001. Using specialist hydraulic equipment and super-strength metal cutters they broke into more than 35 stores including the Carphone Warehouse Phones 4U and Vodafone.

Two of the gang Dove and Reed-Mooney were described as highly proficient climbers clambering on to the roofs of premises and dropping into the premises from above.

The thieves kept their targeted stores under surveillance for weeks at a time before making their move usually straight after delivery.

On one night alone they escaped with 150000 worth of phones packed in laundry bags piled in to the back of white vans.

They were then delivered to Awadas shop.

The crooked salesman who was caught with 62000 when police officers raided his store would sell the handsets to his contacts in the Middle East and Africa before claiming back the VAT.

The gang was forced to sell abroad because the handsets would have been barred from use in the UK as stolen items.

Dove and Reed-Mooney broke into the stores after the younger Clarkson organised the raids and then kept watch.

The men wore baseball caps and hoods to avoid detection by CCTV cameras and kept in contact using walkie-talkies.

The elder Clarkson supplied the gang with the laundry bags to take away their booty. Police first visited the Clarksons in June 2003 following a raid on Awadas shop.

But officers were unable to charge them at that stage so kept them under surveillance.

Detectives watched as the gang continued the spree and saw the elder Clarkson change the name of his business in Dartford Kent to Salvage 4U.

The gang last struck at The Carphone Warehouse in Bexleyheath Kent on September 20 last year but were not arrested until two months later.

Existing customers can also pay a surcharge for the service which is 20 per cent of their monthly bill.

The offer which is available on all Orange contracts means customers signing to an Orange Your Plan 120 tariff can make 120 minutes of free calls between 8pm and midnight each month. An existing customer on Your Plan 120 will pay 5 for the promotion.

Matt Chambers at The Phone Shop said: Its a step down by Orange. All it has done is restrict when you can make the calls. Its just a reduction on the deal really. I dont think it will have much of an impact.

Jez Harris founder of The Phone Dealer Forum said:

Orange has tried promoting off-peak calls before. It hasnt worked. I would rather have the old double minutes package that does sell.

The promotion will run through December.

The handset is free on Anytime 200 or above and 200 to buy on pre-pay. The Motorola E1000 is 300 on pre-pay.

Double minutes and double texts are on offer for all Perfect Fit price plans and there is free content subscriptions in news video weather football highlights and music for the first three months.

Following this introductory period there will be a monthly subscription fee for services (such as 5 a month for video access to Premiership football games).

Double minutes and double texts and free content for six months are on offer for 18-month Perfect Fit contracts.

Special tariff offers include 500 cross-network minutes and 100 texts for 40 a month plus unlimited content in all areas except Music for Life.

60 a month brings in 100 cross-network anytime minutes. The handset charge on this tariff will be a minimum of 50.

Video calling is 35p for Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls and 55p off-net. Video messages will cost 60p each.

As well as these redundancies the Orange pre-pay sales team is to be outsourced to India. In addition senior managers are to relocate to France and one of its call centres is to be closed down say sources.

All of the Just Talk enquiries are going to India. Its work to rule. There is no overtime being done. Its causing bedlam. It takes us 15 minutes to get through on the phone said one Orange dealer.

One call centre in the UK is being shut down. Theyll keep Darlington and Tyneside open he predicted.

France Telecom is nationalising Orange. The senior managers of Orange are all having to relocate to France he revealed.

Another dealer said: France Telecom is draining the life out of it. The corporate sales team at Orange has always been top-heavy and theyre cutting it by 20 per cent.

A statement from Orange said:

Orange already uses third-parties in the UK and Ireland to support our own call centres by handling some of our customer service calls.

This helps us cope with periods of high demand and it frees up our own call centre staff for training so we can continue to offer our customers the very best level of service.

Weve agreed that our partners will support us using their call centres in the UK and India and were starting trials with them. We can firmly say that the steps we are currently taking will not lead to any site closures or redundancies in Oranges own call centres.

A spokesman for Orange did not categorically deny the rumours but told Mobile News:

We are actually investing more in our corporate sales team because our customer base is growing not shrinking. There are no plans to close any call centres. There is no news on senior managers moving abroad. It is very much hearsay. We have made absolutely no announcements.

Talk of delays at Orange call centres have been rife for weeks. Mark Whitaker director of Findaphone in Accrington encountered staff problems when he tried to port 28 O2 handsets worth 1250 per month on to an existing Orange small business account.

It was so bizarre that you wouldnt believe it said Whitaker. We got two different stories from two different departments. Orange messed up and has done on quite a few occasions now. There is either a problem with training or a problem with attitude – or a combination of the two brought on by a lack of staff. They seem very stretched over there.

It sounds crazy but they just went around in circles. Eventually they sorted it out but it took three days and every phone call we made was very stressful indeed.

Whitaker was also frustrated when he attempted to quote a customer for 15 handsets on an Orange small business account.

The Orange service team he said refused to inform Whitaker whether the customer qualified for a small business contract until the customer has applied for one leaving Whitaker unable to provide an accurate quote for his client.

Continued on page 2

The frustration was enormous said Whitaker. It shouldnt be that way. We heard that Orange installed its Enable [credit-checking] system and thought it wouldnt need so many regular staff.

But dealers dont like it so arent using it so Oranges been left short-staffed.

Andrew Culverhouse of Potters Bar-based dealership Time2Talk said:

A lot of dealers suspect that there have been staff cuts at Orange because the call queues have got so much longer particularly over the past 10 days when we were queuing for up to 20 minutes.

It would make sense if they have made staff cuts because they installed this new Enable system to process registrations automatically.

Adrian Foot director of Welling-based dealership The Phone Shop commented:

The amount of time we have been put on hold by Orange credit checking and customer service has been very frustrating. It took at least two hours to get through on an Orange number port last week. I dont know whats going on with its call centres.

Ellis Dunning director of Talksense in Borehamwood said: Getting through to Orange in the last two weeks has been appalling.

We were put on hold for 45 minutes trying to upgrade a customer. The girl said that they were so busy. It obviously has staff shortages. Orange needs to be employing more staff instead of getting rid of them.

(see Stuart Henry interview page 20)

The letter offers free line rental and calls from 3p/minute with cross-net calling for 13.8p/minute. It was sent to companies by T-Mobile south-west business development manager Samantha Armstrong.

Her letter on official T-Mobile paper (see right) said: I would very much like to meet with you to understand your needs … many of our clients are benefitting from some of the following rates – 3p calls to fixed lines 4.7p calls to other T-Mobile users 2.3p calling colleagues on the same account 3p SMS to other T-Mobile users.

When asked if she had sent out more than one letter Armstrong told Mobile News: Im not allowed to talk to you. You need to talk to someone else at T-Mobile.

But a T-Mobile spokeswoman then explained that the letter was not authorised and that its content was inaccurate.

She said: an investigation will be made into where this commun-ication has originated and why it was sent out adding T-Mobile apologises for any confusion made to those companies that have received the letter and we will be contacting them shortly. T-Mobile is committed to the business market and is driving sales through its direct and indirect channels.

A T-Mobile dealer in the north-west who spoke on conditions of anonymity was furious about the Armstrong letter. He said:

T-Mobiles direct sales force is causing a lot of disharmony. Weve stuck with T-Mobile since 1977 through thick and thin. Ive had enough. Were putting our connections elsewhere.

The dealer said hed been chipping away at a 50-handset account for a farmers cooperative for months.

I had proposed a very attractive package. T-Mobiles direct sales force got wind of the deal and went in. They blew me out of the water and made me look an idiot at the same time. T-Mobiles direct sales force doesnt talk to business dealers. They go in with all guns blazing.

Paul Davis of Portsmouth based Aerial Telephones said:

The fact that offers like this are being made doesnt surprise me. Deutsche Telecom is telling T-Mobile to pull its finger out as far as the UK business market is concerned. Its difficult to grab a potential customers attention by letter even if you are offering rock-bottom prices.

However he went on to say that none of our customers have told me theyve been offered a fantastic deal.

Jason Chapman senior analyst at Gartnercalled the T-Mobiles offer extremely aggressive.

Theres little or no margin in it. Im surprised that T-Mobile is putting an offer like this on the table before they even begin negotiations.

Why does T-Mobile feel it has to come in with such a low-priced offering?

(Full story on page 18)

The stores aim to avoid queues with self-service facilities such as Vodafone E-top-up units. This forms part of the Vodafone UK retail expansion programme that will see the networks retail estate increase by a further 60000 sq ft this year

Orange has backtracked over remarks by chief executive Sanjiv Ahuja that suggested the networks 3G launch would be delayed because of overheating handsets.

Ahuja told the European Technology Roundtable Exhibition in Cannes:

If you want to generate heat you do not have to use cooking appliances. I say use your mobile 3G phone for that. You can fry eggs on them.

His remarks were immediately picked up by the BBC and broadcast to millions of Radio 2 listeners.

An Orange spokesperson said Ahujas comments were taken out of context claiming:

We are still on track to launch this year. What Sanjiv Ahuja said was that there are still issues with 3G phones which everyone is already aware of.

We are currently trying to get the customer experience right so that we run with good products. He was asked why Vodafone is launching 3G with 10 handsets when Orange is only launching with two and he responded by saying that we are going to launch this year with two good handsets that are robust and offer a good customer experience. He was making it clear that there are performance issues with competitor handsets and that we are not taking those handsets.

John Bernard LG Electronics marketing manager for mobile suggested that Orange was ready to move on its own 3G handsets this month.

The launch of Orange 3G is imminent. The phones are in. We have delivered all the handsets to Orange already. I dont know what he means by overheating – certainly our handsets dont get too hot.

A spokesman for rival network 3 suggested that Ahujas statements showed that Orange was looking to backtrack on its earlier promises about 3G.

3G handsets dont get hot he said. They do get hot in early development models. But we have over a million 3G customers. You would have thought wed have had complaints if there was any sign that they were overheating.

The thing is that Orange is obviously not ready for launch. We already know how much time it takes and how difficult it is to optimise the network. It has a huge challenge in the market anyway. How does it present these services to its customers? Does it move to our price model and cannibalise its existing customer base and revenues? That holds no advantage. But at the same time Orange wont be able to compete unless it does that. So it faces a huge challenge.

See Comment page 14