A statement for the The Federation of Communication Services said:

The FCS has supported the industry in the establishment and operation of the highly successful Mobile Communications Industry Crime Prevention Scheme over the past five years and naturally regrets that this phase has come to an end.

The Crime Action Group considers the Scheme has been highly successful and has been able to identify and put a stop to a whole range of other illicit practices perpetrated against the industry. The credit for this goes to the inspectors on the ground.

A significant number of arrests and successful prosecutions have resulted from their diligence determination and skill and their working in close co-operation with local police forces where their investigations have uncovered the roots of criminal activity.

However since the inauguration of the Scheme five years ago much has changed in relation to the products and services offered by the networks and handset manufacturers and the way these are distributed in the marketplace.

At a meeting last Friday (January 12) of the Mobile Industry Crime Action Group comprising representatives from the mobile operators and handset manufacturers confirmed that an industry crime prevention scheme of some kind will continue.

The Crime Prevention Scheme was set up in 1996 and operated by the Federation of Communications Services. It used ex-police men to tackle mobile phone crime at dealer level. Funding and direction was provided by the four networks and main handset manufacturers.

The Crime Prevention Scheme was established as an industry self policing programme supported by a team of industry specialist inspectors. It had a highly focussed brief to stop the practice of receiving and selling on stolen and re-programmed handsets and claiming network connection commissions in the process. The Rules of the Scheme are still in place.

The closure of the scheme will result in nine employees including some former police officers losing their jobs.

BTCellnet was the network least happy with the direction of the Crime Prevention Scheme.

As the face of the industry changed an increasing amount of the inspectors time was being spent outside the initial remit though to the benefit of the industry as a whole. I wanted the CPS to grow to officially encompass the inspectors developing roles but was told that couldnt happen said BTCellnet security chief John Cross.

We agreed the way forward would be with a new scheme that may encompass some of the elements of the old scheme but we have not yet decided what elements if any. It may in fact be that we cant take the old scheme forward. We may have to renegotiate with the DTI .

The Chinese-made travel chargers which bear false CE markings failed independent tests ordered by Luton Trading Standards. It was found that people using the product are at risk from electrical shock.

The tests discovered the unit had faults including inadequate safety isolation failed electric signal strength requirement plug face measurements outside BS standard tolerances and risk of electric shock due to construction of the printed circuit board and transformer.

Elite spokesman Daniel Lennox-Foreman told Mobile News:

We have not issued a recall since we believe only a single batch to the customer is affected.

We dont know the numbers involved. We have tested all the units we have here and they are all OK. We have the EC Conformance Certificate to prove the product is compliant with the regulations.

However the German test house Electronic Technology Systems (ETS) whose name appears on the EC Declaration of Conformity confirmed it had not issued the document and that it was likely to be a forgery.

European Telecom issued a statement saying:

The details of the situation are being fully investigated and we are co-operating with Trading Standards. European Telecom takes great care with the quality of its products and would not knowingly buy a product that is below the acceptable standards set by law. This particular product was one of a very small quantity and purchased from another UK distributor to overcome short-term delivery problems

The fault was reported by a customer who bought the product from a branch of DX Communications in Luton. It blew apart when plugged in. The customer contacted Luton trading standards officers.

Scott Crawford was given a conditional discharge for 12 months and ordered to pay 70 costs.

The court heard that he had mislead EBS over the amount of money he had in his bank account. Scott Crawford was required by EBS to pay for his stock by transferring money into EBSs account and then showing them the paying-in slips to prove he had paid the money in. But he forged the paying-in slips to show a larger amount had been deposited than had actually been the case.

When arrested Scott Crawfords excuse was that EBS owed him the extra money in commission. His solicitor said this was because EBS had broken its agreement with Scott Crawford of supplying phones on a 60-day credit basis and paying him commission when the phones were sold.

Scott Crawford argued that he wanted the matter of the forged paying-in slips to be found out to make the matter public.

This was Scott Crawfords second appearance in court this year. He appeared at Skipton Magistrates Court earlier in the year charged with attempting to obtain a pecuniary advantage by wrongly claiming his previous employer Mobile Telecom was bankrupt. He had allegedly claimed Mobile Telecom had gone out of business. That case is still pending.

20:20 will source and package SIMs and handsets for the OnStar service and deal with all admin dealer training and trade customer service.

It is understood One 2 One is likely to be the partner network.

As well as being a mobile phone voice service the backbone of OnStar is a personalised web portal that learns the personal lifestyle preferences of its users and can act as a 24-hour

virtual assistant.

The service can be accessed from mobile phones PCs special in-car terminals (likely to be fitted to GM vehicles) and fixed lines to a customer service call centre.

20:20 will source and supply phones from major manufacturers such as Motorola Nokia Ericsson Trium and Siemens. Equipment will be sold on a pre-pay and post-pay basis. There will be no contracts or line rental charges. Post-pay customers will pay a monthly amount by direct debit or credit card. There will also be a SIM-only offer.

OnStar says there will be no clawback for unactivated handsets as it is intended to sell phones at near cost price with prices from around 60 to 300.

OnStar is promising dealers five opportunities to earn from OnStar. Commission starts with an upfront payment on activation.

A further one-off payment will be made after 90-days of minimal customer use. The third part of the commission is on post-pay sales.

Dealers who get customers to sign an OnStar direct debit consent receive a fixed monthly commission for the first two years of the customers OnStar life provided they remain active.

An additional ongoing monthly commission is paid for signing the customer to a particular product offering within the OnStar product range. A volume bonus is also payable on pre and post-pay on a set level of volume connections.

OnStar reckons that after two years a dealer can earn two and a half times more revenue than from a conventional prepay package.

Orange has increased commissions on contract handset upgrades by 25 to encourage dealers to do more upgrade business.

But dealers were unhappy with the fact that the higher commission could only be earned on upgrades to phones bought from December 1. Older stock did not qualify. This restriction has now been lifted.

Some dealers were threatening to return old phones and exchange them for fresh stock eligible for the higher commissions.

Andrew Boden director of Orange distributor Mainline said:

Ive been in discussions with Orange. Theyre going to allow dealers to earn the higher upgrade fees regardless of the age of the stock. We have already promised our dealers that they would earn the higher commissions on all upgrade kit before Orange made its decision.

Dave McGinn from Orange distributor Anglia Telecom said:

Orange has always paid commissions in line with the price paid for the stock. If a dealer bought stock a year ago he gets paid a commission based on the price he paid for that stock. Its swings and roundabouts really and well look at dealers on an individual basis.

We dont want any of our dealers to go short.

An Orange spokesperson told Mobile News:

We strongly suggest that dealers use existing stock to connect new customers and post-December 1 stock for upgrades which are a relatively small proportion of connections.

Buckland claimed networks had no right to penalise a dealer for selling a phone if it wasnt subsequently connected.

He argued that networks were not applying the same terms and conditions to the independent dealer as they were to the retail multiples and supermarkets.

Said an Oftel spokesman:

It is the distributors who supply mobile phones to the retailers who may then choose to pass any clawback liability on to the retailers. This is a contractual matter between retailers and distributors. Oftel does not believe that there has been a breech of any of the networks respective licences. Obviously another tool which Oftel can use to investigate complaints is The Competition Act of 1998. However the agreements between the distributors and the retailers are vertical agreements for the purposes of the Act. They are thus excluded from Chapter One Prohibition by virtue of the Act.

Any claim under Consumer Contracts regulations would be dismissed because this legislation is not applicable to business contracts. The case has been closed by Oftel for the reasons we have outlined. If Mr Buckland wishes to pursue the matter further using any action he deems appropriate that is his prerogative. Theres no further action for Oftel to consider or for us to take.

Buckland responded:

Im disappointed with the ruling. I dont really think Oftel understood what we were saying. They are saying that a contractual (Cont P2) matter between the networks and a supplier is none of their business. Oftel doesnt care so long as the consumer is not affected. Whatever we argue about the consumers long-term interests their counter argument is to the effect that consumers are currently benefiting from the extremely high level of competition in the mobile marketplace so theres no case to answer Buckland said.

There has been no official hearing. No one has been called to give evidence on either side. Everything concerning the case has been handled by correspondence.

Buckland had been hoping that a favourable decision from Oftel would open the door for the matter to be considered by the Office of Fair Trading.

I dont know if Im going to bother pursuing clawback anymore. Theres a lot of work involved to take it a stage further and to approach the Office of Fair Trading directly.

Its a question of whether someone wants to plough through that quagmire to try to make a case. Unless someone wants to take the ball and run with it to the OFT the issue is to all intents and purposes dead.

However Im happy to hand over all the papers I have on the subject to anyone who wants to take the matter further.

The time for action on clawback has passed. Most of the industry is just going to accept whats happening. The independent dealer community is certainly going to be affected by the networks actions but as we have seen the four operators are not impinging at all on multiple retailers or supermarkets when it comes to claw back.

Over the past few years this market has changed out of all recognition. Dealers have to realise that in the eyes of the networks the independent route is no longer a valued route to market.

Buckland confirmed that none of the operators had commented to him about the situation far less discussed compromise. He believes that his efforts in respect of clawback have come to nought

All Ive managed to do is vent my frustration. I dont believe my work has done any good whatsoever. This is a green light for the networks to impose further restrictions constraints and conditions on the way they will permit independent dealers to do business with them

Buckland has just launched a company called Gr8 offering dealers the chance to earn money from sales of phone personalisation scratch cards .

Theres absolutely no truth in that rumour at all said One2One sales and distribution director John Barton.

Clearly we want to support in better and more inventive ways our existing solus channel partners. We are constantly looking at ways of improving the lot of exclusive dealers who bear our brand and I have had some conversations recently with a few of them along those lines. The climate is clearly difficult at the moment.

Getting close to and supporting those guys is very important to us. But we are not going to go mad and open 300 shops or anything like that number. Im not even sure that theres enough money in the market or the industry to support such a move anyway Barton told Mobile News.

Dealers who have heard the rumours of High Street retail expansion were not surprise at the speculation. Said one With the removal of the Loyalty Bonus something like this was inevitable.

Responded Barton:

Every loyalty or ongoing scheme in the marketplace has been withdrawn. We are not alone in doing so. Everyone starts off with the best intentions with the belief that their Loyalty Bonus will help retain customers. The truth is that such schemes do little or nothing to help reduce churn or address customer issues. Dealers just treat the Loyalty Bonus as a slice of margin. That being the case we decided to give a long period of notice that we will take the Loyalty Bonus away at the end of the year.

Some people have been less understanding than others. A lot of people who have railed against our decision to remove on-going are funnily enough those who dont actively support One 2 One at the moment.

It is a bit rich of them to complain that we are not playing fair. I am always looking at ways of supporting those partners who support us.

We are trying to put money back in though in different ways. We have put new commission levels on the tariffs and changed the prices of our handsets all of which means our making expenditure before the savings we will eventually make from discontinuing the Loyalty Bonus kick in.

Barton believes rumours of a High Street expansion could have come from private meetings One 2 One has had about ways to improve support for existing exclusive branded dealers.

That is just a continuation of a programme which will move on to another phase this year.

We are not planning a retail revolution but we do intend to continue our retail evolution.

Our report revealed Luton Trading Standards had traced electrically faulty chargers to a batch sold by Elite and European Telecoms accessory division TAG.

It was also alleged that Elite had been duped by its supplier with possibly forged EC Certificates of Conformity.

Elite has now fired its previous supplier and has signed a new contract with the company that supplies travel chargers for the Fone Range brand. Elite purchased the Fone Range brand and product range in November and says Fone Range travel chargers were not affected by this incident.

Elite says it has now revised its product testing procedures.

As well as the existing tests carried out by the manufacturer at source and by Elites in-house testing department all electrical accessories are now being tested separately by a British Standards Institution – appointed testing house followed by batch-tests carried out by an independent specialist company.

In taking these measures we have gone way beyond normal testing procedures said Elite managing director Ajay Gokani.

As well as the travel chargers every type of electrical accessory carrying the Elite and Fone Range brand will be subject to the four-stage check he said.

The previous supplier had erased the manufacturers name from the EC Conformance Certificate and inserted his own for reasons of commercial confidentiality.

Unfortunately that was taken to mean it was a forgery which we very much regret.

We have been working closely with the trading standards office concerned and they are entirely in agreement with the measures we have taken.

The safety of the user is paramount to us. We will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the reputation of both our customers and ourselves.

In going beyond the normal testing procedures we have demonstrated how seriously we take that responsibility said Gokani.

Fuller a former Newcastle United football pro has been in the telecoms business for more than 10 years. He ran Hutchison Cellular Services from 1991 and was on the launch team for Orange in 1994.

He left Orange last year and is now chief executive of Telewest Communications a role he will continue to carry out.

The company apparently told its call centre staff not to report for work the following day and literally pulled down the shutters at their main office in Glasgows Charles Street.

A neighbouring business reported some activity on February 7 following a visit from Trading Standards officers the premises did not reopen.

Marshall (25) is reported in the Sunday Mail to have quit his flat in the Dennistoun district in a hurry.

A former employee who worked in the customer care department told the newspaper; It has been a sheer nightmare having to tell lies to people every day. The phones were red hot with customers trying to get their money back but we were told just to keep putting them off.

A spokesman for Glasgow Trading Standards confirmed Millennium came to their attention when a considerable number of consumers complained that promised rebates under Millenniums Payback Scheme had not materialised.

The Department had also understood that up to 80 staff at the call centre in the Royston area of Glasgow had not been paid since Christmas.

Millennium is currently in administration but it is not clear whether it may be able to continue trading. At the time of going to press no Receiver had been appointed. Trading Standards noted that should the company cease to exist they would be unable to pursue the (Cont P2) matter further. Millenniums premises at Rosemount Workspace did not rely on passing street trade.

Its operation was geared towards direct telesales and telemarketing offering contract connections across all four networks.

Locals were also led to believe the deals offered were unbeatable and recommendations spread rapidly by word of mouth.

The company developed a scheme whereby it supplied contract mobile phones to customers on standard rental terms paid by direct debit to the appropriate network or service provider. Millennium then promised to rebate the cost of the line rental for each subsequent month at a variable rate. Increased calls meant a greater rebate.

Large volume users were effectively promised free line rental in exchange for high call usage.

Millennium promised it would make monthly repayments directly to their customers bank account. However it is not clear whether the company provided anyone with a rebate.

Customers complained they were misled and are now clamouring to terminate their contracts with third-party SPs.

Marshall was reported to have been preparing a new business venture called MiCell but was unavailable for comment.

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police explained that uniformed officers may have been present when Trading Standards called at Millenniums premises however no fraud enquiry is currently ongoing.