Mobile News has canned its Trading Without Tears conference due to be held on December 5.

Said Mobile News editorial director Ian White: Last years trading conference attracted more than 130 traders and their advisors and was hailed as a great success. This year traders told us theyd had enough of HMRCs aggressive tactics and were quitting either the business or basing their operations outside the UK.

Simon Airey of tax experts DLA Piper who was due to speak at the conference said: There is no doubt that a large number of innocent traders have been wiped out or have chosen not to continue trading at least for the moment. However a huge contingent of fraudsters have also been neutralised at least in the telephone handset market.

BenQ Mobile UK continued to lay off staff last week with a total of 16 redundancies since the company went into administration.

However the administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) paid staff for October. Stephanie Howel of PwC said: We have made more redundancies. There are now 14 staff left out of 30. We are in negotiations to see if we can pass German stock to its UK customers.

The operation is expected to be wound down in the next fortnight.

Nokia is investigating pre-pay mobile retailer Phonesonfinance.com over the possibility of sharp business practices. O2 has also condemned the web site as being overpriced.

Phonesonfinance is a web-based retailer that sells pre-pay mobile phones on finance for customers who do not usually get credit. To qualify customers need to be over 21 working full time and have a bank account. However the catch is that interest is charged at between 92 and 100 per cent.

For example a Nokia N72 handset usually retails around 250 – through Phonesonfinance it will cost 546.09. Customers are asked to pay an initial 10 per cent deposit of 43.00 and 40 weekly payments of 12.58.

Mark Squires Director of Communications for Nokia said: We are glad this has been brought to our attention and we will be looking into this.

An O2 spokeswoman said: There are far more cost-effective ways of purchasing a mobile. We would always advise customers to check repayment terms if they purchase a phone on credit.

PhonesonFinance declined to comment.

O2 has lowered volume targets for its Advance Distributor Programme to avoid a price war and force down the quality of its business connections.

O2 head of indirect sales David Plumb said: The volume target was set at 2500 business connections for the first quarter of the programme which has just finished. We reduced the volume target slightly this quarter because we didnt want to push too hard with quality in mind. We may review things on a quarterly basis to make sure that the quality of the connections remains high.

Avenir was the only distributor from the five invited onto its Advance programme in June that hit the targets. It is the first to qualify for ongoing support through 2007.

Moco Fone Logistics Dextra and Anglia receive O2 Advance benefits – marketing contributions six-monthly price books – and have until June to hit quality and volume targets to remain a part of the programme. Quality is being measured by tenure churn and ARPU.

Benefits will be withdrawn from other distributors if they do not hit targets for the quarter leading up to Christmas.

Vodafone launched a tariff this month allowing family members unlimited calls to each other for as little as 5 a month.

The Vodafone Family tariff enables groups of four or six people free calls between one another at any time providing they are all Vodafone customers.

Vodafones Tim Yates said: We all juggle family friends and work and this tariff will ensure we can always stay in touch.

T-Mobile head of retail Russell Taylor instrumental inT-Mobiles plan to double its own store portfolio by the end of the year has been promoted to the role of director of retail.

T-Mobile director of sales Gordon Ballantyne said: Under Russells leadership we are on target to open over 190 new shops by June 2007 bringing our total number to over 300. His dedication and energy has been the driving force behind our retail expansion and this announcement recognises the importance we attach to our retail business.

Taylor joined T-Mobile in 2001 as channel development manager. He then became head of business sales before taking on the head of retail position in July last year.

The Royal British Legion organiser of the Poppy Appeal is offering mobile downloads in exchange for a donation this year.

Punters can pay 1.50 to download one of three Poppy images to their phone. Each one features the poppy icon with the word Remember plus the time and date of the two minutes silence on Nov 11: 11.11.11. This year the Appeal hopes to raise 26 million.

A spokesman for the Pocket Group the company providing technical support said: This is the perfect alternative for people who want to support the appeal but dont want to wear a poppy.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said that reports last week overstated links between VAT fraud and terrorism but added that money generated from organised crime such as VAT fraud was bound to fund wider criminality.

Home Secretary John Reid said at a G6 meeting in Stratford-upon-Avon last week that proceeds from VAT fraud were funding terrorist groups according to reports in other press.

An HMRC spokesperson said: Any large-scale money flows arising from organised crime such as those generated by MTIC fraud are bound to be used to fund a range of other illegal activities.

Paymaster General Dawn Primarolo briefed ministers at the G6 conference on HMRCs clampdown on VAT fraud and urged closer relationships between tax enforcement agencies across Europe.

We have a shared agenda to tackle the organised crime groups behind carousel fraud and to reduce the economic and social costs of their crimes. We need to improve our ability to share intelligence and work together on criminal interventions the spokesperson said.

And where appropriate we need to share the evidence gathered through criminal investigations to support civil actions that will prevent the fraudsters having access to the proceeds of their crimes. HMRC is committed to working with our European partners to tackle this.

The number of text messages sent in September has smashed all records yet again according to figures released by the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

The number of text messages sent in September was over 3.7 billion an increase of 100 million on the previous highest total recorded in August.

On average there were 123 million messages being sent per day last month – that is an increase of 30 per cent from September last year.

Consumer electronics specialist Qstik is searching for channel partners to distribute its first Bluetooth headset offering.

Founded in autumn 2005 the venture specialises in making use of technologies developed by the military to produce products for the consumer sector. The companys first product is the EVOQ Bluetooth headset. The product uses technology developed for the military market. It enhances speech for the caller and listener while vastly improving the quality of sound according to Qstik business development manager Iain Graham encouraging longer and more frequent conversations.

A Vodafone veteran Graham said: This is a rare opportunity for distributors to get involved at the ground level with a device that is utterly unique. We anticipate that EVOQ will ultimately boost operator revenues because its so easy to integrate .