Consumer Mobile Phone News

15 people have been sentenced to an average of six years in prison after being convicted of defrauding the taxpayer of £250 million through mobile phone sales.

The complex scam involved taking phones from the UK and moving them to Europe, before importing them back, thus registering them as free from VAT. The scammers then sold the phones and included VAT in the sale price, but didn't pass on this cash to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

In some cases the Full Story

The proportion of Brits owning a smartphone has almost doubled in the space of 18 months. UK residents are now more likely to own such a phone than people anywhere else in Europe or the United States.

Communications regulator Ofcom found that as of August this year, 46% of Brits have a smartphone -- a Full Story

A new study appears to link mobile phone radiation to restrictions or even reversals on the effects of Alzheimer's. But it's far too early to say if the findings could be safely applied to humans.

The research at the University of South Florida began with the hypothesis that mobile phone use might worsen Alzheimer's. The project involved a sample group of mice that had previously been genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's for research Full Story

The communications ombudsman has urged mobile phone operators to be clearer about the use of the phrase "unlimited" when describing monthly packages. Lewis Shand Smith said too many firms were failing to make clear that there were often "fair use" limits for downloading data.

He explained "This is an emerging problem which we think could cause real consumer detriment – we want Full Story

More than one in six people have damaged their phone by dropping it into a toilet according to a new survey.

The poll of 1,937 adult users found that 31% of people said they'd damaged a phone with liquid. Of those, 47% of cases involved a toilet bowl, while 21% involved spilling a drink or (in a few very unlucky cases) dropping a phone into a drink.

Meanwhile 12% involved dropping a phone in a bath or shower, 7% the kitchen sink, and 3% of cases came from leaving a phone Full Story