Recipero is very pleased to announce that it has been chosen by the Telegraph Newspaper as one of Europe’s Top 100 Technology Start-Ups and has moved into the final round of judging.

The Telegraph has collected and filtered some of the most exciting Tech companies from all over Europe and over the past 6 months a panel of expert judges has whittled that list down to just a hundred that make up the “Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100: Class of 2011“.

Recipero is being considered in the category of “Enterprise: Security, Storage, Collaboration, Databases” along with 15 other Tech Companies that make up the 100. The overall winner, runner-up and the individual category winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in London on 12 April.

The “Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100″ is a relatively new list, but attempts to be the most reliable, authoritative and trustworthy guide to exciting young tech companies throughout Europe. It is judged by a panel of  world-class industry experts, serial entrepreneurs, investors and the like, who are themselves judged have the knowledge and experience to give an expert and realistic opinion. For more about the Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100 please go to: www.telegraph.co.uk/startup100

Ross Stewart Chairman of Recipero said:

“we are delighted that our hard work and enterprise has been recognised by the judges of this competition. As a privately funded company with no outside VC type investors it is quite hard to get noticed in the Technology sector but this should start to make people aware of what we do and how successful we are at doing it.”

For more information about the Telegraph Start-up 100 please go to: www.telegraph.co.uk/startup100

If you are interested in the methodology behind the selection please see: www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/technology-startup100/8397541/Start-Up-100-let-judging-commence.html

For more information about Recipero please go to: www.recipero.com

What are these facts?

If any of the following records exist for the item you are sending to a recycler:

• A block by the UK networks on the Shared Equipment Identity Register (SEIR) also known as the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR)
• A loss or theft report on the Police Stolen Equipment National Database (SEND)
• A fulfilled insurance claim on the Identifiable Property Insurance Database (IPCD)

Then the recycler has an obligation under their Code of Practice to do certain things:

• They must tell you there is a problem and give you the details on how to contact CheckMEND so we can tell you which records are present and how you may go about getting them updated to allow the sale to proceed.
• They must tell CheckMEND about the failure to pass the testing so that CheckMEND may inform the Police, Insurer or Network that originated the record.
• They must hold the phone for 28 days to allow you to get the records updated or the record originator to claim the item or contact you.
• If at the end of the 28 days the records have not been updated or the phone claimed as above, the recycler is deemed to be the legal owner of the handset and is required to dispose of the item responsibly.
• The recycler CANNOT in these circumstances return the item to you or pay you for it. To do either would risk offences under The Theft Act or Proceeds Of Crime Act.

How can you protect yourself?

• If you are buying a used item, always ask the seller for a CheckMEND certificate or run a check yourself before buying.
• Always run a check on CheckMEND before you send an item to a recycler or otherwise try to sell it on.
• If you get a red result on any of the checks shown on the certificate DO NOT send the phone to a recycler until you have got the records updated and the check shows the phone as green, at which point you can send in the item.
• Sometimes, unscrupulous sellers will supply an item and only weeks or months later report it as lost/stolen or claim on their insurance. This is rare but in this case, your item could fall foul of the above rules after you had a green CheckMEND check and sent it to a recycler. If you are refused payment for your item in this manner as a result of a block, theft report or insurance claim CheckMEND will refund to you the cost of the check. (Not the cost of the item).

If you would like more information on the Recyclers’ code of practice please visit their web sitehttp://www.stoprecycledstolenphones.com

To visit CheckMEND please go to: www.checkmend.com

To read the source article please go to: www.checkmend.com/uk/recycle

The signing of the new code of practice by over 90% of the mobile phone recycling industry means that for the first time there are agreed guidelines for the checking of handsets offered for sale to the industry and this includes using the CheckMEND service to check the National Mobile Phone/Property Register.

Adrian Portlock CEO of Recipero the operator of CheckMEND said:

This is a major step forward for the industry and CheckMEND and we are really pleased the industry has recognised their responsibilities in checking products they are buying, this model needs to be extended to all handlers of used goods and retailers taking trade ins and we will be pushing for this to be the case, but this is an excellent start.

For more information please see the following sites:

• CheckMEND – www.checkmend.com
• Phone Recycling Code of Practice site – www.stoprecycledstolenphones.com
• Home Office Press Release – www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/press-releases/code-practice-stolen-mobiles
• The Police NMPR (National Mobile Phone/Property Register) – www.thenmpr.com
• Immobilise National Property Register – www.immobilise.com
• Recipero – www.recipero.com

Unlike Europe second hand dealers and pawnbrokers in the US have to supply details of transactions to their local law enforcement agencies so CheckMEND has widened its remit to include this in the process of running a due diligence check. At the same time Recipero, the owner of CheckMEND, has rewritten its US NMPR platform so free of charge US law enforcement will be able to view CheckMEND transaction data via the US NMPR as well as being able to match the data with crime reports provided to the NMPR (via the Trace Checker system) from over 18,000 US law enforcement agencies.

Ken Bouche who leads business development for CheckMEND and Trace Checker in the US said:

This is the culmination of over 2 years work to allow traders and pawn brokers to supply for free transaction data to an online database that can be checked also free of charge by the Police. Bolting on the stolen data from Trace Checker which Recipero took over late in 2009 is inspired and provides a whole new service for the trade to ensure they are not buying stolen or dubious goods that have been reported as stolen to their local law enforcement agency. If the service grows to be as popular in the US as it is in Europe this will be a very significant step for forward for everyone involved

For more information please contact us: www.recipero.com/contact

On the 14th May, a man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for handling stolen goods. Alexander Smith, aged 40, was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court after a two year investigation conducted by Avon and Somerset Police’s burglary team and crime reduction unit in Bristol.

Officers were able to prove that Smith had been knowingly buying stolen mobile phones by utilising an online system known as CheckMEND. This system allows members of the public to check if a mobile phone is stolen before buying it.

Police searched a shop in East Street, Bedminster and identified more than 20 phones that were stolen from victims in both burglaries and robberies, many of which had occurred in the South Bristol area. A stolen pedal cycle was also found at Smith’s home address.

During one of these incidents, a female victim positively identified her stolen phone in Smith’s shop. Smith then demanded £40 from the victim before he would return her phone.
PC Frank Simonds, from Bristol Crime Reduction Unit, said:

The use of CheckMEND technology now allows the police to prove if stolen phones are being bought and sold by second hand retailers.

We will be relentless in our pursuit of those dealing in stolen goods.

Many phones that were proven to be stolen had been registered by owners on the Immobilise database. Registering phones enables the police to return them to their rightful owners.
Members of the public can register their phone for free by visiting www.immobilise.com

Members of the public can check if a mobile phone is stolen by visiting www.checkmend.com.

Retailers can receive advice on protecting their business from handling stolen goods as part of Operation Recover run by Avon and Somerset Police.

To read the source release in full please go to: Avon & Somerset Police

The feature really focused on the fact that shoppers who like to spend their money online could also be earning at the same time and used an example from a woman who would only purchase items once she had sold a few on eBay and made a small profit.  Great example of how online shopping can really work well with the current credit crunch. However, I do wish the BBC had highlighted some of the risks involved in online shopping, like CNBC have done.

Yesterday we launched in the US and have already seen some coverage including from the Denver Post and it states we aim to curb the cybercrime of selling suspect second-hand goods. Hopefully there will be more to follow.

Anyway, hopefully the USA launch will be just as successful as the UK. According to the US Census Bureau the population of USA currently stands at 304,381,960 with:
• One birth every  7 seconds
• One death every 13 seconds
• One international migrant (net) every 29 seconds
• Net gain of one person every… 10 seconds

From the global population of internet users 27% are in the US and having read a lot of online articles and blogs e-fencing is proving to be a problem which the US are struggling to control. E-fencing laws have been discussed as being essential to combat organised retail crime. However, CheckMEND should now be an answer to their prayers, so let’s see how it goes.

This is what we do best and we have had plenty of stories from people who didn’t discover CheckMEND in time…

For example; Andrew Gudelajtis, from Mansfield, bought a Vodafone Nokia mobile phone from eBay for his wife. The phone arrived in a sealed box and was sold as being brand new, but after using it for six weeks the mobile phone stopped working.

He decided that he should use CheckMEND to check the IMEI number on its database. The search came back and identified the phone as being stolen or blocked. Unfortunately Andrew was then unable to re-trace the eBay seller and is left with a phone that doesn’t work and at the moment he is pursuing Vodafone to see if they can help – either by unblocking the phone or chasing the seller.

Hopefully he will have some luck at some point, but it is a great example of why you should use ‘CheckMEND before you buy’ or insist on sellers having a CheckMEND report. Or as I mentioned within my last post we should push for eBay to insist all sellers conduct a CheckMEND report!

Any questions – please fire them this way!

Thanks for checking out CheckMEND as we open for business here in the US.  We’ve done a lot of work – and have had great success – in the UK helping buyers and sellers combat the problems associated with cybercrime relating to second hand goods.

This even shocked us: US citizens lost $239 million in various Internet-based fraud schemes.  Not surprising, cellular phones are one of the top items sold on online auctions sites with eBay recently confirming that the residents of Los Angeles last year sold 24 million items for nearly $1.4 billion and cellular phones were the best selling category.

A little bit about CheckMEND

Check out our product demo to see how we work located at:

www.checkmend.com/us/checkmend_demo

It is a really easy-to-use service for identifying serial numbered stolen and counterfeit goods offered on the Internet. CheckMEND offers consumers and businesses nationwide safe, fast, easy and very affordable checks against the world’s largest publicly available database of more than 100 million records of information that may be relevant to any prospective purchaser.  Bottom line: we’re trying to prevent you from getting burned.

A search on www.checkmend.com costs just $2.99 with even better pricing when multiple checks are made. Every check includes a printable comprehensive history report showing all the information available on the system.

This includes whether it is registered as stolen, had its identity changed, or has been subject to an insurance claim for damage or loss. Anyone checking a cellular phone also can verify whether the phone has been disabled by network carriers worldwide.   This is all really important so you actually get what you think you’re paying for.

We look forward to providing regular updates from the CheckMEND team, state of the industry and ongoing perspectives about protecting your personal items.

E-fencing is increasing everyday, according to CNBC , with the help of faceless online auction sites such as eBay and we need to really start looking into ways to overcome these issues. Well CheckMEND already have.

CNBC news in the USA have been really pushing the dangers consumers are facing in order to make e-fencing a more recognized problem.

The US-based National Retail Federation even went as far as to predict health problems caused by e-fencers re-selling stolen beauty products online, listing Cover Girl, Olay and RoC as the most common targets of e-fencing.
New York based Tiffany & Co has previously filed a lawsuit against eBay, and a host of other major retailers have all tried to persuade eBay and other online auction companies to combat e-fencing, but little has moved forward.

I have noticed a few online discussions by a number of cyber-crime bloggers  about who is to blame and who’s responsibility it is. One I would like to highlight is, Investor Trip’s They point out the fact that eBay seem to be passing the buck. Quoting eBay’s Vice President of Trust & Safety Rob Chesnut: ‘increase theft protection at the retail level. It’s the job of these major retailers to prevent criminals from lifting their products.’

Although eBay is right, I still believe it is also the responsibility of eBay, and other online action sites, to protect their users. One simple way of doing this is to CHECKMEND IT. From our perspectives, asking all sellers to carry out a compulsory CheckMEND check would solve a lot of e-fencing problems.
Currently, there is an option to carry out a checkMEND report on eBay but it’s not compulsory. If we can persuade eBay to enforce then at least consumers will know they are shopping safely with eBay! Reassurance is all they need.

Anyway, here are some interesting snapshots of the top 10 eBay selling markets last year by rank, published on 14.05.2008 by Harris Interactive:
- Los Angeles-Long Beach, California
- 196,089 Los Angeles residents sold 24,051,645 items for a total of $1,396,037,518.
- Best-selling categories for Los Angeles sellers were cell phones and their accessories as well as clothing and accessories.
- Los Angeles sellers were also the most charitable eBay sellers last year, donating the most of any city via eBay Giving Works, eBay’s program that helps people buy and sell for a cause, turning e-commerce into a force for good.
New York

- 158,859 New York City residents sold 12,621,651 items for a total of $1,045,503,913.
- Best-selling categories for New York sellers were jewelry, gems, watches and clothing and accessories.

Chicago
172,972 Chicago residents sold 10,229,844 items for a total of $908,708,440.
Best-selling categories for Chicago sellers included toys and sports memorabilia.

Philadelphia
120,900 Philadelphia residents sold 7,069,212 items for a total of $584,383,915. Best-selling categories for Philadelphia sellers included collectibles and toys.

Dallas
85,484 Dallas residents sold 5,003,292 items for a total of $754,493,210. Best-selling categories for Dallas sellers included jewelry, gems and watches, and clothing and accessories. Dallas sellers also made more money on sales of cars and trucks than did sellers in any other top-10 U.S. seller market.
Orange County, California
75,486 Orange County residents sold 6,945,490 items for a total of $636,654,084.
Best-selling categories for Orange County sellers were auto parts and cell phones and accessories.
Washington, D.C.
112,462 D.C. residents sold 5,024,888 items for a total of $393,720,726. Best-selling categories for D.C. sellers included books and toys.
Houston
76,450 Houston residents sold 4,297,389 items for a total of $528,872,858. Best-selling categories for Houston sellers included health and beauty and collectibles.

Nassau-Suffolk, New York -
70,714 Nassau-Suffolk residents sold 5,396,880 for a total of $400,253,200. Sports memorabilia and health and beauty were best-selling categories here.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida -
39,623 Fort Lauderdale residents sold 2,838,954 items for a total of $631,845,063.
Best-selling categories for Fort Lauderdale sellers included home furnishings and auto parts.

The survey

was carried out by Harris Interactive. They also revealed that one in 10 US adults (that’s 11percent) is currently selling personal household items to generate extra cash, with the majority (59 percent) doing so via online sales

or auction sites like eBay. Additionally, 30 percent of all adults say they are likely to sell their personal or household items over the next three months to earn extra cash. Great, but are you sure they are not stolen!!!

So, lets all jump o

n the band wagon and make sure a CheckMEND check is enforced with all sales on eBay.

Lost my phone!

In 2000 I lost my phone on the London Underground and went to the lost property office to try to find it. However, I was then faced with the task of providing a serial number or what we also know as the IMEI number. But in 2000  no one had really heard of what an IMEI number was let alone know their own!

Anyway after eventually finding my IMEI number and recovering my phone, I realised that all modern consumer electronic products have a unique serial number and that without them there was little way of distinguishing one item from another. Thus, I formed the idea that there was a need in the market for a pre-loss or theft registration service containing these serial numbers.

Previous career path

My career has always involved providing services to the consumer, back in 2000, at the age of 40; I sold my chain of restaurants, bars and leisure facilities, with the aim of taking early retirement and relaxing after a very full working life… until the idea for CheckMEND hit me.

I decided to start up a company called Recipero (latin meaning to retain or recover), with a view to building a company that provided a range of products and services based on the accumulation, organisation and analysis of information relating to personal property ownership, associated criminality, fraud and illegal trading.

The simple pre-loss registration database:

The starting point was with a simple pre-loss registration database, but it quickly became apparent that there was value in the analysis of the data and potential to provide HPI-type data for consumer electronics.  This was reinforced at the time with the explosion of online auction sites and the willingness of people to buy and sell second-hand goods online. All at the same time as the huge increase in the theft of mobile phones and other mobile devices such as laptops, ipods and the like.
The next three years was spent populating the MEND data warehouse and building partnerships across the mobile industry, with the likes of Carphone Warehouse and mobile phone networks. The police forces were also a vital partner for me.
Eventually, the system grew and now contains billions of pieces of discrete information and is accessed over a million times a month by the mobile phone industry, all UK Police forces, major insurers, the second hand trade, recyclers and the public.
CheckMEND.com was launched in 2006 and the CheckMEND database is now used extensively by second hand trade and the public the most common use of CheckMEND by the general public is for when they are buying or selling items from online auction sites like ebay.

Taking it international:

I can now safely say the company is well established and we are starting to focus on business outside the UK. 2008 will see two new launches for CheckMEND.com. One in the US, which the Recipero and CheckMEND teams are extremely excited about, with the U.S. being the largest market for consumer electronics. Not only that, we have already begun the process of launching in Asia too.

Obviously the road to where we are today didn’t all run as smoothly as suggested above, many a challenge was faced and problem overcome, but this is the CheckMEND story… so far…

Have a look at the youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zcm9VFNvuQ

However, if these auction sites ignore the statistics, and continue to allow themselves to be marketplaces for selling ‘stolen goods’ will mean that they will soon become high profile case studies for us.  Beware – You will get caught

There has been much discussion within the mobile tech community on whether CheckMEND is a good deal which our very own bat phone cleared up:

Hi, just to let you know CheckMEND ‘trade’ account is such only because that’s who they think would be interested in it. In fact the vat number and co number are optional at registration and they only thing ‘trade’ about it is a minimum £25 worth of checks purchased at registration. At the moment though you get 50 checks for this so paying only £0.50 instead of £2.99 for your first fifty checks and only £1 per check after that.

Of course reselling checks is against the terms and all your certificates will have the account holders details on so giving them away becomes awkward too but if you may check several phones in future (the credits never expire) it’s a good deal.

Declaration: I work for the parent company but this isn’t an advert, I just want to put right the misunderstanding about trade accounts. I’ll pass on the confusion and perhaps the web guys will modify the website.

We have some hard hitting facts for you, collated from our CheckMEND database.

Mobile Phone stats from CheckMEND

• Of the £5bn Stolen goods for sale online, it is estimated that £2.6bn of that can be attributed to mobile phones
• Of all the checks carried out on CheckMEND over the last 18 months 67% were made on mobile phones. Which equates to 6,700,000 checks made through CheckMEND, were to check the IMEI number of a mobile phone
• Out of every town in the UK you are most likely to be sold a stolen mobile phone in Leicester

CheckMEND has identified 3,522 stolen handsets in the last 23 days, that’s 153 a day and from these checks, it indicates the place you are most likely to be offered a stolen phone in order of likelihood are:

Leicestershire

Greater London – Finsbury Park, North London -600 policemen arrested 70 people!

Birmingham

Manchester

Cambridge

The Nokia N95 is the most checked phone as it is the top end of the price range for second hand phones, so watch out n95 users…

Please remember to protect your mobile phone and register your belongings free with immobilise www.immobilise.com.

After registering your property stolen your information will be fed to our CheckMEND database and we can stop all e-fencing criminals from re-selling your property.

We know this because we are the UK’s online stolen property checking service that identifies over 1 million stolen items every year.
Our CheckMEND blog will aim to keep you updated and up to speed on any online shopping crime, crime prevention topics and stolen goods statistics. We shall let you know what’s going on in the world of ‘hot goods’ and any relevant breaking news…
About us-

So that we are clear from the start, here are a few notes about us:

• CheckMEND is a brand from Recipero Limited www.recipero.com, a company founded by entrepreneur Adrian Portlock and two other non-executive directors that had it’s official launch in July 2006
• CheckMEND searches the UK’s largest database of stolen goods and blocked mobile phones with nearly 30 million records which can be checked by a perspective purchaser prior to purchasing an item. We can refer to it as a super database, but NOT a government run ‘stupid’ database
• Since it’s launch CheckMEND has carried out over 10 million checks online
• The majority of UK Police forces use the CheckMEND data to check the legitimacy of property many thousands of times a week.
• In the UK CheckMEND is already recommended by ebay for the checking of mobile phones before purchase

To find out more about what we do watch our video online http://www.checkmend.com

Why are there so many stolen goods online?
The problem is being exacerbated by “faceless” selling on the growing range of online auction and classified sites and the new phenomenon of “Market Places” on social networks, like Facebook, eBay and specific online mobile phone shopping sites.

Plus with the backdrop of the credit crunch impacting on family purses, UK consumers are increasingly on the lookout for a bargain or are clearing out their clutter to sell online or at the local car boot sale.

For any of you bargain hunters out there always check with CheckMEND if what you are about to buy is stolen or you could find yourselves in a pickle!

The Bigger Picture
Not only can you protect yourself from the hassle of purchasing stolen goods and from the risk of prosecution for handling them… if we reduce the opportunities for thieves to sell stolen property, then surely the demand will reduce as well. Only last week the Design Council released a study that found that one in eight children aged 11 to 16 has been the victim of a “hot product” theft, in the past three years

Plus, think about it if you are selling your laptop on eBay and can prove, with a free to view certificate, that what you’re selling is legit then people would be more likely to buy from you, rather than the next person who can prove the background of the laptop they’re selling!

Stewert Mitchell from the Times wrote an interesting feature which named online auctions as ‘Unscrupulous thieves who con innocent buyers’ but authorities seem powerless. We agree but with help of checkMEND authorities are becoming increasingly powerful with more arrest being made each year.

Warning – what we have found:

We have found that on average one in ten items of second hand goods checked through CheckMEND is being identified as being reported as stolen. Since its launch in 2006, CheckMEND has recently carried out 10 million checks on items valuing over £1 billion.

The value of the goods identified as being stolen is around £100 million.
Here are some fast facts we have for you:

• There are over £1 billion worth of insurance claims made in the UK every year from items being stolen
• There are over 30 million items of stolen property listed on CheckMEND from the UK with an estimated value of  £3 billion
• 10% of all  items of second hand goods checked through CheckMEND is identified as having been reported stolen
• Over 10 million checks have been made through CheckMEND over the last 18 months
• Over 600,000 checks are now made through CheckMEND every month
• The total value of items checked over the last 18 months is over £1 billion
• The value of the stolen goods identified as stolen is over £100 million