Membership 2024/25 open

🆕 Membership is open! Join TUFF!
With a number of different membership categories, take a look as to which one fits you or your company.

Newsflash

November 2024 – Reseller Recycler Code of Practice 2024.

📢 NEW – Updated ‘Reseller Recyclers TUFF Traders Code of Practice’.
TUFF members first agreed a form of this Code in 2009, then called “The UK Recyclers’ Voluntary Code of Best Practice”. Since then, the Code has been instrumental in the fight against mobile phone crime and in the UK, adherence to the Code is virtually ubiquitous among commercial Buyers.

TUFF is pleased to announce this version, a complete re-write, removing out of date language, methods and technology references and reflecting established implementations of the Code among members.

Goals and Achievements

The goals of any successful Trade Association rest in how the organisation responds to its membership requirements as well as how members themselves add to the goals. TUFF has, over the last 25 years, built a reputation based on providing a platform for its members where they can, as a membership body, identify and address those issues facing the telecom industry in tackling fraud and crime. Some of TUFF’s key goals and achievements are:

Lobbying to Raise Awareness of Telecommunications Fraud

TUFF works closely with a number of agencies and has been instrumental in developing best practice in  areas related to fighting fraud. In 2007 TUFF became 1 of 6 organizations to be included as a Specified Anti-Fraud Organisation under the terms of the Serious Crime Act 2007.

TUFF has joined with both OFCOM and the PSA in addressing a number of areas of telecom-related fraud, in particular working with these organisations to reduce consumer harm and prevent abuse of telecom systems such as Private Branch Exchange fraud and Premium Rate fraud.

TUFF has established a close working relationship with the City of London Police, who are the UK National Lead for fraud and is  working closely with them to ensure that telecom fraud, in all of its manifestations, can be understood and recorded and that appropriate Police action can be taken.

To Support Education to Better Understand Telecommunications Fraud

One of the major challenges faced by organisations, outside the telecom industry, is understanding the complexities of telecom fraud and crime. TUFF has provided expertise to Police and other organisations, educating them on these complexities as well as providing a basic learning tool that enables non-telecom personnel to better understand and therefore identify how such crime is committed.

As well as providing support to organisations outside the industry, TUFF has also implemented and operated a free to members Accreditation Scheme geared towards helping new starters, from anywhere within the Industry, gain a better overall knowledge of the industry and the complex area of fraud.

To Provide Intelligence to Members Through Information Sharing

By providing members with a “Forum of Trust” TUFF has been able to bring together individual strands of intelligence relating to fraudulent and criminal activity and not only improve the quality of the intelligence but also ensure that it reaches the parts of the Industry, Law Enforcement and Regulators  where it can be used to prevent further harm to consumers as well as businesses.

TUFF was one of the founding members of what has now become known as the Cross-sector Safety and Security Communications Group (CSSC), an organisation that allows Police, Security Services and Counter-Terrorist Units to cascade information relevant to threats against individuals and businesses. This Group also incorporates the London Resilience Business Sector & London Resilience Group. Alerts received are circulated to member organisations to make them more robust in the face of a variety of threats.