Comment: No hawkers or circulars please

Trust is a valuable commodity but sadly one which is returning to popularity for all the wrong reasons.

It's an old-fashioned value that's an uneasy bed-fellow for the get-rich-quick society but its credentials as a fundemental of good business cannot be denied. Trust's banishment by the bankers lies at the heart of the credit crunch and their quickly made fortunes will cost the rest of us dear as the government clamours to throw them our tax pounds - in a cruel twist of irony it is that very crunch that turns optic's attention to trust.

Where there's a buck to be made, the spivs and con artists will follow and that journey has brought them to optical recruitment.News this week comes that optical practices are being targeted by dodgy headhunters brings home the power of trust in a graphic way. In optics the use of three simple letters carry that trust -GOC. A caller saying he isfrom the GOC wins the trust of a receptionist or assistant to give out details and pass the caller through to an unwitting optometrist.When that caller is a spiv salesman spinning a line to a trusting professional the consequences can be catastrophic.