Since July, the Ombudsman has received around 50 complaints from consumers regarding the offers, a number claiming to be victims of bait-and-switch schemes; lured into carriage service contracts by accepting mobile phones they believed that they had won.
In one instance, a man was told he had won a phone for participating in a market survey. The document he signed in order to claim the phone was a service contract. The man was asked to pay a termination fee when he attempted to have the service disconnected.
"It is not surprising that people are being caught out by this," said Pinnock, Telecommunications Ombudsman. "When someone is told they have 'won' a mobile phone, they assume they will not have to pay for it."
The report also suggests that the suspicious companies may have hawked some vulnerable consumers to persuade them to accept the phones.
Another consumer, a woman who lived alone, told the TIO she felt threatened by numerous calls and messages left by one of the companies after she refused to accept a mobile phone as a reward for participating in a market survey.
Breaching of the telecommunications industry's code on prices, terms and conditions, Telecommunications Ombudsman John Pinnock described the sales methods by some mobile phone dealers as devious.
A TIO spokesperson said a number of service providers had adopted the unusual marketing practises, either directly or through agents, but would not name the mobile service providers involved.
This isn't the first time the TIO has singled-out mobile phones carriage service resellers for criticism.
"The conduct of dealer and agent representatives of mobile phone providers continues as a black mark on the industry. The TIO's experience is that there is significant consumer resentment about some of the dubious tactics employed by salespeople to sign up mobile phone customers," said Pinnock in his annual report, released in October.
Over the 2000-2001 period, service contract related complaints accounted for 59.7 percent of those listed under the TIO mobile phone category, up 5.3 percent over the previous year.
