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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Shebang ‘free phone’ offer falls foul of ASA advertising rules

UK mobile retailer Shebang Technologies Group has had a complaint against its advertising upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.

An email from the company and an offer on its website both promoted a ‘free’ mobile phone offer that was guaranteed for every customer. The ads were accompanied by images of several different handsets.

However, customers had to commit to a two-year minimum term contract with monthly payments. In addition, customers with lower credit ratings would either need to pay a deposit or generate a minimum spend of £50 before they could receive their phone. A Nokia C2-01 was the only mobile phone offered free to all customers.

The ASA noted that a number of significant conditions weren’t mentioned in the advertising and also discovered that the phones used to illustrate the offer weren’t all available ‘free’. In addition, it considered that paying a deposit to obtain a ‘free’ handset was not what most customers would expect.

Both the email and the online claims were ruled to have breached the Committees of Advertising Practice rules and must not be used again.

[ASA adjudication]

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Opinion Articles

Why a mobile TV service is just like a zombie

Mark Bridge writes:

Here in the UK, we’re struggling a bit with mobile TV. Which made me wonder what the problem really was. Well, after a long evening with the finest stilton and the cheapest port, the answer came to me in a dream. A mobile TV service is just like the lurching, drooling nightmare creatures that appear in every zombie film. And once consumers understand zombies, they’ll understand the problems with mobile TV. Let me explain.

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Selling your way out of a recession? Of course you can!

Iain Graham writes:

Everybody these days (apart from a lucky few!) is suffering from a lack of business or reduced sales due to the current 'downturn in the economic climate'. In my opinion, this is the time when sales people should stand up and be counted!

No, I don't mean the hard nosed, foot in the door double-glazing, second-hand car or mobile phone types (no offence!), I mean EVERYONE! Selling is a concept as much as it is a profession.

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Mobile & Contactless Payments

James Rosewell offers his opinion on the current state of mobile and contactless payments.

The banking and mobile industries have big plans for Near Field Communication (NFC) as the mobile payment mechanism of the future. Barclaycard has been leading the way from the credit card sector forming a partnership with Orange, having previously worked with O2, and running a catchy TV advert prompting contactless cards using VISA’s paywave system.

However the reality of NFC payments appears a lot further away. The Point of Sale (POS) technology appears to be badly deployed by some of the first-phase retailers mainly made up of low-value high-volume businesses like coffee shops, fast food outlets and newsagents.

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Insecure Mobile Browsers

James Rosewell writes: I note with interest Barclays mobile on-line banking home page extolling the safety of mobile banking whilst claiming it’s as secure as their non-mobile equivalent. This is on the same page that recommends customers use Opera Mini to access Barclays mobile on-line banking.

Yet following the link to the operamini.com web site and looking at the help section we can read Opera’s answer to the question “Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank?” and the answer is “No. If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full Web browser such as Opera Mobile.”

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