The majority of mobile phone dealers, including those on AF, AW and DGM offer cash back incentives to their pay monthly customers. Many of them advertise these incentives in the form of half price line rental or free line rental, where in fact the customer receives cash back to the same value after six or twelve months.

This can be incredibly confusing. For example, a free phone on the T-Mobile Relax 100 tariff (£23 per month) on a 12 month contract has 7 months free line rental. The customer actually gets 3 months half price line rental (£11.50 per month), line rental reverts to full price from month four and the remaining four and a half months free line line rental is usually awarded as two and a quarter months free (£51.75) after six months and the same again after 12 months in the form of cash back by redemption. Tarrifs are already very complicated - in the example above the customer will also get 100 free texts per month for three months and if these aren't cancelled by the end of month two then they'll be charged £5.40 per month from month four. This is just one tariff and one deal, it's only the tip of the iceberg, don't even get me started on a discussion about 18 month contracts!

Most consumers are confused.

Are these deals constructed to deliberately confuse them, or mislead them into thinking they are receiving discounted line rental, applied to their bill automatically? I'm all for everyone making maximum profits as this helps us all and if it means the customer doesn't claim their discount or cash back (I believe about 60% of them forget) then that's their fault and more than okay with me if it means we can all make more money.

Using the example above, "7 months free line rental" could be advertised as "3 months half price line rental and £100 cash back". Just as attractive. It also indicates exactly what's on offer. But would it result in more cash back claims being made?