What is Fluffing and Puffery

Nigeria-based telecom companies yearly generate revenues that surpass their returns in other countries due to their growing number of subscribers. In spite of this development, the consumer has, in various ways, remained exploited by telecom companies. Two ways in which such exploitation has been perpetrated include misleading promotions and unsolicited commercial calls. This chapter examines these two anti-consumer paradigms under three principal research questions: What is the state of consumerism in the Nigerian telecom sector? What are some of the anti-consumer cultures prevailing in this sector? And how do consumer protection associations come to terms with these anti-consumer practices? The chapter is thus divided into three main parts. The first part provides a conceptual definition of consumerism. The second part explores consumerism in the Nigerian telecom sector, and the last part deals with misleading advertisements and unsolicited commercial calls as forms of anti-consumer practices.