Rumour: WIND to bring on Tab payment option?

Our friends over at TMN have a rumour of the day that has new entrant WIND Mobile to offer customers the option of paying for their device on a Tab system.

Apparently it’s popped up in their inventory system and it’ll work similar to how Koodo Mobile operates their “Tab”.  Customers can pay the full price for a phone or put a certain dollar amount on their tab and every month a percentage of their bill goes towards paying off the tab (amount owed).

If this rumour is true I’m not sure how WIND would set this up. They pride themselves on customers owning the phone and not having contracts, credit checks etc. This would actually bind people to a contract of sorts until the device is fully paid off over time. Even on their FAQ section on their website the question asked is “I want to be a WIND Customer, but I don’t want to pay for my phone. Why doesn’t WIND have free phones like all the other guys?”… with the answer being “The WIND Community told us you’d rather BE free than have free phones. At WIND, you own your phone so you can come and go as you please, no contracts to lock you in.”

A Tab system is certainly not being “free” but would make sense to bring in customers who did not want to fork over upwards of $450 for a device. Time will tell if this rumour is true… what do you think? Would you embrace a system like this?