It seems it would be much easier to find people who are willing to be brand ambassadors and be up front about it if that's what you are looking for.
The whole story is entirely one-sided and to be honest if it sounds too crazy to be true, I suspect it probably is too crazy to be true.
If you're a tiny startup, your internal communication lines and org chart are small and simple enough that everybody is usually on the same page.
But if you're a huge company like Samsung, it's very easy to have situations where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. That may well be what happened here.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Kies
Having been forced to use this monstrosity to get files onto a Galaxy Tab, I don't see _where_ you get the idea that you're talking about a rational company.