The chief meter maid, Roberta Aitchison, has accused Microsoft of telling fibs over a promotional stunt that went awry at its TechEd conference on the Gold Coast.

After a number of the 2700 IT workers attending the conference complained that the presence of scantily clad meter maids objectified women, Microsoft apologised for any offence caused and said it was "unaware of their exact costuming until the day of the event, at which time it was too late to be addressed".

The meter maids at the Microsoft TechEd conference on the Gold Coast.

But in a phone interview today Aitchison said Microsoft was well aware of the attire and in fact the company's events team had chosen it themselves.

"The garments were chosen specifically by them over a period of 2-3 weeks of them looking at photographs of the girls," she said.