The biggest saving appeared to be on calls to mobile phones where BT charge around 13-15p per minute and Blueridge charge on 9p per minute.

This sounded attractive to us as the majority of phone calls (by cost) made by the staff are to mobile phones now.

However, there was a discrepancy between the words of the salesman and the terms on the contract. The salesman was using the words "pence per minute" while the contract used the same figures but the words "pence per call unit".

This raised some suspicion and we asked them to call back. Another sales person called the next day. His grammar was a little strange as it seemed clear that he didn't want to give any indication of unit type at all: "I believe Eric quoted you 9 yesterday and that you already pay BT something over 13".

Suggesting that the units were the same without actually breaking any laws...

The call came to an abrupt end when we asked the sales manager to tell us exactly how much a 15 minute call to a mobile phone would cost in pounds and pence. He couldn't do it and asked what it mattered if he quoted the price in "Apples and Pears" - as long as he was "saving us money".

We reported them to OFCOM (complaint number: 2268432) as we feel that there may be other people that may not notice that, although they are discussing "pence per minute" they are actually signing a contract for "pence per call unit".

The real truth is that instead of paying BT just under 30p for a 2 minute call to a mobile they'll actually find themselves paying 54.5p to Blueridge.

The calculations for the PPCU are not in the Terms and Conditions at their web site. You have to click two PDF links to get to the meat:

http://www.blueridgetel.co.uk/Tariffs/BLUK_page3_081704.pdf

Where you'll find the following information:

  TOTAL CHARGES PER CALL ARE CALCULATED BY USING THE INFORMATION
  PROVIDED IN THE FOLLOWING TABLE TO DETERMINE THE TOTAL CALL UNITS
  (TCU’S) IN EACH CALL AND BY MULTIPLYING THE TCU’S BY THE RATES
  APPLICABLE TO THE SERVICE PROVIDED. THE FOLLOWING TABLE MAY BE USED
  TO DETERMINE THE TCU’S IN ANY CALL OF A SPECIFIED DURATION AS SHOWN
  FOLLOWING:

  FORMULA CALCULATIONS (IN MINUTES)
  1-19.9 TCU'S = [CALL DURATION (IN MINUTES) X 2 + 2.5]
  20 + TCU'S = [CALL DURATION (IN MINUTES) + 22.5]

  NOTE 1: CALL DURATION IN MINUTES IS STATED AS A DECIMAL.

Beware...