The Daily Mail in the UK has announced a special offer that will last for the next 2 months, offering readers of the paper the chance to claim a free DAB Radio - the Pure One Mi - to the tune of £35.

It sounds too good to be true doesn't it? And that's because when you start reading the small print, it is.

To claim your free gift from the Daily Mail, you have to jump through a series of hoops regardless of whether you opt for a priority offer or the regular one, of which the regular one ultimately means you won't get the Pure One Mi until the middle of September.

Option A)

Make a premium phone call

First you must call a premium number that will cost you 75p a minute, to obtain a three-digit code for the paper form. The call will last no more than 2 minutes.

COST £1.50

Collect 20 tokens

The offer will run for around 2 months with 62 tokens up for grabs, of which you've got to make sure you grab 20 to be eligible for the offer. Of course you could say that if you already get the Daily Mail those tokens will be free. But if you don't then that's another 20 editions of the paper you've got to add to the total bill. The Daily Mail currently costs 50p a day.

COST £10

Write a cheque

This one confused us as well. It seems to get your "free" DAB radio that costs £35 you have to send the daily mail a cheque for £26.70.

COST £26.70

Total cost?

Add up the cost of the phone call, the cheque and then buying the paper for 20 days and it soon racks up with the Pure One Mi costing you a total of £38.20.

Option B)

Collect 60 tokens

This offer will save you on the phone call, but you'll have to read the Mail for the next 2 months. You'll need to save 60 tokens in total, 8 of which must be from the Mail on Sunday.

COST (46 copies of the daily edition at 50p = £23) + (8 copies of the Mail on Sunday edition at £1.50 = £12) + (6 copies of the Daily Mail on Saturday at 80p = £4.80) = £39.80

Write a cheque

Like option a) we are still confused. Option b) sees you still writing a cheque although this time for only £6.70 to get your "free" DAB radio that costs £35.

COST £6.70

Total cost?

This option is slower, and there is no premium number phone call to make, but strangely when you add up the cost of buying the newspaper for the next 2 months it's actually more expensive. The total cost of option b) is £46.50. 

Conclusions

Our recommendation? Save yourself the worry of collecting a series of tokens over the next 2 months. If you really must have the radio, and you can read what we had to say about it in our Pure One Mi radio review, then head to the high street or online to save yourself some time and cash.

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