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It started with free pens, fancy bags and baseball caps, now it's free overdrafts and mobile telephones. At Barclays, it's an interest-free overdraft of up to Pounds 1,600 and a free "easylife Cellnet" mobile phone - value Pounds 119.99. Who can resist? It's early Christmas for freshers.

The serious implication is that young students, and especially the more vulnerable and less well-off, could be duped into starting student life (more) in debt.

If they are not prudent, that will escalate in the coming three or four years, especially when their telephone bills come in at 49p a minute for the use of those "free" mobiles.

Check the small print.

Richard Mawditt

Bath