We all love to moan about budget airlines and their deceptive online pricing strategies for adding taxes, fees and charges.

They are no longer allowed to keep taxes as an unpleasant surprise until the last moment when you are about to enter your credit card details, but they do still try and add an unexpected charge for using your credit card. Earlier this year the Office of Fair Trading put passenger travel companies on notice to change misleading debit and credit card surcharging practices or face enforcement action under consumer protection laws.

This summer, I was particularly annoyed when the company that we booked our family holiday with tried to charge us extra for sitting with the rest of our party on the flight. This sort of thing just leaves a bad taste in your mouth and undoubtedly diminished my opinion of their reputation.

Towards the end of last year, an OFT study on price advertising methods showed many high street stores and service providers, including airlines, were making misleading offers to shoppers. Traders were described as employing underhand tactics to make their prices look competitive in defiance of guidelines from the OFT guidelines.

What has all this to do with the legal profession, you may ask?

Well, unless someone can tell me when a lasting power of attorney might be VAT deductible for an elderly pensioner, then it seems that many law firms may be perceived to be employing slightly underhand tactics to make their prices look competitive when quoting for private client services.

An elderly relative called me to sound me out about the cost of a joint lasting power of attorney and described the conversation with her solicitor like this: 'They said it would cost £450 each, but with a 25% discount for two, plus VAT and it would cost £125 each for certification.'

The mind latches on to the words £450, so when the total amounts to much more, it feels like seeing a flight advertised for £29.99 but finding it will actually cost £79.99.

Grabbing my ever-handy calculator, I worked this out at a total of £810 for the LPAs, but we were uncertain about whether or not to add VAT to the certification or when that might be payable, so had to go back for clarification.

An alternative approach might have been: 'A single LPA costs £540, but if you make two at the same time then the total is just £810, so just £405 each and this includes the VAT.'

I decided to phone a few other firms and got a very similar approach. I understand that there is an argument for quoting like this because 'competitors do it' but, while no-one is trying to deceive or hide anything, the total price is not entirely clear and I would argue that this is not behaving in a way that 'maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services', and it is more likely to leave a bad taste.