MSE News: Price comparison websites to be probed by watchdog

Former_MSE_Darryl · 25 November 2013 at 11:48AM

"The Financial Conduct Authority is to investigate price comparison websites to find out if they are misleading customers by promoting deals they want them to buy..."

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Price comparison websites to be probed by watchdog

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InsideInsurance · 25 November 2013 at 12:09PM

Interesting how http://www.fca.org.uk/news/the-fca-launches-review-into-price-comparison-websites doesnt mention anything about "price comparison websites to find out if they are misleading customers by promoting deals they want them to buy"

It'll be interesting to see the report however not sure they've done anything but made it easier to buy on price. Insurance has been a commoditised distress purchase for decades

Rafter · 25 November 2013 at 2:51PM

There may be no evidence of individual deals being misrepresented, but there certainly evidence that price comparison best buy tables don't show the best deals. I have no issue with 'adverts' down the side, but most of the search results are now completely distorted by who is paying the highest commission with no 'warning' to customers that this is the case.

Likewise, Google and other searches should present a health warning that the searches appearing at the top for things like insurance may not be the best value for money - just the ones paying the search engine the highest rate per click.

dunstonh · 25 November 2013 at 3:23PM

but there certainly evidence that price comparison best buy tables don't show the best deals

They dont need to. They also do not set out to. As an IFA, I can beat comparison sites in a number of areas. (They can beat me in others). However, they are not required to say that using an IFA will get you cheaper (or the other way around).

One of the concerns is not comparing like for like but then listing by price. Some providers have multiple versions of their product. This can include a cut down version for retail via a comparison site to appear near the top of the list whereas the full version would be further down the list or not even on the list at all.

Another would be something like income protection. Comparison sites typically retail payment protection as income protection and not permanent health insurance. PHI is lower profit and involves more work. Is that the reason why they dont include it?

Pincher · 25 November 2013 at 4:08PM

The software that decides what to show must be getting schizophrenia like HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In October 2013, the Scottish Power March 2015 fix did not show up on Moneysupermarket.com for me, but the more expensive Scottish Power tariffs would show up, which favours switching away from Scottish Power, so Moneysupermarket.com can get some commission. And then, when I selected E.On as my current supplier, the March 2015 fix did show up.

They can't even lie properly. The solution is to keep my e-mail address, so the program maintains a context record for me, so it can keep its lies straight. It needs to keep a list of the tariffs it hid from me before, so when I select BG as my current supplier, it will still hide the SP March 2013 deal.

As you might recall, HAL9000 started snuffing people out in their sleep, due to unresolved internal contradictions. Let's call Moneysupermarket'.com 's computer MAL9000, and make a sequel.

MSE News: Price comparison websites to be probed by watchdog

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