MSE News: Energy comparison sites hide cheap tariffs, but we don't 20 October 2014 at 11:21AM in Energy 73 replies 9.9K views

anselld

It may be true that Martin has "no role" at MoneySupermarket.com but I am not sure his Corporate bosses will take too kindly to Martin disowning them so readily.

You can't sell out *and* maintain complete independence.

Cardew

CashStrapped wrote: »

Why do you have to resort to calling people "nerds" and "anoraks".....really?

Just because I [or others] use Ad-ons on my browser!?!? Or because some people actually read websites!

I see Richie-from-the-Boro uses Ad-Ons. What a nerd!!;)

Please actually try to understand the context of a post.

"A comparison website shouldn't need users to be 'anoraks' who understand the complexities of tariffs. Or computer nerds who understand:"

I never said they should!!!! My post was nothing to do with this!!!!

My post was simply solving the mystery as to why a box showed up on some peoples browser and not on others!!! Thats all!!

You do not need to start quoting my posts and ridiculing them for suggesting ad-ons that can actually help users avoid Ads and Viruses online.

If you look I put "If anyone is interested"....If you are not interested, don't read it!!!

It was an attempt at humour - calling myself an anorak and computer experts 'nerds' - sorry if it offended.


I was trying to make a point that a comparison website should give accurate unbiased information without inexperienced users having to change default settings..

Richie-from-the-Boro

Cardew wrote: »

It was an attempt at humour - calling myself an anorak and computer experts 'nerds' - sorry if it offended.

I was trying to make a point that a comparison website should give accurate unbiased information without inexperienced users having to change default settings..

- to be even handed, this was exactly my understanding of what you intended with your initial posts
- many people would not know what's active in a browser, most are chokker full of unnecessary add on garbage
- many people would not know how to remove the crap, and even crapcleaner itself is now littered with injected default crap

Herbalus

anselld wrote: »

It may be true that Martin has "no role" at MoneySupermarket.com but I am not sure his Corporate bosses will take too kindly to Martin disowning them so readily.

You can't sell out *and* maintain complete independence.

You can indeed. As part of the legally binding sale contract there are a number of conditions that Martin has referred to over the years, including a fine of £millions if the MoneySupermarket Group breach these conditions. They include complete editorial independence, and the ability of Martin to slag off MoneySupermarket Group if he so chooses.

Martin has referred to this numerous times over the years, most recently on Radio5live yesterday. In fact, you can read a copy of the editorial code here. Note point 7:

MoneySavingExpert.com's Editor-in-Chief (and authorised spokespersons) shall be permitted to comment freely about the products and services available through the MoneySupermarket.com group.

MoneySupermarket Group owns MoneySavingExpert.com, but they have no input or control over any aspect of what MoneySavingExpert decides to do. There are certain aspects that interlink, such as MoneySupermarket providing the back engine processing power to the MSE Energy Club website (because that saves on costs over the whole group of companies), but absolutely no control over what is done with that information.

This news story went out because the Big Deal accused Martin (and MSE by default) of being involved with MoneySupermarket.com and their alleged nefarious ways. This was live on radio, which Martin quite rightly went to town on. Clearly the guy from Big Deal hadn't done any research on the relationship between MSE and MoneySupermarket (Martin likened it to the editor of The Sun being complicit in actions of News Corp), and it seemed quite a vindictive and premature attack.

drewziph

Herbalus wrote: »

You can indeed. As part of the legally binding sale contract there are a number of conditions that Martin has referred to over the years, including a fine of £millions if the MoneySupermarket Group breach these conditions. They include complete editorial independence, and the ability of Martin to slag off MoneySupermarket Group if he so chooses.

Martin has referred to this numerous times over the years, most recently on Radio5live yesterday. In fact, you can read a copy of the editorial code here. Note point 7:

MoneySupermarket Group owns MoneySavingExpert.com, but they have no input or control over any aspect of what MoneySavingExpert decides to do. There are certain aspects that interlink, such as MoneySupermarket providing the back engine processing power to the MSE Energy Club website (because that saves on costs over the whole group of companies), but absolutely no control over what is done with that information.

This news story went out because the Big Deal accused Martin (and MSE by default) of being involved with MoneySupermarket.com and their alleged nefarious ways. This was live on radio, which Martin quite rightly went to town on. Clearly the guy from Big Deal hadn't done any research on the relationship between MSE and MoneySupermarket (Martin likened it to the editor of The Sun being complicit in actions of News Corp), and it seemed quite a vindictive and premature attack.

This is interesting. Martin's only response so far has been to distance himself from Moneysupermarket, which is questionable given that he does have a clear interest in the company and its performance. I figured that the only reason that he had not slated them was that he would be contractually unable to do so.

If this is not the case, I am very surprised that he has not chosen to criticise Moneysupermarket (and all the other comparison sites) for not showing all tariffs by default.

It appears to me that despite normally being a consumer champion, on this occasion he is choosing not to fight for the consumer's interests (at least not yet).

Fromply

drewziph wrote: »

If this is not the case, I am very surprised that he has not chosen to criticise Moneysupermarket (and all the other comparison sites) for not showing all tariffs by default.

But he has hasn't he? Through the article that created this very thread (my bolding added)....

The Big Deal says five comparison sites – Compare the Market, Go Compare, uSwitch, MoneySupermarket and Confused – use a mechanism to hide deals by asking users if they want to see deals they can switch to "today" or "now".


Clicking "Yes" filters out all deals which do not earn the price comparison site a commission from the energy company – often these deals are the cheapest says the Big Deal.


Martin Lewis, MoneySavingExpert.com creator, says: "It is nice to see the issue raised and it is something I have noted consumers should be careful about in my programmes for many years – I just wish it hadn't incorrectly named me as being part of the wrong site and thus casting aspersions that way.


...


"Ultimately the problem here is that the Ofgem Confidence Code allows this to happen – that's where the focus of change should be."

Consumerist

Having, yet again, been publicly embarrassed at it's absolute inability to act on anything without spending two years with its head up it's *rse, Ofgem might now go away and think about it for two years. Then come up with the absolute minimum so as not to inconvenience the energy companies and their suppliers.

We, the customers, are on our own against the suppliers.

gogsboy

I'm using Chrome and I can see the question about switching to suppliers today.

However it seems irrelevant as they all bring up Extra Energy Bright Fixed Price Nov 2015 v1 or Fresh Fixed in second place.

I switched to NPower and lost track, think was on fixed but moved to Standard, why do they put on the bill we checked and your on cheapest tarrifs when clearly not?

Had probs with N power billing so time to jump, any quite tips for cashback at moment?

Thanks in advance

anselld

Herbalus wrote: »

You can indeed.

Perhaps as independent as he was in the Student Finance debacle?

Whatever assurances may be written, it is not possible to have complete independence when organisations and people are so financially interlinked.

apt

I would much prefer a not-for-profit organisation to provide tariff information and the money saved on commission to go on lower prices. But the present story is making a mountain out of a molehill. It doesn't take much nous to tick the show all tariffs option and to check more than one commercial switching website.