{"id":3254,"date":"2018-10-15T13:29:50","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T13:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/would-you-trust-an-auto-switching-site-for-life\/"},"modified":"2018-10-15T13:29:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T13:29:50","slug":"would-you-trust-an-auto-switching-site-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/would-you-trust-an-auto-switching-site-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Would you trust an auto-switching site for life?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Energy switching services help consumers find a gas and electricity supplier by automatically switching them to the best deal.<\/p>\n

They’ve been around for a couple of years, but now a giant comparison site – GoCompare – is getting in on the act.<\/p>\n

The company claimed its Weflip service will “automatically keep households on cheap energy deals, forever”.<\/p>\n

However, a rival start-up warns: “The key question for anybody doing auto-switching is trust.”<\/p>\n

With auto-switching, consumers give companies their details – name. address, energy usage – and then leave it to them to find the best available tariff when their current deal ends.<\/p>\n

The first on the market was Flipper more than two years ago. It claims to save members \u00a3385 a year.<\/p>\n

Since then, a swathe of other services have been set up that offer to take away the hassle of switching, including SwitchD, Look After My Bills, and Switchcraft.<\/p>\n

A question of trust<\/h2>\n

GoCompare is the first major firm to enter the market: “We’re an established company with significant reach and a long history of saving people time and money.”<\/p>\n

It says it can offer deals from across the market, while smaller rivals offer a percentage of the market – effectively only those suppliers that pay commission.<\/p>\n

Henry de Zoete is co-founder of Look After Your Bills, which launched in January and won a record Dragons’ Den deal <\/a>in August.<\/p>\n

He said: “The key question for anybody doing auto-switching is trust. Price comparison sites have a chequered past to say the least when it comes to doing the right thing.”<\/p>\n

A GoCompare spokesman said it had “saved people in the UK billions of pounds on essential outgoings since it launched in 2006, and has never charged consumers a penny to use its services. <\/p>\n

“Weflip isn’t a comparison website, it’s an automatic switching service for energy that doesn’t charge consumers either, making it as simple and cost-effective as possible for people to find and stay on better energy deals.”<\/p>\n

Millions overpaying<\/h2>\n

Frank Field, the MP who chairs the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, welcomed anything that helps tackle consumers being overcharged for their gas and electricity.<\/p>\n

An estimated two-thirds of households have never switched supplier, which leaves them paying more to heat and light their home than they need to.<\/p>\n

Mr Field said: “There is an army of loyal consumers in Britain who, for one reason or another, simply do not have the time or resources to shop around for the cheapest deals. <\/p>\n

“Any moves to address this injustice by helping those hard-up households who have long been paying too much for their gas and electricity, are to be welcomed.”<\/p>\n

For those who simply want the cheapest deal and haven’t time to find it themselves, auto-switching appears to be a perfect answer.<\/p>\n

It’s a service that is likely to spread to other areas of personal finance. Look After Your Bills said it is planning to add broadband in a matter of months, while GoCompare’s move into energy is likely to be the first sector of many if that proves successful.<\/p>\n

That means auto-switching services could soon appear for phone tariffs, savings and even insurance.<\/p>\n

But is it wise to trust any company to make such important financial decisions for you?<\/p>\n

Andrew Hagger, personal finance analyst from Moneycomms.co.uk said: “”People are quite reluctant to switch without doing their own in-depth research and changing brands is rarely an instant or knee-jerk reaction unless their provider has upset them in some way.”<\/p>\n

He predicted that the new services will prove popular with consumers who are time-poor and simply want the cheapest service, “but for others who are more selective and not frequent switchers, this will simply be a step too far”. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Image copyright Getty Images Energy switching services help consumers find a gas and electricity supplier by automatically switching them to the best deal. They’ve been around for a couple of years, but now a giant comparison site – GoCompare – is getting in on the act. The company claimed its Weflip service will “automatically keep … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}