27 January 2010
With the January sales well and truly underway many consumers are hoping to bag a bargain or two. This year it seems that it is not just High Street retailers that are offering products in the sales, as many other sectors have joined in ranging from broadband providers offering special deals on packages to banks offering great value financial products to help consumers save money.
However, according to a recent report many of the financial products that banks are offering in their ’sales’ are actually more expensive than some of the standard best buy products. Some of the financial products on which banks are claiming to be offering special deals include mortgages and savings products. Some banks are promising to save consumers hundreds of pounds as a result of these deals but some officials claim that they are not all that they are cracked up to be.
According to the report some banks are leaving their market leading deals out of the promotions, which means that effectively the consumer may not be getting the choice of all the deals available from the lender, and may be worse off as a result of this. In other cases the deals that are being offered by the banks are worse than the best buy products, which means that some consumers would be better off avoiding these ’sales bargains’.
One industry expert, David Black from Defaqto, said that the deals in many cases were nothing more than a marketing ploy, and that consumers had to be careful that they didn’t get taken in by them. He said: “It’s important that consumers don’t get sucked in by clever marketing, as often non-sale deals will provide better value.”
Tags: buy products, broadband, Online shopping, Electronic commerce, savings products, David Black