I went on eBay and found a hypothetical car to insure, and then went to see how cheap i could get the insurance for this car. All this seems fair enough, right? That's what i though anyway.
I woke the next morning to find I had a missed call from a 01782880947, so i thought to myself "hmm, this is strange i don't usually get calls from anyone, let alone an unknown number." So i jumped onto the Google Machine to see if I could find out any background into this mystery number, when i found this site called WhoCallsMe.com. From this forum numerous replies suggested that this was the number of Insurance Provider 'Autonet'. Then I twigged the connection between the call and the comparison site.
Anyway, i thought nothing of it and continued on my way to work. Between getting ready and getting to the bus stop i received another call from a different number, this time a 'Be Wiser' Insurance company. By this point, as you can imagine, i was getting rather pissed off, considering this wasn't even a real car i was trying to insure.
Then while waiting for the bus, my phone goes again, so in a flurry of rage i answer the call. "Hello is that Mr. Chamberlain" "I'm calling from Be Wiser insurance company about your recent quote on a Vauxhall Astra 1.7 Van." At which point i began to tell the call centre operative that i didn't care what she had to say and that i didn't have a van or want insurance for a van it was just out of interest. They then told me something very interesting. In the very fine print of the T's & C's on Money Supermarkets website, it says:
"As part of using our Services you consent to us disclosing your personal information to the following parties: Third parties, including but not limited to companies whose products or services are included on our website with a view to providing you with an on line quotation for the product and/or service requested by you."
Now obviously, like the majority of the British public i didn't spend time trawling through the many pages of terms and conditions, mainly because i had done this kind of thing before and the worst i ever got was the occasional email. But this really enraged me. What they are basically saying here is they can give your information to whoever they damn well please and there is nothing you can do about it.
I know there will be people saying, well its your fault then, but should comparison sites really be allowed to do this? Should they be allowed to give personal information out willy nilly to third-parties? More to the point should we have to go through the hassle of be harassed by several different insurance companies throughout the course of the day purely because we had an interest that we wanted to find out.
I ended the day with more than 5 missed calls, 2 answered calls from 3 or 4 different companies trying to sell me car insurance for a car that i didn't own and was never going to own.
Frankly, i think it's disgusting. I rest my case.
No comments:
Post a Comment