Comparison sites are not providing UK users with a good enough service for financial products, with the majority of Brits not trusting them to find the best prices, according to research from Which? Money.
A survey of 2510 members of the Which? online panel shows only three in ten trust comparison sites to find the best price available, while two thirds think they will be presented with products that make the Web sites the most commission.
A quarter of people said they did not buy through a comparison site because they found a cheaper quote elsewhere and 12% said they were unhappy with the quotes they were given. Even after searching for products on comparison sites, more than half said they bought the product directly from the provider.
According to the survey, the average customer satisfaction level for the seven sites covered is lower for than any other financial sector Which? has surveyed and no firm scored more than 50%.
Moneysupermarket.com came top, with a score of 50%, followed by Confused.com and Gocompare.com, both with 47%. Comparethemarket.com received a mark of 45%, Uswitch.com 43%, Tescocompare.com 39% and moneyextra.com just 37%.
James Daley, editor, Which? Money, says: "We found that using financial comparison sites is clearly not a happy experience for many - all the sites in our survey got low customer scores. If you're shopping around for a good deal, it makes sense to go to more than one site and be aware that some companies aren't featured."
Hayley Parsons, chief executive, Gocompare.com, hit back at the survey, questioning its validity.
"The research was carried out amongst Which? readers only and this does raise the question of just how representative the findings can be. Remember, for the last few years, Which? have been encouraging their readers to use the Which? 'Best Buys' rather than independent financial comparison sites, so it would be naive to think that their readers are suddenly huge fans," she says.
Carlton Hood, CEO, Confused.com, also responded, saying: "It might be an idea for Which? to compare their reviews! Earlier this year it congratulated Confused.com on our market-leading position."
Meanwhile, Moneysupermarket.com says its own customer satisfaction survey, which runs monthly, shows 83% of customers are extremely satisfied or satisfied.