{"id":900821,"date":"2026-09-22T03:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T03:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900821\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T03:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T03:18:19","slug":"consumers-getting-duped-by-price-comparison-websites-asic-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900821\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumers getting duped by price comparison websites, ASIC warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tell us about your experience. <\/p>\n

Australians hunting bargains on comparison websites risk being duped by sites that only offer a selection of preferred providers.<\/p>\n

The corporate watchdog has issued a warning after launching multiple court actions against websites for allegedly misleading consumers about the range of financial services and products on offer and, in some cases, promoting multiple leads from a single brand.<\/p>\n

While comparison websites are a good place to start for prices and services information, consumers should conduct deeper research, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commissioner Alan Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

“The products that are listed by many comparison sites are selected and ordered based on what the product providers pay to the comparison sites, and they may not give you a full view of the market,” Mr Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

“It’s important to actually use a range of comparison sites in order to get a fuller view of the market.”<\/p>\n

The Federal Court recently found comparison site Choosi \u2014 which offers life, funeral, income protection and health insurance products \u2014 misled consumers over four years<\/a> from mid-2019 after claiming to compare a slew of funeral and life insurance policies, when Hannover Life Re issued all but one of the policies offered.<\/p>\n

Every single policy in question was distributed by Greenstone Financial Services, a company linked with Choosi.<\/p>\n

The court has not set a date to hand down Choosi’s penalty, but an administrative hearing will be held later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Warning shot fired<\/p>\n

The watchdog launched a case on Friday against lead-generating business Clark Family Pty Ltd, which offers free online assessments for loans and insurance products.<\/p>\n

The commission alleges up to 70 of its websites misled consumers by claiming to compare rates and options from multiple providers and providing consumers “tailored” recommendations.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

“In reality, consumers’ inquiries were (allegedly) sold to the highest-bidding broker,” Mr Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

With Australians already struggling with cost-of-living pressures and stubborn inflation, the court actions are a warning shot across the bow to the price comparison platform market.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got very strong laws in Australia against making false or misleading representations about the products that you provide to consumers,” Mr Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

“Where we find comparison sites misleading consumers, we will take action.”<\/p>\n

Consumers must also be alert to service agreements to ensure they do not sign away their private data with a click.<\/p>\n

“Your information may not be used solely for the purpose of the comparison that you’re seeking,” Mr Kirkland said.<\/p>\n

“Your personal details may be sold to another business, and you may then find yourself the subject of telemarketing calls or marketing emails as a result of your information being sold on.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tell us about your experience. Australians hunting bargains on comparison websites risk being duped by sites that only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5799,469457,62782,469456,469453,469454,469455,70,43,44,469458,151976,41,39,42,40,1634,39834,113955],"class_list":["post-900821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-asic","tag-cheapest-funeral-insurance","tag-cheapest-insurance","tag-cheapest-life-insurance","tag-choosi","tag-clark-family-pty-ltd","tag-compare-services","tag-federal-court","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-price-compare-australia","tag-price-comparison","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-warning","tag-watchdog","tag-websites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}