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HIDDEN BARGAINS ROW

Price comparison websites to be allowed to hide best energy deals from view

Critics accuse Government quango's new report of 'bottling it' and caving in to big switching websites

Getting the best deals from energy firms has been made more difficult

PRICE comparison websites will be allowed to hide the best power deals from customers, it emerged yesterday.

The bizarre recommendation is in a report aimed at lowering energy prices for families.

Getting the best deals from energy firms has been made more difficult
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Getting the best deals from energy firms has been made more difficultCredit: PA:Press Association

Critics accused the Competition and Markets Authority of trying to bury its findings on the day of the Brexit result.

It found families are overpaying £1.4billion a year.

Energy ... Nationalising power firms would be a disaster with bills rising and the lights going out
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Energy is a costly utility to pay for, and families are always trying to get best deals

The Sun revealed in 2014 how sites like Compare the Market and uSwitch were paid up to £100 a time to push deals to customers that often were not the cheapest.

Watchdogs Ofgem brought in a rule forcing sites to show every deal on offer.

But now the CMA wants Ofgem to reverse this “whole of market” comparison.

Original Compare The Meerkat/ Market advert
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Comparethemarket.com's meerkat mascot Aleksandr

Instead there would be a “requirement to be transparent” over whether they show all deals or just a few.

Will Hodson, of consumer collective TheBig Deal.com, said the CMA had “bottled it and caved in to sites”.