Reply to post:

I'd like to point out:

I don't *WANT* the very cheapest contract every damn time. The whole concept of cheapness being good is something I can't fathom. USwitch will recommend me a bunch of companies that I've blacklisted because their service is just so shite (e.g. TalkTalk Broadband).

The constant race to the bottom, with government-backed initiatives, is something that I don't understand the utility of. Do we only ever buy the cheapest car? Cheapest flat? Cheapest carpet? Cheapest fridge? How many people *ONLY* ever want the cheapest thing?

What they are supposed to be combating is long-term customers getting a worse deal than new customers, really. You don't do that by encouraging companies to constantly push the fact that they're not the cheapest in the customer's face.

I don't *want* to switch utility companies every month, or have you waste advertising and other money on services for me to do so. I want the damn company I've chosen to not raise prices artificially or "after the contract ends" any more than it would cost for someone to get a new contract.

"You could get a better deal by switching to an awful company that's a penny cheaper" isn't good economic sense for anyone.

Let the market operate itself, but put in legislation to enforce that *newer* customers should get no better a deal than is already advertised and available to all *existing* customers of those companies, and which either can switch to at any time.

The one service where I really don't give a damn how cheap and rubbish it is so long as I have it is car insurance. If I've got a properly-underwritten certificate that makes me road-legal, that's it, that's all I care about. And for some reason, every single year, it's cheaper to switch to arbitrary random companies ranging from the co-op to Halifax to the RAC - who all use the same underwriters, all have the same details about me, all utilise the same centralised self-service portals from the same company, and yet my insurance price will double once I've been with them for a year for no reason, and everyone else will be even cheaper than I got last year. It makes no sense, even if you assume they're gouging for customers who then are too lazy to ever move again. Why would the RAC, for example, put their name to something that next year they know the majority of their customers will flee and likely never return because they forced their prices up artificially?

Regulate the damn market, not force companies to try to make you move to the cheapest deal ever year, spamming you each time. If I want to move, I'll move. If I'm unhappy with the service or price rises, I'll move. If the price stays the same but doesn't follow the lowest on the market on a stupid race to the bottom... then unless I particularly care about that, I really don't see why they or I should care, when a 5 -minute check will tell me if I'm being conned. Or I might just decide "Hey, their service is really good, I'll stick with them".