Mortgage rates on CCPC's website out of date

[Paul F]

So the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is spending some time scouring the websites of Irish retailers looking for dark patterns.

Retailer websites swept for ‘dark patterns’ by consumer watchdog

Manipulative trading practices push consumers to make choices they might not do otherwise

www.irishtimes.com

Here is a dark pattern that they might be interested in. Their own website is still showing out-of-date mortgage rates for Bank or Ireland six days after BOI increased their rates.

Be careful where you get your information.

Sincerely,
A guy on the internet

 

[ClubMan]

Don't worry - wasn't it Colm Kincaid the other day at the Oireachtas meeting who said that the Central Bank were working flat out to protect the consumer?

 

[NoRegretsCoyote]

From the story some detail on these shady practices:

The first is fake countdown timers, which are designed to create a sense of urgency by falsely presenting an offer as time limited.

The second is a false hierarchy, which is when consumers are nudged to click on the trader’s preferred option by making it much more prominent, whether through visual design, colours or language.


The third is the hiding of information on a product or service by making it less visible by using very small fonts or placing information in a less prominent section of the website or application.

I mean who ever heard of such evils before the internet?!

 

[IsleOfMan]

An utterly useless organisation. My own experience of them is to fob you off/away as soon as make contact with them.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Their own website is still showing out-of-date mortgage rates for Bank or Ireland six days after BOI increased their rates.

Hi Paul

I am the biggest critic of the CCPC. They are completely useless when it comes to protection of financial consumers. Although Irish consumers have paid the highest mortgage rates in the eurozone for most of the last 10 years, they have never initiated any study or even initiated any comment on the topic. In my view, they could be closed down and no one would miss them.

Having said that...

In a time of quickly changing mortgage rates, it is hard to stay up to date. So I would not hold the 6 day delay against them.

But they should have a prominent warning that rates change quickly. And they may well change between the time of choosing your mortgage and the rate falling.

Brendan

 

[ClubMan]

From the story some detail on these shady practices:

I wonder what sort of resources were expended on this "investigation"...