We learnt yesterday the Federal court ruled against Trivago . They were telling consumers they were getting the lowest cost deals.
In fact they were getting the deals Trivago got the largest commissions on.
Commisions are insidious. Consumers find it hard to find out exactly how much they are. Indeed in a lot of cases consumers think they are getting a service for free.
Financial planners and mortgage brokers gorge themselves on trailing commissions. They are a specialised form of commission. They are even more insidious. Consumers get hit with a trailing commission each year every year.
Commissions in whatever form are not transparent indeed very opaque.
In both cases the people getting the trailing commissions are paid by the organisation who is selling the product. .Thus we can say both financial planners and mortgage brokers are simply part of the selling process of either investing or getting loans for housing.
They do not increase competition rather the opposite. It is not surprising the Present Liberal National government caved into mortgage brokers. It was the same thing with financial planners.
In neither case do they want to charge fees as then they would have to justify it.
Neither wants to put the consumer first just as Trivago had no intention of doing so.
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