Loans, Mortgages and Credit Cards. Best Buy tables can be misleading!

For providers of loans, mortgages and credit cards,

getting to the top of the Best Buy" tables is like hitting the jackpot. The customers cant get through the door fast enough! (Cheap mortgage)

Customers can find the Best Buy tables in press and magazine articles or on certain price comparison web sites - theyre like manner from heaven for those of us wanting to < insurance > emulate scrooge! Indeed, for finance companies, top positions can make all the difference between success or failure for a new product. So it should come as no surprise to learn that enterprising finance executives are not behind the door when it comes to devising tricks to find a way to the top of the tables. (loan quotations)

Take Alliance & Leicesters Moneyback Loan for instance. ( Cheap Home Insurance article )This loan product recently hit the top of the Best Buy tables for a £5,000, 3 year loan in a subscription only magazine for finance professionals called Moneyfacts. The interest rate was 5.5%. But the marketing boys at Alliance & Leicester had engineered the product to win top place for a £5,000 loan. The product was structured so that unless a client wanted exactly £5,000, the amount the client ended up paying increased and effectively pushed the product well down in the comparison tables. Not was all it seemed!

In the mortgage market, the Northern Rock Building Society ( life insurance shop ) provides another good example. It has a table topping position for its two year fixed rate mortgage. But look closer and youll find that theyll only lend on 80% of the propertys value and it has a 1.5% arrangement fee. This means that it only makes sense for those wanting a mortgage of over £175,000 and effectively rules out most first time buyers. (secured loan)

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