It’s nearly impossible at the moment to get a quote for things like mortgages, loans and insurance without being telephoned almost the second you hit the ‘Get Quote’ button.

Far too many sites that offer online quotes lead you to believe you WILL get a quote online when in fact they are just gathering your details to give you call.

If the sites made it blatantly clear that someone was going to call it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

I recently spent a bit of time trying to find a website that could give approximate quotes for life insurance but out of the multitude I looked at there was not one that didn’t require a phone number.

OK, so with just basic information a quote can only be approximate but most people don’t want to fill in pages and pages of forms online, they just want a quick overview.

The difficulty that can arise is a customer may be quoted a really good price but when all the facts are available the actual price may be higher. This can lead to disputes and dissatisfied customers.

There’s nothing worse than being told you can’t have something when you already have it in your mind that you can.

I have to admit to being partly responsible for perpetuating this in the mortgage industry ever so slightly by buying leads from online resources but I try to go via companies that don’t mislead applicants.

Of course to avoid getting a call it’s entirely possible to just put a false phone number on the form but if you submit your name and address, people can still look you up in the phone book, if you’re listed.

Another drawback is you could spend hours filling in forms and still not get an online quote!

From experience I’ve found online car insurance comparison sites to be better than other sectors at actually providing a quote online but I still got a phone call!

The best way to get quotes in many cases is to actually go direct to the insurer’s website and fill in their forms. There is generally no obligation to accept a quote so you can go from site to site (the old fashioned way) getting quotes and keeping a note so you can compare them yourself.

So what’s the point of comparison sites?! Oh, no. I appear to have joined that bandwagon…