" Tick and Flick ! "

The government has long urged bank customers to shop around and change banks to avoid repressive trading conditions and " fee gouging ".    Unfortunately the arduous task of changing all those automatic debit and credit arrangements daunted many from taking this advice.

From July, 2012 all that will be needed it a simple tick and a signature - and all this will be automatically transferred to the new financial institution.   For the first time, customers will have the upper hand when they disagree with their server's policies - and the power to do something about it without the huge hassle that exists at present.

But - there is another industry that is using the same tactics to prevent customers escaping their clutches !

Providers of telephone and internet services are locked in price battles and huge savings can be made by accepting competitive offers - provided you don't mind the hassle that will be involved in advising others of your new email address - and getting the commercial world to make that change.

Similar to the banks, many people have their bills come via the internet rather than delivered by the postal services, and they are on the mailing list for information providers, shopping newsletters and for the forwarding of health, political and news information.

It is amazing how many of these otherwise very efficient organisations don't seem to read inward emails - and certainly are extremely slow to act on new address information.    Once you change your server - this information flow stops, and restarting it can be a long and tedious process.

It would be helpful if the same arrangement that will soon apply to the banks was applied to internet services.   Just as internet supply changes, so should all the previous arrangements be automatically shifted to the new supplier.

Obviously this will never be volunteered by the internet industry because it now serves as a deterrent to stop people changing supplier - but this same legislation that will apply to the banks would be welcome if it was extended to communications.