We conduct lifestyle surveys and provide a domestic and commercial energy switching service both online, face to face and over the phone.

Our website address is: https://www.dontwastemoney.co.uk.

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

“The ‘ScottishPower Energy Sales Advisor’ form is for interested candidates to apply for an Energy Sales Advisor role to represent ScottishPower at Energy Points and Venues across the UK. The Data Controller is “Venue Operator” Your details will be used to assess your suitability for the position and to help answer any follow up queries you may have in relation to your application. Any queries in relation to your personal data arising from an application for the Energy Advisor role, can be made to contactus@dontwastemoney.co.uk

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

You have completed either a survey or an energy switch with The Energy Comparison Service Ltd either face to face or over the telephone. By completing the survey and/ or an energy switch you accept the terms of this privacy policy.

This privacy policy outlines the information that we collect, how we will use it and the rights you have in relation to this information.

The Energy Comparison Service Ltd (“The Energy Comparison Service”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is a registered company in England and Wales (company reg: 09781679).

The Energy Comparison Service Ltd is registered with the ICO office (The Information Commissioner’s Office) in the United Kingdom (registration: ZA162947). We comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) 2018 and are the data controller of the personal information we collect about you for the purposes of switching your energy provider. We are committed to protecting the personal data you provide us, and we seek to fully comply with the Data Protection Act 2018.

We collect your details when you complete a survey or switch energy supplier or tariff with us. ‘Personal data’ is the information you provide during the completion.

The categories of personal data we may collect:

• Your name
• Your title
• Your date of birth
• Your contact information including email and address and phone number
• Your address and postcode
• Your current supplier, tariff and usage information
• Your Home Security
• Your Boiler
• Your Broadband
• Your Mobile Phones
• Your Insurance (home, pet, car, & travel)

We may use your personal data to provide you with information about our latest products and services that we believe will be of interest to you based on the information you have provided to us, aimed at helping you save money, including but not limited to helping you switch energy provider at the end of your new fixed term. We will also pass your details to the energy supplier you have chosen to take over your supply.

Under GDPR our comparison service will use either legitimate interest or explicit consent to process your data.

Legitimate interest

As a direct marketing business we process personal information for various legitimate business purposes which include some or all of the following:
• To enhance our services for the benefit of our customers including verification and validation
• To help make the communication more relevant and contextual
• To better understand how our customers interact with our services
• To provide direct marketing communications which we think will be of interest to you
• To determine the effectiveness of our and our clients promotional campaigns
• To identify and prevent fraud
These legitimate business purposes relate to the following activities:
• Direct Marketing - Postal and telephone marketing by both Dontwastemoney.co.uk and other third parties, but in either case communications will be in relation to products or services which we believe are of interest to you based upon information which you have provided us.
• Profiling - We will profile your information for marketing purposes to help our clients deliver marketing communication that is more relevant to you (for more information, please refer to the profiling section)
• ID Protection & Tracing - This is in relation to appropriate agencies which we have listed below which could help protect your identity and prevent fraud.
We process your data in the following ways:
• To pass on your personal information to our clients for marketing purposes who will send postal marketing to you, (except where you are registered with the MPS) or contact you by telephone (except where you are registered with the TPS). Marketing will only ever be from organisations operating within the industry sectors described below.
• To call you where your telephone number is not registered on the TPS.
• To call you where we have obtained your details from a third party. We will always be named within their privacy policy as a party to whom they share your information; once contact is made we will obtain your consent at the earliest opportunity. You will always be given the option to opt out should you not wish to hear from us again.
• To process your personal information for the purposes of customer analysis, non-automated profiling and direct marketing, to help us with our activities and to provide you with the most relevant information as long as this does not harm any of your rights and interests.
• To pass to our clients for use including tracing of individuals, verification and/or validation of the identity of individuals for the purposes of, but not limited to, anti-money laundering regulations, national security, crime prevention and detection, anti-fraud processes, asset recovery and asset reunification. More information on this can be found in the Credit References and other Agencies section.
• To determine the effectiveness of our clients promotional campaigns and advertising, and to develop our products, services, systems and relationships with you.
• Processing your information to protect you against fraud when using our website, and to ensure our websites and systems are secure.
• To pass on your details to companies to help their clients tailor products and services which best suit your needs. They will also use your data for fraud prevention. More information on this can be found in the Marketing Services Providers section.

For all types of processing, we apply various measures to carefully protect your privacy rights. In considering the most appropriate legal basis, Dontwastemoney.co.uk conducted Legitimate Interest Assessments. These are detailed evaluations of each type of data processing activity to ensure that we have balanced the need of the processing against the rights of the individual to ensure minimal privacy impact. This documentation is available by writing to: The Data Protection Officer, Dontwastemoney.co.uk, 2nd Floor, 3-5 St Pauls Square, Birmingham, B3 1QU; or by email to compliance@dontwastemoney.co.uk


As with all your data you can also object to us processing your data in this way. Your rights are detailed below.

Explicit consent

In short this is where you consent to a specific organisation, to contact you by a communication channel or channels which you have agreed to, for specific reasons, which in the context of our processing will be for marketing purposes. When we ask for your consent for a specific organisation, we will do so by giving you the opportunity to tick a box online or answer a question on the phone.

You can of course withdraw your consent at any time and we will describe how later on in this policy.

• We obtain consent for our brands to contact you by telephone where your number is registered on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or by email and SMS.
• To pass your contact details to named third parties where Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation (PECR) applies such as email marketing or where your telephone number is registered with the TPS
• To pass your contact details to named third parties where your postal address is registered with the Mailing Preference Service (MPS).
• Where our client has specifically asked us to gain your consent to pass on your details.
• We obtain your consent for using your personal information for promotional purposes. If you enter a competition on our website and are a winner, we will publish your name, picture and comment on our website.
• All cookies & similar technologies which do not meet the "strictly necessary" exemption under PECR.

As well as Dontwastemoney.co.uk, trusted partners that provide offers and/or services through Dontwastemoney.co.uk, including but not limited to Fizz Benefits, Homeshield, Virgin Media, ADT, BeSmart, Billmonitor, Seopa, Direct Save Telecom and in the event of an energy switch, the energy supplier you have chosen to switch to, may contact you by telephone, email, SMS or post.

You have a number of rights under the law which include:

A. Right to be informed - When we collect your data we have to tell you what we are going to do with it primarily through this Privacy Policy and consent statement.
B. Right of access - You have the right to contact us verbally or in writing to request details of the information we hold about you.
C. Right of rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify information that we hold about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
D. Right to erasure - This is also known as the right to be forgotten and gives you the right to request your information be removed if there is no compelling reason for its continued processing. A word of warning though we keep a list of people who have asked not to be contacted which we use to ensure that you receive no further marketing from our group or clients as a result of our activity. Without this list your data could enter our system again from another source and we would have no record of the fact that you asked us not to contact you.
E. Right to restrict processing - this is the alternative to erasure and gives you the right to tell us to stop processing your data but allowing us to keep enough information about you to ensure that your wishes are respected in the future.
F. Right to data portability - this gives you the right to ask a holder of your information to transfer that information to another business. This right would most commonly used if you were switching banks, insurance companies, utilities companies and mobile phone providers.
G. Right to object - you have the right to object to the processing of your data for marketing purposes and profiling for marketing purposes. You also have the right to ask us to cease processing based on our legitimate interests, where there is no overriding justification for the processing of your data. Your rights and freedoms override our interests.
H. Rights related to automated decision making including profiling - we do not use automated decision making processes which would have a potentially damaging effect on you. But if we did you have the right to obtain human intervention, express your point of view, obtain an explanation of the decision and challenge it.
I. Right to withdraw consent at any time where relevant - you have the right to withdraw your consent to the processing of your information at any time and we must provide you with the information to need to do so, at the time we collect your data and each time we contact you. You can withdraw consent in the following ways; In writing to: The Data Protection Officer, Dontwastemoney.co.uk, 2nd Floor, 3-5 St Pauls Square, Birmingham B3 1QU; By email to compliance@dontwastemoney.co.uk; or By telephone on: 0121 728 3210
J. Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority - If we cannot deal with your complaint to your satisfaction you also have the right to complain to a relevant supervisory authority which include; The Information Commissioners Office; Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF, or call: 0303 123 1113 or online at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ and The Advertising Standards Authority - https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html

On rare occasions we will be asked to share your information for the prevention of fraud or with regulatory bodies who are investigating complaint made by a consumer.