Website Uses Power Of Groups To Reduce Bills

By Michael Plutchok, NoCamels April 24, 2012 2 minutes

Bills - Lifestyle News - Israel

Find you are paying too much on service bills because you just don’t have time to search the market for the best deals? An Israeli lawyer and entrepreneur thinks he has found a solution with his website Better Two, a social network centered around bills.

Rammi Attias says he uses the power of groups to get prices to drop. The site automatically scans the market for the best deals and then negotiates further. If a hundred people are negotiating for the same service, Attias says, the provider is more likely to drop his price than for one person.

Attias laughingly says he drew his inspiration from reading King Solomon’s famous monolog in chapter 4 of the book of Ecclesiastes: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor… A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

Turning bills into a tolerable experience

“I thought about this idea about four years ago when I began to feel I’m losing control of my bills,” he told NoCamels NoCamels. “You give your credit card information to many companies who are your monthly service providers and between the different services it just becomes so much – it’s hard to keep track of.”

For Attias, it was only natural that people with a mutual interest understand the power of social networks for everyday needs. “I think social networks today are rebuilding the ability to reorganize and restore the power of the group,” he adds.

Registration to the site is free of charge. After signing in, users tell the site which bills they are interested in reducing. The site charges a 10 percent fee of the amount which the consumer saves on deals. “In other words, we don’t charge the consumer directly. However, since when a group forges – a price is struck that would not have been possible as an individual, we will charge 10 percent of the savings made possible by our website,” explains Attias.

So how much can a family save on their annual bills, using Better Two? According to Attias, “anywhere between NIS 20,000 to 40,000 thousand ($5400 -10,800) per year, for about 20 bills.”

The site is currently available only in Hebrew, but Attias aims to create a platform that will be accessible worldwide.

On the market since the beginning of the year, Better Two says they already have 5,500 registered users on their website.

Photo by brendan.wood