PostgreSQL: Using the .pgpass file

I have been reading up on the .pgpass file, but I can’t get it working for me. My .pgpass file looks something like this: 127.0.0.1:5432:accounts:fred:p@55w0rd I set the privilege to 0600 (this is on CentOS Linux) and try:

psql

Where I get the message: >psql: error: FATAL: database "…" does not exist where … is my user name. I can successfully connect if I use:

psql -u … -d accounts

so I don’t think my .pgpass file is doing its job. How can I get it to work?