Black Friday, that lovely American tradition where people spend loads of money they don’t have on things they don’t need, just because things are supposedly ‘discounted’, is back once more. YAY.
Now don’t get us wrong, we’re totally not immune to the tactics of clever retailers either. But sadly our ‘I’m getting a really good deal on that TV/sound system/pair of pants’ justification theory has just been pulled into question...
According to a the survey by Which? carried out during the shopping season this time last year, we’re not actually getting really good deals. In fact, we’re all totally getting done by big businesses.
The consumer watchdog tracked the prices of 20 different items (mainly home appliances and gadgets) on sites like Amazon, John Lewis and Currys, before, during and after Black Friday in 2015.
Currys and AO came out worst, with Which? claiming they’d inflated the 'was' price to make promotions look better than they actually were. They also may have breached consumer protection rules. Nice work you guys.
‘In one case, Currys claimed shoppers were saving £450 on a TV, when in fact it should have listed the saving as £50’ said Which? ‘When promoting a discount like ‘was £100, now £50’, the ‘was’ price should be the most recent price the item was sold at for 28 consecutive days or more, and not a price that is more than six months old. But we found numerous examples where that wasn't the case.’
Don't know about you, but we might just sit Black Friday out this year - and do something crazy like save our money for real discounts on things we actually want...
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.