Black Friday isn’t a scam. I run a discount site, so obviously I believe in the value of a good promo code—they work, they save real money, and when you find the right one at the right time, there’s a genuine satisfaction to it. That said, discount codes only work on things you’re already planning to buy. The bigger savings—the ones that quietly add up to hundreds of pounds a year—come from changing how you spend in the first place.
Let’s come to key points now:
The Illusion How Retailers Manipulate Deals
- Ghost Prices (RRP): retailers usually have a high retail price (RRP) on which the item was never sold, and the current amount appears like a massive discount.
- The Was/Now Game: The high price on the was may have only been flagrant a short time or the item might have been offered at numerous lower prices in between and so the comparison will be misleading.
- Perpetual Discounts: There are companies (such as VPNs) that have discounted prices (e.g. 70-77 percent off) all the year round and thus the banner of the Black Friday discount is merely deceptive.
Stopwatch Red Flags Fake Vouchers and Promo Scams.
- Free Money in Advance: Real giveaways or prizes do not require a shipping fee or processing fee.
- Stunning Deals: Deals such as 90 percent of designer products are nearly always bogus, since luxury brands do not make massive flash deals on random online sites.
- The manufactured Urgency: The use of countdown timers causing panic (Only 2 hours left!), and which mysteriously reset themselves is an indicator of a false promotion.
- Absence of Terms and Conditions (T&Cs): Promotions that are legitimate will always post their T&Cs; when you cannot see them the offer probably does not exist.
- Sensitive Data Requests: Socket of any request demanding your National Insurance number, sort code or bank account login is a fraud, period.
- Hidden Offers: It is highly suspicious when the offer is put in a promotion which is not available in the official and verified site or social media platforms, but only in a personal DM.
- Suspicious URLs: Search the URLs that are misspelled or are similar to each other (amaz0n-deals.co) and that the padlock icon (secure connection) appears.
✅ Checking Any Promotional Offer.
- Check URL/Domain: Make sure that you are on the domain of the retailer, not a replica deals subdomain.
- Check on the Official Channels: The promo can be searched on the official homepage of the company, on the official accounts in social media, or in the email newsletter. When it is on one random external site, then it is most likely a scam.
- Check Administering Body (prizes): In the case of a draw and competition, the external legal firm managing the entries and the process of picking a winner should be called by name and this should be stated in the terms.
- Authenticate Prior victors: Actual promotions need to place prior victors on confirmed accounts.
- Check Price-Tracking Tools: Re-emphasize with using such tools as CamelCamelCamel in order to verify the past price and make sure that the Was price was actual.
🚨 If You’ve Been Scammed
- Report Immediately: Report to Action Fraud (0300 123 2040) immediately to leave a trail and give intelligence.
- Call Your Bank: You have a short time to call your bank as soon as you realize a scam to freeze your transactions and place a flag on your account; if you do not do it, you will miss your chargeback.
- Capturing Evidence: Take a screenshot of the URL, the page where the payment is made, emails, and chat logs before the bog site goes down.
- Check Your Credit Report: If you see either Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion with applications, accounts, or addresses that you did not open, and may want to place a fraud alert.
Black Friday 2025 approaches with £10.2 billion in expected spending—here’s how to avoid the deals that aren’t deals and the scams that steal more than your discount.
The Black Friday Discount Illusion
Which? ran an investigation last year that probably ruined Christmas for a few retail executives. They tracked 175 products across home, tech, and health categories throughout the entire year—and found that every single one was either the same price or cheaper at other times outside Black Friday. Not most of them. All of them. A hundred percent.
And yet here we are again, with 43% of UK adults planning to shop Black Friday 2025, up from 37% last year. Barclays reckons the average shopper will drop about £430 chasing these “once-a-year savings.”
The maths gets uncomfortable when you sit with it. If you’re spending four hundred quid on deals that aren’t actually cheaper than what you’d pay in February or September, you haven’t saved anything. You’ve just bought things faster and felt clever doing it.
Do you know:
- Home Depot: Accused of masking original prices with Black Friday sale stickers showing identical costs, exposed in viral TikTok videos. True – a December 2024 Yahoo Finance article and a viral TikTok (500k+ views) showed in-store footage where “holiday sale” stickers were placed directly over the original price tags with zero actual discount.
- Target: Called out for TVs with sale prices matching underlying tags, claimed as early Black Friday promotions but seen as misleading. Partially true but largely unsubstantiated in 2024/2025 – plenty of TV deals and price-match policies exist, but no verified videos or reports of sale prices exactly matching hidden original tags were found this season.
- Amazon: Sellers caught marking up previously discounted prices just before Black Friday to fake deeper deals, highlighted on Reddit. True and well-documented – multiple 2024–2025 Reddit threads (r/amazonprime, r/buildapcsales, r/ultrawidemasterrace, etc.) show tracked price histories of monitors, GPUs, and other electronics being artificially inflated weeks before Black Friday, then “slashed” back to (or slightly below) the original price.
- Harvey Norman: Customers spotted TVs priced higher pre-Black Friday then “reduced” back, facing court accusations in Ireland. Partially true – Irish customers on Reddit (r/AskIreland, 2024 posts) documented TVs jumping from €850 to higher prices weeks before being “reduced” during the sale (sometimes still above the original price); however, no confirmed court cases or ACCC-style actions were found for 2024/2025.
- Boots: Remington hair dryer advertised as reduced from £49.99 to £18.99, but never sold at higher price in prior 12 months. True – Which? 2024 investigation confirmed the Remington Shea Soft Hair Dryer’s £49.99 “was” price was only charged for 13 days in the entire previous year; for the other 96 % of the time it was already cheaper or on sale.
- John Lewis: Garmin smartwatch claimed reduced from £384 to £294, but highest prior price was £349.99. True – Which? price-tracking in 2024 showed the “was £384” claim on Garmin watches (e.g., Forerunner series) was misleading; the highest price actually charged in the preceding months was only £349.99.
- Currys: Investigated for Black Friday deals not cheaper than past six months, despite promises. True – Which? found that 84 % of Currys’ 2024 Black Friday deals went even lower after the event, despite the retailer’s pre-sale promise that nothing would be cheaper in the following six months (they introduced a “lowest ever” guarantee in 2025 as damage control).
- Walmart: Part of early discount waves criticized for inflating prices ahead to exaggerate Black Friday savings. Partially true – widespread criticism in 2024/2025 media (Reuters, Newsweek) and consumer forums about multi-wave early sales (starting mid-November) using pre-hikes to create the illusion of bigger discounts, though no retailer-specific lawsuit or investigation was confirmed this year.
- Macy’s: Pushed pre-Black Friday deals amid complaints of fake markdowns from regular prices. Partially true – Macy’s ran aggressive early sales (25–70 % off from early November), and general consumer complaints plus some Reddit tracking showed items briefly listed at inflated “regular” prices before being marked down, but no formal Which?-style probe singled out Macy’s in 2024/2025.
- Kohl’s: Accused in broader probes of relabeling ongoing sales as Black Friday specials. Partially true – Kohl’s 2024/2025 ads heavily promoted “Black Friday prices now” with Kohl’s Cash stacking, but critics and deal analysts pointed out many items were the same price (or only marginally lower) than ongoing clearance or coupon-stack deals; no specific regulatory investigation confirmed.
How Retailers Make Full Price Feel Like a Bargain
One technique that Amazon highly favors is hard to miss once you become aware of it. They often display a “Recommended Retail Price” that gives the impression of an inflated current price—despite the fact that the item was never actually sold at that RRP. It’s essentially a fictitious figure, randomly chosen to create the illusion that £89.99 is an overly generous deal when in reality, it has been priced at £89.99 since March.
According to Which?, a mere 55% of shoppers were aware of the meaning of RRP. The remaining 45%, upon seeing a higher number crossed out, simply assumed it meant they were getting a good deal.
The “Was/Now” game takes on a sly twist when it comes to televisions. Remember the LG television at Very with the price tag of “was £2,499, now £1,499”? Well, that same TV had actually been sold at seven previous lower prices before the “was” price even existed. Sure, at some point it was technically priced at £2,499, in the same way I technically weighed less when I was twelve. But that doesn’t make it a practical comparison.
It seems that VPN providers have stopped trying to hide the truth. NordVPN consistently offers discounts ranging from 70-77% throughout the year, and even during Black Friday, the additional savings are only minimal. The “exclusive Black Friday deal” banner is simply for show, as you can find the same discount in July or January.
Regarding this matter, the existence of price tracking tools serves a specific purpose. For instance, CamelCamelCamel displays the complete price history of any item on Amazon. Similarly, PriceSpy and PriceRunner offer this feature for various retailers. By simply reviewing a 90-day price chart, you can quickly determine if you’re receiving a good deal or being taken advantage of.
What Fake Vouchers and Promo Scams Actually Cost
Right, so far we’ve talked about legal manipulation—annoying, but technically above board. Fake discount codes are a different animal entirely.
Cifas and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance put the UK’s total scam losses at £11.4 billion over the past twelve months. Average loss per victim: £1,443. And 61% of Britons encounter scam attempts at least once a month now. It’s become background noise, which makes it more dangerous—you stop paying attention to the hundredth suspicious text and that’s the one that gets you.
Here’s where it gets properly grim: only 18% of victims recovered their money. That number used to be higher. And 71% never report scams at all, so the real figures are worse than anyone’s tracking.
Identity fraud specifically—the kind where someone opens accounts in your name using details you handed over for a “free voucher”—costs the UK £1.8 billion annually. Over 237,000 cases recorded in 2023. The average victim doesn’t even realise they’ve been targeted for seven months. Then another three and a half months sorting out the mess. Average financial damage sits around £1,076 to £1,190, though some poor sods lose £9,000 to £30,000.
Purchase scams—paying for goods that never arrive—accounted for £87.1 million in losses last year. It’s the most common type of Authorised Push Payment fraud, and 72% of it originates online.
A dodgy “£50 off” code from an Instagram DM could genuinely cost you fourteen hundred quid. Or a year of your life fighting with credit agencies.
Red Flags That Should Make You Close the Tab
Some of these feel obvious written down, but scammers bank on you being distracted, rushed, or just wanting the deal to be real.
If they want money upfront for a “free” prize, walk away. Real giveaways don’t charge shipping fees or “processing costs” for prizes you’ve won. That’s not how winning works.
Ninety percent off designer goods? Unless the designer’s gone bankrupt that morning, no. Louis Vuitton doesn’t do flash sales through random Facebook ads.
Countdown timers creating panic—”Only 2 hours left!”—on codes that mysteriously reset when you check back tomorrow. Legitimate sales have real end dates. Fake ones manufacture urgency.
No terms and conditions anywhere. Real promotions publish T&Cs before you commit to anything. If you can’t find them, they don’t exist because the “promotion” doesn’t exist.
Any voucher asking for your National Insurance number or bank login is a scam. Full stop. No legitimate discount requires your sort code.
Offers that only exist in private DMs and never appear on official websites or verified social accounts. Why would a real promotion hide from potential customers?
URLs that look almost right but aren’t quite. That padlock symbol matters. The exact spelling matters. “amaz0n-deals.co” isn’t Amazon.
Verifying Any Promotional Offer (Takes Three Minutes, Saves Thousands)
Start with the URL. Is this actually the retailer’s official domain? Not a lookalike, not a “deals” subdomain you’ve never seen before—the actual website.
Search for the promo on the company’s official channels. If Currys is running a 40% off code, it’ll be on their homepage, their verified social accounts, their email newsletter. If the code only exists on one random website or Telegram group, that’s your answer.
For prize draws and competitions, look up who’s administering it. Legitimate ones use external legal firms to handle entries and winner selection. The terms should name them.
Check whether previous winners were announced publicly. Real promotions post winners on verified accounts because they’re required to. Fake ones go quiet after the entry deadline.
This verification habit applies across more than just retail. Whether you’re checking discount codes from a new retailer, bonus offers from new non-GamStop casinos worth exploring, or competition entries on social media—the principles stay the same. Confirmed terms, transparent operators, traceable administration. If any of those are missing, something’s wrong.
Price-tracking tools deserve another mention here. CamelCamelCamel, PriceSpy, Keepa—bookmark them. A quick look at historical pricing tells you whether that “70% off” ever existed at the original price or whether the maths is creative fiction.
If You’ve Already Been Scammed
Speed matters here. The 18% who recovered losses acted fast.
Report to Action Fraud immediately—0300 123 2040 or actionfraud.police.uk. Yes, it sometimes feels like shouting into a void, but it creates a paper trail and feeds intelligence that helps catch these operations.
Call your bank the moment you suspect something’s wrong. They can freeze transactions, reverse pending payments, and flag your account for monitoring. The window for chargebacks is tight.
Contact whatever brand the scammers were impersonating. They need to know their name’s being used, and they’ll often issue warnings to other customers.
Screenshot absolutely everything before it disappears. Fake websites go dark fast once they’ve collected enough victims. Grab the URL, the payment page, any emails or chat logs. Your bank and Action Fraud will want evidence.
Check your credit report through Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion. Look for applications you didn’t make, addresses you’ve never lived at, accounts you didn’t open. Consider a fraud alert if you handed over personal details.
Real Savings vs False Economy
There’s a certain irony to Black Friday. People spend hours hunting deals to save fifty quid, then lose fourteen hundred to a scam they didn’t spend thirty seconds verifying.
Checking price history before buying takes maybe five minutes and regularly saves £50-200 on inflated “deals.” Clicking an unverified voucher code takes two seconds and could cost you the average £1,443 scam loss. Verifying a promotional offer’s legitimacy—three minutes. Avoiding identity fraud that costs victims over a grand on average.
The best discount, genuinely, is the scam you never fall for. Proper bargains do exist during Black Friday—but only for shoppers who verify before they click. Everyone else is just paying full price with extra steps and more risk.
