How to avoid fake Black Friday deals and scams

Like any big sales event, the period around Black Friday and Cyber Monday also attracts its fair share of villains.

Scammers, fraudsters and fakers hope that you’ll be so excited by the prospect of saving cash that you’ll fall into their traps – but the good news is that those traps are easy to spot if you know what to look for. Here’s how to avoid the most common Black Friday scams.

1. Check the seller

If you’ve never heard of the seller before, you should be on high alert: a site appearing from nowhere offering incredible deals on North Face jackets, Ray-Ban sunglasses or MacBook Airs should be treated with extreme suspicion. You can use Trustpilot to check user reviews of particular sites, but beware of those too: while Trustpilot works hard to find and remove fake reviews some still slip through. Look for suspicious patterns such as sudden clusters of positive reviews all appearing at the same time, or reviews that praise the company but don’t give any specifics.

2. Don’t fall for phishers

Phishing is the scam where fraudsters create genuine-looking emails that purport to be from your bank, from PayPal, from eBay or from other reputable firms. No matter how legitimate an email may seem, assume it’s dodgy unless you can prove otherwise: phishers’ goal is to get your login details so they can run up big bills in your name.

3. Beware delivery scams

This one isn’t Black Friday specific, but it becomes a lot more common around big sales events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you get an email or text claiming there’s a problem with your delivery, be wary: it’s easy to lose track of what’s coming when and fall for fake but official-looking emails or texts purporting to be from Royal Mail or DPD.

4. Be vigilant about vouchers

Another common retail scam is for newly created sites to offer big-name firms’ vouchers with big discounts or even for free via surveys or competitions. The vouchers don’t exist, and the goal is to trick you into handing over your card details or personal information that can be used to steal your online identity. As with any other kind of unsolicited email or text message, be very suspicious: there are enough legitimate voucher deals from reputable retailers or directly from the big companies themselves that you don’t need to take the risk of using sites you don’t know.

5. Check the price

One good way to identify fake deals is to use a price checker such as Pricespy.co.uk or Pricerunner.com to see what reputable retailers are charging. That’s particularly true now because so many Black Friday deals are set by the manufacturer, so for example Samsung TVs, Instant Pots and many other products will have very similar prices for the same models across multiple retailers. If the only site offering the same product for much less cash is one you haven’t heard of and doesn’t show up in the price checkers’ search results, that should ring alarm bells.

Another reason to use price checkers, and price history services such as PayPal Honey or CamelCamelCamel.com – that last one’s solely for Amazon prices – is because not all Black Friday deals are what they seem. A common tactic is to compare the deal price to the recommended retail price, even if the RRP doesn’t reflect the usual high street and online price. For example, a TV that cost £2,500 two years ago won’t be selling for that price now – but the Black Friday listing may compare the current price to the 2021 price to make the deal look better than it should.

A common tactic will be very familiar if you’ve ever bought wine on special offer from your local supermarket: the wine that’s £3 cheaper today went up in price by £3 for a month or two before coming back down again, so today’s price is just the price it was previously. The same happens a lot with some retailers during the run-up to Black Friday, which is why it’s so important to check price histories before you buy: what purports to be an amazing money-off deal might just be the price it’s usually being offered for.

6. Pay with a credit card

Although debit card protection has improved, for maximum consumer protection you should pay with a credit card. That gives you extra protection in the event of a dispute, or if the item doesn’t arrive, or if the retailer goes out of business and you need a repair under warranty.