Consumer watchdog fines seven companies 350,000 euros for misleading discounts during Black Friday 2023

"Offers this good won't wait" is often the attractive slogan used by companies before Black Friday to encourage people to kick off the Christmas shopping season. There are, however, many price traps, as Spain's Ministry of Consumer Affairs has detected.

Minister Pablo Bustinduy's department has fined seven companies a total of 350,000 euros for false discounts during the 2023 campaign. The misleading practice consists in increasing the price a few days before Black Friday just to advertise the original price as a discount.

The ministry has published the names of five of the seven investigated companies: Carrefour, PC Componentes, Mediamarkt, Notino Italia and Gestaweb 2020. According to the law, the price of any given product can be considered discounted if it's not higher than the lowest price advertised in the last 30 days, which should appear as crossed out in the promotion label. The companies in question have been sanctioned because they raised the price one week before Black Friday 2023 and then advertised the usual price, without an additional discount, as the offer.

Notino Italia has been fined 110,000 euros; Gestaweb 2020 100,000 euros; Media Markt 25,000 euros; Carrefour 21,500 euros; and PC Componentes 1,500 euros.

A few days ago, Bustinduy reported that his department had launched this year's campaign to control and monitor possible fraudulent discounts by large companies over the Black Friday season, including subsequent Cyber Monday sales.

Consumer Affairs will use technological tools to detect practices such as prior price increases to simulate a discount, as well as other commercial strategies considered irregular: prices that progressively increase, pressure tactics to encourage purchases, price variations depending on the moment or even personalisation of the amount according to the consumer's data.