“Save 40 per cent on a 65in TV”, screams a certain rainforest-named ecommerce giant. “Half-price electric toothbrush”, shouts another.

Enticing though they might be, those enormous savings aren’t always quite what they seem. That TV you’ve been eyeing up might rarely, if ever, sells for the RRP the discount is calculated from. And that supposedly half-price electric toothbrush might have spent most of the year at the same price.

Fake discounts are littered throughout the web and up and down the high street, but they could soon become a thing of the past. Prime minister Andy Burnham has vowed to crack down on misleading prices as part of a new package of measures designed to tackle “rip-off” business practices.

Under the plans, retailers could be explicitly banned from making misleading claims about how much money shoppers are actually saving. The government specifically highlighted the dodgy practice of artificially increasing the price of a product, only to slash it shortly afterwards, advertising the difference as a saving and giving shoppers the impression they’re getting a better deal than they really are.

The government also wants to target products advertised at a discount despite selling for the same price before the supposed sale, as well as fake “was” prices and misleading RRPs that are used to make a saving appear bigger than it really is.

“We’re putting an end to phoney bargains,” Burnham said. “If something is advertised as half price, it should actually be half price.”

Under the proposals, misleading discount practices could be added to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA), making it easier for regulators to take action against retailers who use deceptive pricing tactics.

There is plenty of evidence of just how misleading these discounts can be. In 2025, Which? analysed the pricing history of 1,617 TVs advertised with a “was” and “now” price at four major tech retailers. It found that in more than half of cases, the advertised “was” price wasn’t even the price charged immediately before the promotion.

One particularly egregious example was a 65in LG TV sold by Very for £1,499, against a “was” price of £2,499, suggesting a whopping £1,000 saving. Except the TV hadn’t actually cost £2,499 for five months and had been sold at seven different prices since, all of them cheaper than that supposed “was” price.

The consumer group also investigated the prices of 21 electric toothbrushes sold through Oral-B’s online shop in June 2026, and couldn’t find 10 selling anywhere online at their claimed RRP. One Oral-B iO5 duo pack was advertised by both Boots and Oral-B with an RRP of £450 and a claimed saving of £305, despite Which? finding that it was never actually sold online at that RRP by either retailer during its two-month investigation. Historical pricing data also showed it hadn’t been sold at that price on the Boots website since August 2025.

Sports Direct has also come under scrutiny. Which? investigated 160 products sold on its website in 2025 and found 58 where it couldn’t see another online retailer selling the product at or above Sports Direct’s reference price.

But while Burnham might want to put an end to phoney bargains, the crackdown may not actually arrive in time for the biggest discounting event of the year. Black Friday, which sees hundreds of retailers slash prices on thousands of products, takes place on 27 November.

The government says it will launch a consultation on the proposals this autumn, but it hasn’t yet said exactly when the consultation will begin, how long it will last or, crucially, when any new rules might actually come into force. Most consultations last between 8 and 12 weeks.

The government would then need to consider the responses and decide how to proceed before the changes could come into effect.

While the days of misleading discounts are numbered, consumers are going to have to keep their price tracker tools open for a little bit longer. Using an online price tracking tool is one of the best ways to ensure you’re truly getting a good deal.

As well as fake discounts, Burnham also plans to crack down on so-called subscription traps, where customers can find it difficult to cancel a subscription or end up automatically renewing a contract they didn’t intend to sign up for. The government says that new rules around subscription traps will come into effect in January 2027.

For more, we’ve rounded up everything you need to know about Black Friday 2026