EU investigates illegal Black Friday sales techniques

The European Commission has investigated online retailers and found that one in three use misleading sales techniques on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Misleading Black Friday practices in the EU

An investigation by the EU Commission and authorities in 23 EU countries, alongside Iceland and Norway, has found that, of 314 online retailers investigated, 30 percent had referenced Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts incorrectly.

36 percent of the investigated online retailers attempted to add optional items to customers’ baskets, and 40 percent did so without asking for customers' explicit permission.

34 percent of the 314 online retailers showed price comparisons on their site, but didn’t give explicit information about where the price references came from. Finally, 10 percent of the retailers used so-called “drip pricing”, where large, additional fees came later in the purchase process.

Half of scarcity claims were fake

Anyone who has done online shopping is familiar with scarcity stock claims, “23 other people are looking at this flight”, “stock running low”, or a countdown timer adding pressure to make a purchase.

The commission and authorities found that 18 percent of online retailers used these techniques to pressure customers to make purchases. Half of the companies that made stock-scarcity claims did not actually have low stock.

“Adding items without the consumer's consent, displaying prices in a misleading way, falsely claiming a product is running out, or hiding extra fees until the end of the process are illegal practices under EU consumer law,” the commission explained in a press release