Consumer Affairs sanctions seven companies for "false discounts" on Black Friday.

The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption, and the 2030 Agenda has imposed a fine on seven companies specializing in online commerce for offering what it considers "fake sales" during Black Friday, the annual Black Friday event held at the end of November, during which users are offered attractive discounts.

The department headed by Pablo Bustinduy has not revealed the identity of the sanctioned companies, but it does state that they raised the prices of various products in their catalog a few days before the sales day, only to then lower them on the designated peak sales day. These practices, the ministry adds, constitute a violation of Article 20 of the Retail Trade Regulation Act, which stipulates that sales must indicate as a reference price the lowest price for that product during the previous month.

For the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, these "false discount" practices constitute "a direct deception of consumers" and are classified as "serious violations" under current regulations. This has resulted in fines of up to €348,000 for the seven companies mentioned, along with a ban on repeating these practices in the future.

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Of the seven companies sanctioned by the Consumer Affairs Ministry, three have admitted to carrying out the practices and have not appealed the case, instead paying the fines. The other four companies subject to the investigation have not admitted to carrying them out.

To carry out these sanctioning procedures, the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs monitored hundreds of discounted prices during Black Friday 2023. To do so, it used the European Commission's "Price Reduction Tool," which allows real-time verification of whether offers made during periods of high consumption comply with price indication regulations. The ministry assures that it continues to use the same application during different sales periods, such as the current one.

In fact, the Consumer Ministry is maintaining an open investigation into other possible "false discounts" in online sales during last year's Black Friday, in 2024, which could end, it warns, in new sanctions.