How to Spot a Fake Discount (and the “Was Price” Trick)
Most “90% off” deals are real. Some are theater. Here’s how to tell.
A fake discount is a normal price dressed up as a markdown — usually by inflating the “was” or “list” price beside it. The three fastest tells: (1) the list price is wildly higher than what the item normally sells for, (2) the percentage off is huge on a cheap, everyday item, and (3) the same product is the same price — or cheaper — somewhere else right now. Check those three and you’ll catch the vast majority of fakes.
What a “fake discount” actually is
Stores can show a “reference,” “list,” or “was” price next to the current price. When that reference is the item’s real recent selling price, the discount is genuine. When it’s an inflated MSRP, a price from years ago, or a multipack price shown against a single unit, the “discount” is mostly marketing. The current price might still be fine — but the “75% off” badge is doing the lying.
The 5 checks that take ten seconds
1. Sanity-check the “was” price. Would this item ever really cost that? A $4 bottle of cleaner “was $94” is an inflated MSRP or a data error.
2. Distrust giant % off on cheap items. Real 80–90% markdowns happen on higher-ticket clearance, rarely on $5–$15 consumables.
3. Compare across retailers. Search the exact title elsewhere. If the “sale” price is the everyday price somewhere else, it isn’t a sale.
4. Check the price history. For Amazon, a tool like CamelCamelCamel shows whether today’s price is genuinely low or just the usual price with a fresh badge.
5. Do the per-unit math. Multipacks often show a single-unit list price against a pack price. Divide it out — sometimes the “deal” costs more per unit.
Red flags that mean “ignore the badge”
- A “list price” far above the typical street price.
- Suspiciously round, high “was” numbers on a no-name item.
- A countdown timer or “today only” with no actual price change.
- A discount that only applies if you also buy something else.
Worked examples: the badge vs the price history
The numbers in this section are illustrative. They are round, made-up figures chosen to show the arithmetic. They are not real products and not real prices. The patterns, though, are real, and the first two are ones the FTC describes in its pricing guides (see “The rule behind it” below).
| Pattern | “Was” price shown | Price now | Badge says | What it sold for in the weeks before | Real saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raised, then “cut” | $130.00 | $80.00 | 38% off | $80.00 | 0% (no saving) |
| Stale list price | $60.00 | $32.00 | 47% off | $35.00 | 9% off |
| A genuine markdown | $45.00 | $30.00 | 33% off | $45.00 | 33% off |
The formula is simple. Badge discount = (was − now) ÷ was. Real saving = (typical recent price − now) ÷ typical recent price. If the item has not been sold at the “was” price in the recent past, the first number is marketing and only the second one counts.
Raised, then “cut.” The item sells for $80 for months. For two weeks the listing shows $130, then goes back to $80 with a “38% off” badge. The price chart shows a flat line with a short spike, and the real saving is zero. A flat line with a short spike right before a sale is the signature of this trick.
Stale list price. A $60 “list price” sits beside a $32 price and a 47% badge. But the item has sold for about $35 for the whole year. At $32 it is still a fair price, just a 9% saving rather than 47%. Judge it on the second number.
A genuine markdown. The item held $45 for three months, then drops to $30. Badge and real saving agree at 33%. This is what a real deal looks like on a chart: a long flat line, then a step down.
The multipack trap. A single unit sells for $2.50 every day. A 12-pack shows “was $40.00, now $32.00” (20% off). Divide it out: $32.00 ÷ 12 = $2.67 per unit, about 7% more than buying singles. The badge is true and the deal is still not one.
The giant badge on a cheap item. A $9.99 item with a “was $49.99” tag claims 80% off, and its “was” is five times the price. We hide any reference price that is more than four times the current price (our deal-picking rules explain the rest), because a reference price that far above the real one is almost always a stale list price or a data error.
How to run the price-history check in a minute
- Find the item’s history. Amazon says you can tap “Price History” on a product page to see up to 365 days of pricing (from Amazon’s Black Friday FAQ, read Nov 2, 2026). Our Amazon finds link out without showing prices, so that chart is where to look. Third-party trackers such as CamelCamelCamel cover Amazon too.
- If the store has no chart (many do not), compare the exact same model at two or three other retailers, and check what the item cost before the sale began.
- Look at the shape. A long flat line then a step down is a real markdown. A spike just before the sale is a fake one.
- Do the math with the real-saving formula above. As a rule of thumb, if it is under about 10%, the sale is not worth rushing for.
- Be extra careful in sale season. Sale events are when “was” prices matter most. Before you buy anything on Black Friday, write down what it costs today.
The rule behind it
US federal guidance says the same thing in legal language. Under the FTC’s Guides Against Deceptive Pricing (16 CFR Part 233), a former price is a fair basis for a “sale” claim only if it was the actual price at which the item was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period. If an artificial, inflated price was set up so a large reduction could be advertised later, the guide calls the bargain a false one. It even gives the pattern above as an example: a $10 price held for a few days, then “cut” to the usual $7.50. The guide also warns that a tiny reduction, such as “reduced to $9.99” from $10, can be misleading. These are guides, not a promise that every retailer follows them, and this is not legal advice. It does mean you are right to be skeptical.
Questions about how we handle this? Our FAQ explains why a deal sometimes shows no “was” price, and whether we track prices.
How SnagDaily filters these out
We pull prices straight from the retailer’s own live feed (never scraped), rank deals by how much you actually save, and automatically hide listings where the “was” price is implausible — any item whose “was” price is more than four times its current price. If a markdown looks too good to be true, it doesn’t make the page.
Keep reading
Once you can spot a fake markdown, the next two skills are knowing which Walmart labels signal a real saving, and when each thing actually goes on sale: