OFT cautions six High Street furniture retailers over fake prices
The Office of Fair Trading has ordered six unnamed High Street furniture and carpet retailers to end the ‘endemic’ practice of using fake prices on which to advertise dramatic sounding price cuts.
Stores involved in the scam would advertise false price cuts on the basis of these inflated prices, deceiving consumers into believing that they were snapping up a bargain.
Known as ‘reference pricing’ the OFT found examples where the retailer claimed a price ‘was’ £500 and was ‘now’ £300, but in some cases the stores involved hadn’t managed to shift a single item at the higher price.
Overall the investigation found that 95 per cent of sales came in at the lower ‘now’ price suggesting that the practice is widespread.
Gaucho Rasmussen of the OFT said: "Reference pricing can mislead consumers into thinking the item they have bought is of higher value and quality..
"Buying an item immediately means they do not get the chance to search the market for the real best deals.”
Thus far none of the six guilty retailers has been publicly named but if they fail to comply they could be fined up to 30 per cent of turnover.