How to Check If a Sale Is Real in Australia

In April 2026, an Australian court ordered a popular mattress brand to pay $15 million in penalties for running fake sales. Not bad sales. Not misleading marketing. Fake sales: prices that had never been offered at the higher amount, with countdown timers that reset the moment they reached zero.

It was not a surprise to anyone paying attention. The surprise was the scale.

The Federal Court ordered Emma Sleep to pay $15 million in penalties for advertising fake strikethrough prices and countdown timers that reset, finding the conduct deliberate and not inadvertent.[032] The company sent misleading sales representations to more than 4 million Australian consumers. And the Court found senior management turned a blind eye to whether the conduct breached Australian Consumer Law.

If you have ever felt that a sale price seemed too convenient to be real, or that a timer seemed to count down to nothing in particular, you were right to be suspicious. Here is how to check.

Why fake sales work on Australian shoppers

84% of Australian shoppers say price is the single biggest factor when they choose where to buy.[005] Retailers know this. And a small number of them design their pricing mechanics around it, not to offer genuine savings, but to manufacture the impression of them.

91% of Australians say they are looking for deals more than ever.[004] The pressure to save is real and understandable, given what cost-of-living has looked like over the past few years. Which is exactly why manufactured urgency is so effective. You already want a deal. A countdown timer just accelerates the decision before the research can happen.

The most common tactics used in Australia:

Inflated strikethrough prices. A product is listed at "$299, was $599." The product may have never sold at $599 in any meaningful volume, or at all. Under Australian Consumer Law, the "was" price must represent a genuine prior selling price for a meaningful period. If it does not, it is misleading.

Countdown timers that reset. The clock reads "3 hours remaining." When it hits zero, it resets. The sale does not end. Emma Sleep used countdown timers and phrases like "Ending Soon" and "Last chance to get up to 55% off" to create urgency around sales that kept running indefinitely at the same price.

"Up to X% off" with almost nothing at that rate. A sale labelled "up to 60% off" may have one clearance item discounted by that amount, with the rest of the range at 10 to 15%.

Sitewide claims with fine-print exclusions. A "sitewide sale" that excludes the most popular products, buried in terms and conditions no one reads before they click buy.

How to spot a fake strikethrough price

The test is straightforward: was this product ever genuinely sold at the higher price?

Of the 74 products Emma Sleep advertised with strikethrough prices, 58 had never been for sale at the higher price, and 16 had been sold at that price only rarely.[033] In other words, nearly every discount claim was fabricated. The "savings" figure customers saw had no genuine reference price underneath it.

Here are four ways to check before you buy.

Check the price history. BuyWisely tracks price history across a wide range of Australian retailers at no cost. CamelCamelCamel does the same for Amazon Australia. If the "was" price has never appeared in the product's historical data at any point during the past year, it was not a real reference price.

Look at how long the sale has been running. Search for the product name in Google, click the "News" tab, and sort by date. If the same "60% off, limited time" headline has been appearing for months, the time limit is not real. Genuine limited-time offers are not repeated week after week with the same urgency language.

Screenshot the price before the sale. For major sale events like EOFY, Click Frenzy, or Black Friday, search for the products you want in the week before the sale and take screenshots of the current prices. A genuine discount is easy to verify when you have a before price on record.

Ignore the timer. Legitimate sale deadlines are real: EOFY ends on 30 June regardless of what retailers want. But if a countdown timer looks like a design feature rather than a genuine operational constraint, treat it as decoration. The Emma Sleep timers were not tied to any genuine end date — they simply reset when they reached zero.

What your rights are if you have been misled

Australian Consumer Law gives you real protections here.

Under section 18, businesses cannot engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive. Under section 29(1)(i), they cannot make false or misleading representations about price. This covers:

• Strikethrough prices that were never genuine
• Countdown timers that do not represent a real deadline
• Discount claims based on inflated reference prices the product never actually sold at
• "Sitewide" claims where significant exclusions apply

If you believe you have been misled, report it to the ACCC at accc.gov.au. Take screenshots of the sale price, the strikethrough price, and any countdown timer before the sale ends. Evidence disappears fast once a campaign closes. While the ACCC does not resolve individual complaints, they use reports to identify patterns and take enforcement action.

"The thing that made me most frustrated when I started researching online shopping wasn't the prices. It was the signals. Countdown timers counting down to nothing. Strikethrough prices for products that had never sold at that price. Sale badges on items that had been on 'sale' for six months straight. The system is designed to make you act before you have had time to think. A price history does the opposite. It shows you what actually happened. That is the whole point."

-- Joey Krosch, Founder of FindFetcher

What the ACCC is watching in 2026

The Emma Sleep case is the clearest signal yet that the ACCC is prepared to pursue significant penalties for misleading pricing. Misleading pricing practices in the retail sector are a named enforcement priority for 2025-26.

What the regulator is specifically watching:

• Strikethrough pricing where the reference price was not genuine
• Countdown timers used to create artificial urgency
• "Sitewide" or "storewide" claims where exclusions are buried in fine print
• "Up to X% off" claims where very few products qualify for the top rate

The ACCC ran a sweep of Black Friday 2025 advertisements and found widespread misuse of "sitewide" and "storewide" language. Several retailers were warned publicly.

For consumers, the practical implication is that when you see these mechanics, you have grounds to be sceptical. The enforcement pattern is not about edge cases. It is about industry-wide habits that have been normalised over years of low-scrutiny digital advertising.

The quickest way to avoid buying at an inflated "sale" price

The cleanest approach is to set a price target before the sale starts, not during it.

When a sale launches, the urgency mechanics are already running. The timer is ticking. The "limited stock" warning is live. Your brain is processing the discount as real because the presentation is designed to feel real. The window for calm research has already closed.

If you already have a price target set for a product you want, a sale that does not genuinely reach that target will simply not fire a notification. You only act when your real threshold is met, not when a manufactured countdown says you should.

FindFetcher works like this. You describe the product you want and the price you are willing to pay. FindFetcher monitors prices continuously and sends an alert when a match is found. When a sale launches and a retailer genuinely drops to your price, you get a notification. If the sale is fake and the price never actually moves, you hear nothing.

This removes the entire "is this sale real?" problem from the equation. The question becomes irrelevant when you are only responding to your own price point, not the retailer's manufactured urgency.

For products where price history matters more than a live alert, BuyWisely is the best free option in Australia for checking historical pricing data before committing to a purchase.

Set your first price target for free on FindFetcher and only get notified when the price is genuinely there.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a strikethrough price fake in Australia?

A strikethrough price is fake when the product was never genuinely sold at that higher price before the sale. Under Australian Consumer Law, the "before" price must have been the actual selling price for a meaningful prior period. Displaying an inflated price purely to make a discount look larger is a breach of the law and can result in ACCC enforcement action.

Is it illegal to advertise a fake sale in Australia?

Yes. Under sections 18 and 29(1)(i) of the Australian Consumer Law, businesses cannot make false or misleading representations about price. This includes advertising a strikethrough price that was never genuine, claiming a limited time deal when the sale runs indefinitely, and using countdown timers that reset. The ACCC actively investigates and prosecutes these practices, as the Emma Sleep penalty demonstrates.

How do I check price history before buying in Australia?

Use a price history tool to see what a product actually sold for over the past 90 to 180 days. BuyWisely tracks price history across many Australian retailers for free. For Amazon Australia, CamelCamelCamel shows historical price data. If you set a price alert in FindFetcher before a sale starts, you only receive a notification when the price genuinely hits your target, rather than reacting to a manufactured discount.

Can I report a fake sale to the ACCC in Australia?

Yes. You can submit a report at accc.gov.au. The ACCC does not resolve individual complaints, but uses reports to identify patterns and prioritise enforcement. Take screenshots of the sale price, the strikethrough price, and any countdown timer before the sale ends, since evidence can disappear quickly once a campaign closes.

What is the best way to avoid buying during a fake sale in Australia?

Set a price target before the sale starts, not during it. When a retailer advertises a sale, the urgency of the timer is designed to short-circuit your research. If you already have a price alert set for what you are willing to pay, a sale that does not genuinely reach that price will not trigger a notification. You only act when your real threshold is met, not when a manufactured countdown says you should.

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Ready to stop reacting to manufactured urgency? Create your first free fetch on FindFetcher and only get notified when the price is genuinely at your target. Takes 30 seconds. Free to start.

For more on how to spend less time on shopping sites, read how Australians are cutting their online shopping time down and how a retail price tracker works across Australian stores.

Hero image: Photo by Max Fischer on Pexels.