On this page
The Inflated MSRP Trick
This is the most common pricing tactic online. A product is listed at $79.99 with a "list price" of $129.99, making it look like a 38% discount. But the product has never actually sold for $129.99. The manufacturer set a high MSRP specifically so retailers could display a permanent "discount." You see this constantly with Amazon third-party sellers, especially in categories like electronics accessories, kitchen gadgets, and fitness equipment.
How to spot it: Check the product's price history. If the "list price" has never matched the actual selling price over the past year, the discount is cosmetic. On PriceMirage, the 365-day price chart makes this obvious at a glance.
The Pre-Sale Price Hike
Some sellers raise prices in the weeks before a major sale event, then "discount" back to the normal price. This happens frequently before Prime Day and Black Friday. A product that normally sells for $45 gets bumped to $60 two weeks before the sale, then gets a "25% off" tag bringing it to $45. The buyer thinks they got a deal. They paid normal price.
This tactic is particularly common with Amazon marketplace sellers, but major retailers aren't immune either. Price tracking tools like PriceMirage detect this pattern because the price history clearly shows the artificial hike.
Reference Price Manipulation
Retailers sometimes display "was $X" pricing where the reference price was only available for a brief window or at a single obscure retailer. The FTC requires "was" prices to reflect a genuine former price, but enforcement is inconsistent. Online marketplaces with thousands of sellers make this even harder to police.
The fix is straightforward: ignore the stated discount percentage entirely. Instead, look at the actual price and compare it to the same product across multiple retailers. If everyone is selling a blender for $65-70 and one retailer shows it as "$65, was $110, save 41%," the discount is misleading.
Bundle and Variant Games
Watch out for products that appear heavily discounted but are actually a different variant. A common example: a listing shows "50% off" on what looks like a premium product, but the discounted version is a smaller size, older model, or a bundle without accessories that were previously included. Always check that the exact model number, size, and included accessories match what you expect.
How to Protect Yourself
The single best defense against fake discounts is price history data. When you can see what a product actually sold for over the past 3, 6, or 12 months, no amount of creative pricing math can fool you. PriceMirage shows you the real price trend so you can decide based on facts, not marketing.
Before any purchase over $50, take 30 seconds to search for the product on PriceMirage. Look at the price history chart. If the current "sale" price is actually the median price over the past year, you're not getting a deal. If it's genuinely at a 12-month low, that's a real discount worth acting on.