digiDirect has paid $99,000 across five ACCC infringement notices for advertising struck-through 'was' prices it rarely charged. With Black Friday approaching, it is a clear warning to any retailer running reference-price discounts. Fake 'was and now' pricing is a five-figure liability, not a promotion.
The Take: A struck-through price you rarely sell at is not a discount. It is a false claim, and the ACCC just made digiDirect pay $99,000 for it. With Black Friday weeks away, every retailer running "was and now" pricing should read this as the warning shot it is.
The detail: digiDirect advertised electronics with a higher price struck through and the words "price slashed", when those products were rarely offered and almost never sold at the higher price, SmartCompany reported. One example was a mini wireless keyboard shown at $149 against a strikethrough of $229, a reference price that did not reflect a real recent selling price. The ACCC found the conduct false or misleading, in breach of Australian Consumer Law.
Follow the money: The retailer paid $99,000 across five ACCC infringement notices and gave a court-enforceable undertaking to stop the practice and run a compliance program, as Mediaweek detailed. This is not its first strike. In 2021 it paid $39,240 over claims that sales applied storewide, so the regulator has now watched the same business inflate the same kind of price twice.
digiDirect's penalty for misleading strikethrough discounts, across five ACCC infringement notices
The precedent: Fake reference pricing sits high on the ACCC's enforcement list, and strikethrough claims are the easiest kind to prove, because the retailer's own sales history is the evidence against it. If your "was" price is not a genuine, recent, sustained selling price, the discount is fiction and the proof is already sitting in your own systems. The dollar figure is almost the smallest part of the cost, because a misleading-pricing finding is public, it follows the brand into every future sale and it hands competitors and reporters a ready-made story.
For Australian operators: Pull your "was and now" and "price slashed" claims before the Black Friday rush. For every strikethrough, confirm the higher price was actually charged for a meaningful period recently and keep the sales records that prove it. If it was not, drop the reference price and sell on the real one, because a believable honest price beats a fake bargain that carries a five-figure liability and a compliance program you did not want.