HomeTechnologyNewsBeware of fake Prime Day deals

Beware of fake Prime Day deals

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Amazon’s annual Prime Day event is supposed to be a Black Friday-style sale in the middle of summer with deep discounts online. However, just like Black Friday, not all Prime Day deals are created equal. Do not be fooled.

It’s so easy to get carried away on Prime Day and buy stuff you don’t need for the sole reason that it’s a “great deal.” Retailers are well aware of that fact and will use it at all times. The trick is to figure out which deals are really great and which ones are hiding behind the “deal” tag.

Check price history

Amazon price history in Camelcamelcamel

The best thing to do when perusing Prime Day deals is to check the price history of items. This strategy will catch many fake deals on Amazon, even beyond Prime Day.

Let’s say an item is marked down from $50 to $25. That sounds like a great deal—50% off is nothing to scoff at. The problem is that the item was only $30 last week; it was artificially inflated so that it could be lowered further. In some cases, the item may even have been more economical Not a long time ago

Fortunately, there are some great tools you can use to check the price history of any item on Amazon. camelcamelcamel is a great option for this, and there’s even a browser extension to make it even easier. You can view price history and set alerts for when items have certain prices.

RELATED: How to view the Amazon price history of a product

Who is selling it?

Please refer to the Amazon seller.

Another thing to check is the seller when you think you’ve found a good deal. Does Amazon sell it? The manufacturer of the item? Or an outside vendor? There are a couple of reasons why this might be important.

First, if Amazon doesn’t sell it, you could be left with a poor warranty or a poor return policy. Amazon is pretty lenient on returns, but a third party may not be. This can be a problem if the item is not what you thought, which leads to the next reason.

If the item isn’t sold by a reputable seller, you could end up with something that doesn’t match the description. Maybe you received a refurbished product instead of a new one. And if the seller doesn’t have a good return policy, you’re out of luck.

RELATED: How to Avoid Fake Amazon Sellers and Scammers

Look for fake reviews

FakeSpot report.

Price is just one thing that can set off “too good to be true” warning bells. You should also pay attention to reviews. There are a lot of fake reviews on Amazon and they can make the deals seem better than they are.

Why is that food processor so heavily discounted? It has thousands of reviews and more than a four star rating. Can it really be that sweet of a deal? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Reviews can often help you find out.

Sellers can incentivize buyers to leave dishonest reviews. Gift cards for five-star reviews, paying them to purchase the product to keep them listed as “Verified Buyers,” and asking people to update reviews for free are all common tactics.

So how do you spot fake reviews on an Amazon item? FakeSpot is a popular service that uses AI to scan reviews, verify reviewer profiles, analyze the dates reviews were left, and other things to determine the legitimacy of reviews. It then spits out a rating on how trustworthy the reviews are.


The trick to avoiding bogus Amazon Prime Day deals is to look at everything with a little skepticism. Don’t assume that every deal is as good as they want you to believe. There are plenty of legitimately great deals on Prime Day, but you may need to do some work to confirm them.

RELATED: How to Spot Fake Reviews on Amazon, Yelp, and Other Sites

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