--- title: "Is This Sale a Real Discount? How to Check Before You Buy | OzSavers" url: https://ozsavers.com/articles/is-this-sale-a-real-discount description: "A strikethrough price is a claim, not a fact. What US law requires of a \"was\" price, how to check one yourself, and the four tests OzSavers runs on every product." lang: en-US --- guide · price verification # is this sale a real discount? A strikethrough price is a claim the retailer is making, not a fact you can verify from the page. In the United States the Federal Trade Commission's Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, 16 CFR Part 233, say a former price is only honest if the item was actually offered at that price openly and actively, for a reasonably substantial period, in the recent and regular course of business. Plenty of "was" prices do not clear that bar. The only reliable way to know is to compare today's price against what the item has actually sold for over time. ## what the law actually says. The FTC's own worked example in 16 CFR 233.1 is a retailer who marks pens at $10 for a few days, drops them back to the usual $7.50, and advertises a bargain. Nothing was discounted. The former price existed only to make the current one look generous. The Guides call this a fictitious former price. | Requirement | What it means in practice | | --- | --- | | Bona fide | The item was genuinely for sale at that price, not just labelled with it | | Openly and actively offered | Available to ordinary customers, not a rate nobody could buy at | | Reasonably substantial period | Long enough to be the real price, not a few days before the sale | The Guides are guidance rather than a standalone rule, so enforcement runs through Section 5 of the FTC Act on unfair and deceptive practices, and through state pricing laws that are often stricter. California and New York both police reference pricing harder than the federal floor. ## the four tests that actually work. You do not need a lawyer to check a price. You need history. ### 1. compare against the 12 month low, not the strikethrough The list price tells you what the retailer wants you to anchor on. The 12 month low tells you what the item has genuinely reached. If today's price sits well above the low, the discount is real but shallow. ### 2. compare against the 30 day median This is the one most people skip and it catches the most tricks. If the 30 day median is the same as today's sale price, the item was never more expensive. The sale is the regular price wearing a badge. ### 3. check when the price last moved A price that has not changed in three months and is still labelled as a limited time offer is a permanent markdown, not an event. ### 4. check stock and seller A tiny discount on an out of stock item, or a low price from a third party marketplace seller rather than the retailer itself, changes what you are actually buying. At Best Buy, a marketplace listing is also excluded from the price match policy. ## what most trackers do and do not do. Most price trackers record a single number per day and draw a line through it. That is enough to spot the obvious cases and not enough for the subtle ones. The differences that matter: | What a tracker records | Why it matters | | --- | --- | | Price only | Shows movement, misses whether the item could be bought | | Price plus stock | Separates a genuine low from an unbuyable one | | Every tick vs only changes | Recording every check inflates the history and hides real movement | | Shipping and tax | A price without them is not what you pay | ## how OzSavers checks. OzSavers reads the live price at each retailer and writes a history row only when the price or the stock state actually changes, so the history is a record of real movement rather than one row per check. Each product page shows when the price was last confirmed, in hours. Where a price has not been confirmed across three full refresh cycles, the page drops the strikethrough and the discount badge entirely and says the price is not confirmed recently, because publishing an unverified saving is the thing this page is about. The scoring method, including the weights and the inputs, is published in full (https://ozsavers.com/articles/how-we-score). Commission never moves a score. ## questions people ask. ### Is a strikethrough price illegal? Not by itself. It becomes deceptive when the higher price was not a genuine, actively offered price for a reasonably substantial period. That is the test in 16 CFR Part 233. ### What is the difference between list price and MSRP? MSRP is what the manufacturer suggests. List price is what the retailer claims its own regular price is. Neither is proof that anyone paid it. ### How long does a price need to hold to count as the regular price? The FTC does not set a fixed number of days. It says a reasonably substantial period in the recent regular course of business, judged case by case. ### Does Best Buy price match its own earlier price? Yes, within your return window, if the item drops after you buy it. ### Which is the better signal, the 12 month low or the 30 day median? Both. The low tells you the best this item has ever been. The median tells you whether today is genuinely unusual. ### Can I check price history at Best Buy directly? Best Buy does not publish one. OzSavers records it. Source: FTC Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, 16 CFR Part 233 (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-233). Checked 19 September 2026. related guides how we score a deal, with the working shown: https://ozsavers.com/articles/how-we-score best buy price match: the 19 retailers, the exclusions and the blackout week: https://ozsavers.com/articles/best-buy-price-match-policy best buy price tracker: how to check price history before you buy: https://ozsavers.com/articles/best-buy-price-tracker best buy outlet and open box: what each grade means: https://ozsavers.com/articles/best-buy-outlet the catalogue ## keep comparing. biggest price drops right now The twelve largest live cuts across everything we track at Best Buy, ranked by dollars off. - SolarCam D1 Classic (6-Cam) + Video Doorbell Pro + Floodlight Cam Pro + IndoorCam P1… (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9029410259180)save $1,540 - SolarCam T2 Ultra System (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9073009721580)save $1,340 - SolarCam D1 Classic 8-Cam with aosuCortex System (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9091454927084)save $1,300 - 85" Class UR9 RGB MiniLED UHD 4K HDR Smart Google TV with Gemini and Anti-Reflection… (https://ozsavers.com/p/hisense-bestbuy/6673158)save $1,000 - 85" Class UR8 RGB MiniLED UHD 4K HDR Smart Google TV with Gemini and Anti-Reflection… (https://ozsavers.com/p/hisense-bestbuy/6673610)save $1,000 - AI Home Security System G11 Suite (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9276623487212)save $1,000 - aosu T2 Ultra + Video Doorbell Pro + IndoorCam P1 Pro (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9320034795756)save $630 - 65" Class UR8 RGB MiniLED UHD 4K HDR Smart Google TV with Gemini and Anti-Reflection… (https://ozsavers.com/p/hisense-bestbuy/6673609)save $600 - 75" Class UR8 RGB MiniLED UHD 4K HDR Smart Google TV with Gemini and Anti-Reflection… (https://ozsavers.com/p/hisense-bestbuy/6673612)save $600 - AI Home Security System G12 Suite (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9404730212588)save $600 - 4K SolarCam P1 Max with aosuCortex System + Video Doorbell Pro + IndoorCam P1 Pro (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9042870501612)save $548 - aosu T2 Pro + Video Doorbell Pro + Floodlight Cam Pro + IndoorCam P1 Pro (https://ozsavers.com/p/aosu/9264446374124)save $532 every brand we track in depth These are the brands with enough tracked products to be worth a price history page of their own. Sony (https://ozsavers.com/brand/sony) 614 · Samsung (https://ozsavers.com/brand/samsung) 563 · Canon (https://ozsavers.com/brand/canon) 441 · Garmin (https://ozsavers.com/brand/garmin) 402 · LG (https://ozsavers.com/brand/lg) 398 · Nikon (https://ozsavers.com/brand/nikon) 384 · JBL (https://ozsavers.com/brand/jbl) 382 · HP (https://ozsavers.com/brand/hp) 191 · ASUS (https://ozsavers.com/brand/asus) 175 · Acer (https://ozsavers.com/brand/acer) 141 · Junsun (https://ozsavers.com/brand/junsun) 137 · Google (https://ozsavers.com/brand/google) 131 · Dell (https://ozsavers.com/brand/dell) 129 · GE (https://ozsavers.com/brand/ge) 123 · Fujifilm (https://ozsavers.com/brand/fujifilm) 119 · MSI (https://ozsavers.com/brand/msi) 114 · Bose (https://ozsavers.com/brand/bose) 112 · Logitech (https://ozsavers.com/brand/logitech) 112 · TCL (https://ozsavers.com/brand/tcl) 109 · Hisense (https://ozsavers.com/brand/hisense) 108 · Whirlpool (https://ozsavers.com/brand/whirlpool) 106 · Sigma (https://ozsavers.com/brand/sigma) 105 · Panasonic (https://ozsavers.com/brand/panasonic) 100 · Insignia™ (https://ozsavers.com/brand/insignia) 96 · Frigidaire (https://ozsavers.com/brand/frigidaire) 93 · ViewSonic (https://ozsavers.com/brand/viewsonic) 81 · Bowers & Wilkins (https://ozsavers.com/brand/bowers-wilkins) 72 · DJI (https://ozsavers.com/brand/dji) 68 · JLab (https://ozsavers.com/brand/jlab) 67 · PRIMEPLUS (https://ozsavers.com/brand/primeplus) 67 · Lenovo (https://ozsavers.com/brand/lenovo) 63 · Soundcore (https://ozsavers.com/brand/soundcore) 62 · Tamron (https://ozsavers.com/brand/tamron) 62 · MPC (https://ozsavers.com/brand/mpc) 61 · Klipsch (https://ozsavers.com/brand/klipsch) 59 · Nintendo (https://ozsavers.com/brand/nintendo) 58 · BenQ (https://ozsavers.com/brand/benq) 56 · Neewer (https://ozsavers.com/brand/neewer) 56 · AOSU (https://ozsavers.com/brand/aosu) 55 · Beats (https://ozsavers.com/brand/beats) 55 · Forno Appliances (https://ozsavers.com/brand/forno-appliances) 55 · GoPro (https://ozsavers.com/brand/gopro) 55 · Edifier (https://ozsavers.com/brand/edifier) 53 · Marshall (https://ozsavers.com/brand/marshall) 53 · QPower (https://ozsavers.com/brand/qpower) 53 ## Structured data ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "@id": "https://ozsavers.com/articles/is-this-sale-a-real-discount#article", "url": "https://ozsavers.com/articles/is-this-sale-a-real-discount", "headline": "Is This Sale a Real Discount?", "description": "A strikethrough price is a claim, not a fact. 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