The excitement of discounts is also the ideal environment for those who want to take advantage of shoppers buying in a rush.
Every year as Black Friday approaches, pop-up shops, misleading adverts, and messages impersonating well-known brands multiply — and it is easy to fall into one of these traps without even realising anything was wrong.
Before diving into the sales, it is worth knowing the most common tricks and exactly what to check before taking your card out of your wallet.
Discounts that never actually dropped
The oldest trick in the book is still the most common — prices quietly rise in the weeks before the campaign, then “drop” on Black Friday back to what they always were.
The simplest way to spot the fraud is to check price history before buying, whether through tools like Keepa for Amazon or national price comparison sites, which show how a product has been priced over the past few months and immediately expose fake discounts.
Shops that vanish after payment
Every year, online shops are created specifically for the Black Friday period — storefronts full of popular products at aggressive prices that close or go silent as soon as they receive payment.
Before entering card details on an unknown site, it is worth checking the company’s registered details in the footer, looking for reviews on independent platforms such as Trustpilot, and being wary of any shop with no history that only appears in social media adverts.
Messages and adverts leading to fake pages
Emails, text messages, and Instagram or Facebook adverts announcing exclusive Black Friday 2026 deals from brands such as Apple, Samsung, or Xiaomi multiply at this time of year — and a significant number lead to phishing pages designed to copy the official site.
The most reliable signal remains the address in the browser bar — any variation in the brand’s domain or the use of link shorteners is reason enough to close the page without a second thought.
Third-party marketplace listings that seem too good to be true
On major marketplaces, the lowest price does not always come from the most reliable seller.
Third-party sellers with no track record tend to appear precisely at this time of year with prices well below the competition — and some never actually ship the product.
It is worth checking the seller’s registration date and number of reviews, and always paying through the marketplace itself — never by direct transfer outside the platform.
Warranty and after-sales support left unconfirmed
An attractive price from a shop outside the usual channels can hide the absence of a legal warranty in Portugal or a customer support service that actually responds after the purchase.
Before completing a purchase this Black Friday 2026, it is worth checking whether the company sells officially in the national market and whether it offers a two-year warranty — because a discount that leaves you without technical support afterwards rarely turns out to be worth it.
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