Cooking the Books podcast: Beware ‘fake sales’ at Christmas

New stats show some shops with tricky sales tactics. Photo / 123RF

Each week BusinessDesk and the Herald’s Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it’s how fake sales can lead to an overspend and debt spiral. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Christmas is an expensive time of year, which can leave us vulnerable to tricky sales tactics and getting pulled into a debt spiral.

Figures out from PriceSpy show some shops even indulge in “fake sales” – the recent Black Friday sales saw 15 per cent of products had a price increase before the sale was announced so the shop could claim a bigger percentage drop and trigger our love of a bargain.

Meanwhile, 16 per cent of products had a price increase so steep, they were more expensive than before, even with a supposed sale going on.

I’d like to think we won’t be repeating that on Boxing Day sales, but the cynical side of me feels it’s likely.

The push to spend alongside these types of tactics can lead to some of us swiping our credit cards to make it all happen.

So how can we reduce the need for debt in the first place, and what do we do if we’ve already racked some up?

For the latest podcast I talked to Money Sweetspot co-founder and chief executive Sasha Lockley.

For the interview, listen to the podcast here.

• If you have a question about this podcast, or a question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here, and Twitter here.

• Listen to the full interview on the Cooking the Books podcast. You can subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.