Nothing triggers a dopamine rush like a flashing "70% OFF" banner. France's consumer watchdog has a message for shoppers: that discount might be a mirage, and it just fined fast-fashion retailer Boohoo 2.3 million euros for allegedly manufacturing them.
The DGCCRF, France's Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, announced the €2.3 million fine, worth about $2.69 million, on August 20, 2026. According to the watchdog, Boohoo exaggerated the discounts it was offering on its website, giving shoppers a false impression of the savings they were making.
The numbers from the investigation are remarkable. Of the promotions analyzed by the regulator, 40 percent were not real price reductions at all. Another 7 percent were a smaller reduction than advertised. And 48 percent, nearly half, were actually price increases dressed up as deals. Let that sink in: almost half of the "discounts" the watchdog examined were prices going up while the site told you they were going down.
Boohoo was also accused of using terms like "leather" or "suede" to sell synthetic products, running afoul of French rules on product labeling. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment when the fine was announced.
Fake reference pricing is one of the oldest tricks in retail, online and off. The playbook is simple: set an inflated "original" price nobody ever pays, slash it dramatically, and watch shoppers feel brilliant for grabbing a bargain. The problem is that it only works as a deception, and regulators in more countries are starting to treat it that way. France has been leading a crackdown on online fast-fashion businesses, and in June its lawmakers passed an anti-fast-fashion law imposing fines on what they called "disposable" clothing, with Chinese platforms like Shein and Temu also in the crosshairs.
For shoppers, the takeaway is depressing but practical. A discount is only real if the original price was real. Browser extensions and price-tracking tools can show you what an item actually sold for over time, and they are worth their weight in gold during sale season. If a price looks too good to be true, it might be too good to be a price at all.
There is a special kind of suck in discovering your "steal" was the opposite of a steal. Nobody wants to pay full price while being congratulated for their frugality. The next time a website screams about savings, remember Boohoo's €2.3 million lesson: the only real discount is the one you can verify. Everything else is just confetti on a receipt.