What was claimed
Argos is selling PlayStation 5 consoles that have been on display for £1.78.
Our verdict
The retailer has confirmed this is not a genuine offer.
Argos is not selling PlayStation consoles for under £2
6 October 2023
A Facebook post claiming that Argos is offering PlayStation 5 consoles for under £2 is fake. Argos has confirmed this is not a genuine offer.
The post says: “Leftover Playstation 5 for sale for £1.78. Argos offers you the opportunity to purchase Ps5 remnants that have been in use at exhibitions or in our store [sic]. These items may have minor damage on the box, but all hardware is in perfect condition. Click on the button and visit our website to place an order.”
A spokesperson for Argos confirmed to Full Fact that “this is not a genuine offer”.
The external link attached to the post goes to a webpage that looks like Argos but it doesn’t have the official Argos web address and the other buttons on the page don’t work.
The page asks users to answer questions and complete a task before going to a payment page to pay £1.78 and claim the console. But the small print confirms this is actually entering users into a “contest to win the PlayStation” where one winner will be selected for every 600 participants. By entering their details, users will actually be signed up to a subscription service that automatically deducts money from their account following a five-day free trial.
Another indication that the offer is not real is that it was published by a Facebook page which uses the Argos logo but not its name, has only 32 followers and no other posts. The offer has also not been shared by the official Argos Facebook page, which has over 1.5 million followers.
This is a useful way of verifying whether a deal that seems too good to be true is genuine. A company’s official page tends to have more followers, a verified blue tick on platforms like Facebook and Instagram and a long post history.
Posts offering fake deals are very common on Facebook. Full Fact has written before about other fake posts offering discounted Argos products, such as air fryers or electric scooters. We have also seen other fake promotions with links to websites that are not what they seem, including posts promoting bargain online offers at Wilko, Amazon packages for £2 and MacBook Pros for £1 at Argos.
Image courtesy of Mutney
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because Argos has confirmed it is not a genuine offer.