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Updated October 25, 2026: new cases, fresher data, stricter method
This 65-inch Samsung TV is on sale at Best Buy. $329.99. Save $140.
We checked it again. And again. And again. All told we’ve looked at that page on 66 days since July 7, and the price never went above $329.99. So you’re saving $140 compared to what, exactly? The page’s answer is a “Comp. Value” of $469.99, a price we didn’t see this TV once in all that time.
That’s just the price, wearing a discount costume.
We’re PriceZen. We track what tech actually sells for at the big stores on both sides of the border, from Amazon and Best Buy to Canada Computers and Memory Express: more than 120,000 live listings. That lets us answer the one question no product page ever will. Is this sale real, or is the sale price just the price?
How we spot a fake discount
For every listing we record two prices: the one you pay, and the one the store wants you to compare it to. Every store has its own name for that second number. Best Buy calls it “Comp. Value” (that’s where the “Save $140” comes from). Amazon calls it “List Price”. Some stores still go with a plain old “was”. Same costume, different label.
From the prices people actually pay, we work out the normal price: the median of everything we recorded over the last 90 days, so half our checks sit above it and half below. A real sale takes the price below that line. A costume puts a banner on the normal price and calls it a day. And if nobody ever takes the banner down, you get the sale that never ends.
Case 1: the Samsung TV that’s always “Save $140”
Samsung U7900 Series UN65U7900FFXZA 65"
A no-frills 2025 4K set, and a “sale” where nothing ever happens. The price on this card is live, so here’s how to read it: anything under $329.99 is a real discount. $329.99 with “Save $140” next to it is just the price.
Full specs, price history & owner sentiment →We checked this TV’s Best Buy page on 66 days between July 7 and October 25. It was $329.99 every time. On 59 of those days the page also promised “Save $140” against a “Comp. Value” of $469.99.
That banner works out to 29.8% off. The TV’s normal price, its median over the last 90 days, is $329.99. Measured against what it actually sells for, the discount is 0%. Tough number to put on a banner.
In fairness to Best Buy, we did catch it cheaper twice, both times in Best Buy’s own product API: $299.99 on July 20 and $298.99 on August 18. The product page still said $329.99 on both days. Those are the two dips on the green line. The other lines are a bundle and open-box units, and we’re only judging the plain TV. As for $469.99, the only time we ever saw that as the actual price was a single API reading on May 7, two months before our count began.
Case 2: the Canon EOS R3, same price at two stores
Sometimes you only see the costume when you stand two stores side by side.
Canon’s EOS R3 is a pro sports camera from 2021. Best Buy has the body at $4,399, with “Save $1,000” against a “Comp. Value” of $5,399. Amazon, selling it directly as Amazon.com, also has it at $4,399. No banner. No “List Price”. No discount. Just the price.
| Canon EOS R3, body only | Best Buy | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Price on every check | $4,399 | $4,399 |
| Comparison price shown | ”Comp. Value $5,399” | None |
| Banner | ”Save $1,000” | None |
| Our checks | 5, Apr 30 to Oct 25 | 9, Feb 22 to Oct 25 |
| Checks showing a comparison price | 5 of 5 | 0 of 9 |
Same camera, same price, two very different stories. Only one of them has you saving a thousand dollars.
Case 3: the Best Buy Canada sale that keeps ending
This one’s our favorite.
Best Buy Canada has had Canon’s little PowerShot V1 on sale every time we’ve checked since September, and not through some marketplace seller: Best Buy sells and ships it itself. On September 3 it was C$1,199.99 with a “SAVE $150” badge, and the sale was set to end that same day. Better hurry.
It did end. The next day a new sale started, $50 more expensive, ending September 24. Then the end date became October 1. Then October 22. As of our last check, it’s October 29.
Across 27 days of checks, the price flipped between C$1,199.99 and C$1,249.99, and the SAVE badge was always counted from C$1,349.99. We never once saw it actually cost C$1,349.99.
| ”Sale ends” (page data) | Checks that showed it | Price (CAD) | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 3 | 1 (Sep 3) | $1,199.99 | SAVE $150 |
| Sep 24 | 8 (Sep 4 to 14) | $1,249.99 | SAVE $100 |
| Oct 1 | 5 (Sep 27 to Oct 1) | $1,249.99 | SAVE $100 |
| Oct 22 | 12 (Oct 2 to 19) | $1,199.99 | SAVE $150 |
| Oct 29 | 1 (Oct 25) | $1,199.99 | SAVE $150 |
We’ll let you guess what happens on October 29.
Why stores keep the sale banner up
It’s called anchoring. Show people a bigger number first and the real one feels like a win. Add a deadline and it feels like there’s no time to shop around, even when the deadline keeps moving.
The EU got tired of this. Since 2022, a store announcing a price cut there has to measure it against the lowest price it charged in the previous 30 days (Article 6a of the Price Indication Directive, added by the Omnibus Directive). In the US, the banner still does a lot of unsupervised talking.
How to check any deal in ten seconds
Black Friday is November 27, and the banners are about to get a lot louder. Here’s the whole check:
- Ignore the comparison price. Was, List Price, Comp. Value: it was picked by the same people who made the banner red.
- Look at the price history. Every product page on PriceZen has the chart. If the “sale” price is where the line always sits, the discount is fiction.
- Compare against the normal price. Pick a category on our Deals page and you’ll see two tabs. Price Drops lists things selling below their own typical price, by our numbers. Sales & Discounts lists what the stores say is on sale. One is our math. The other is their banner.
Methodology and limitations
- Stores. US: Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, B&H Photo, Adorama. Canada: Amazon.ca, Best Buy, Newegg.ca, Canada Computers, Memory Express, plus B&H’s listings, which we show in Canada because B&H ships there. More than 120,000 live listings (125,854 on October 25, 2026).
- What we record. The price you pay and, where the store shows one, the price it compares it to, quoted in the store’s own words (“Save $X”, “Comp. Value”, “List Price”, “was”). We only call it a “was” price where the page does.
- Check days. How often we check a listing varies. A check day is a day with at least one recorded check for that listing, counted once.
- Normal price. The median of the prices we recorded for a listing over the last 90 days, one value per check day: one store, one country.
- Real discount. How far the price sits below its normal price. A “Save” badge on the normal price is a real discount of 0%.
- The cases. Each is a single listing, checked one by one and confirmed against the store’s own page on October 25. The Best Buy Canada “Sale ends” dates come from the page’s own data; the October 29 date matched what the page showed.
This is part of an ongoing series on price integrity, and there are more cases in the pile. If you’ve found a sale that never seems to end, send it our way.