The countdown begins. Celebrated every year on the last weekend of November, Black Friday will take place on November 25, 2022. This vast operation of crazy promotions is the perfect opportunity to prepare for Christmas shopping as the end of the holiday season approaches. year… Or simply to have fun at a lower cost.
Inflation obliges, consumers have been forced to tighten their belts in recent months. According to the latest OpinionWay study for Clearpay*, the trend is particularly marked among young people.
Thus, 9 out of 10 people aged 15 to 25 say they make purchases on Black Friday. In addition, 71% of them take advantage of this time of year to buy Christmas gifts at reduced prices. “The average Gen Z basket on Black Friday is 192 euros”, concludes Clearpay.
Cécile, a 25-year-old bookseller, is one of the fans of this bargain meeting. “My birthday is November 27, so the date always more or less coincides. I often take the opportunity to give myself small gifts in addition to preparing for the end of year celebrations as well as my mother’s birthday which takes place at the beginning of December”, she explains.
Only here it is: in 2018, the young woman, however accustomed to Black Friday and online shopping, is taken in by a fraudulent site which extorts a hundred euros from her. For Planet, she tells how she fell for it, and shares her advice so that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
For her mother’s fiftieth birthday, Cécile wanted to mark the occasion. “I had just started working and I was still living with my parents so I could afford to give a more expensive gift than in other years. No question of sulking on Black Friday!”, explains the bookseller.
“I set my sights on beautiful branded boots, which normally cost over 200 euros. Then one day, when I was late for a medical appointment, I came across a special Black Friday promotion where the famous shoes were offered at 100 euros all round”, she articulates. Only here it is: pressed for time, Cécile enters her bank details without thinking, for fear of missing the opportunity.
First mistake for the one who was still only 19 at the time: making an online purchase without checking its reliability…
“Leaving my medical appointment, I checked my emails and I immediately understood: the confirmation email was full of mistakes, grammar and syntax errors… I was horrified. Not only because I had just lost 100 euros, but also and above all because I had communicated my personal and banking data to an unknown and malicious site”, confides Cécile.
Quickly, the young woman asks her bank to change the card, but cannot object since she made the purchase of her own free will. A few weeks later, she receives the boots… which were, as she feared, counterfeit.
“They were vulgarly wrapped in heavy tape, and a label indicated that they had been bought for 10 euros. The fraudulent site had therefore bought them for 10 euros while I had paid 100…”, regrets Cécile. A few days later, the bookseller noticed that the site no longer existed.
“So I bought the shoes again, on Vinted this time. They weren’t quite new but I was able to get away with it for 150 euros, and my mother was delighted”, continues the twenty-something. From now on, she makes it a point of honor to respect a few rules when Black Friday arrives… And for her online purchases in general.
Today, Cécile takes extra care when shopping online. “I always check the legal notices of commercial sites, and, when it’s a platform that I don’t know, I look for a multitude of opinions before I start”, she explains.
“My biggest lesson? Don’t rush. I prefer to miss the deal of the century rather than relive such a scare”, sighs the bookseller. “I am also wary of promotions that are too good to be true: there is often a wolf behind them. I won’t be caught again!”, concludes Cécile.
*Sample of 525 people representative of the French population aged 15 to 25 (Generation Z). The sample was drawn up according to the quota method, with regard to the criteria of sex, age, socio-professional category, category of agglomeration and region of residence. The interviews were conducted from October 5 to 7, 2022.