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| - What was claimed
Argos is selling PlayStation 5 consoles for £3 as they have been in stock for over three years.
Our verdict
False. Argos has confirmed this is not a genuine offer.
Argos is selling PlayStation 5 consoles for £3 as they have been in stock for over three years.
False. Argos has confirmed this is not a genuine offer.
Posts on Facebook have falsely claimed that the retailer Argos is selling PlayStation 5 (PS5) games consoles for £3.
The posts claim that the consoles are being sold cheaply as they have “been in stock for over three years” and the “warranty on this model has expired”.
However, a spokesperson for Argos confirmed to Full Fact that “these are not genuine offers”.
The text of one post reads: “PS5 for only £3. The PlayStation 5, which has been in stock for over three years, has been confiscated as the warranty on this model has expired. Argos is giving away these leftovers for just £3”, before telling readers “To get a game console click on the ‘more details’ button and answer a few simple questions”.
It is accompanied by an image of a woman in a high-vis jacket, holding what appears to be a boxed PlayStation 5 console. She is standing by a pile of identical boxes, while shelves filled with brown cardboard boxes are visible in the background. A sign on the box she’s holding, as well as one of the Sony PS5-branded boxes beside her, features what appears to be the Argos logo, and reads: “PlayStation 5 £3.00”.
The text of another post reads “PS5 for just £3 in our shop. Following a stock check, we are forced to sell off PlayStation 5 consoles that have been with us for over 3 years with an expiring warranty! Argos are offering the remaining units for just £3 to avoid manufacturer penalties.”
This image centres three boxed PlayStation 5s. A sign on one features what appears to be the Argos logo, and reads: “PlayStation 5 £3”. In the background are shelves carrying other boxed electronics.
A third post states: “Today Only! Argos is giving away the last 500 PlayStation 5 units just for £3 each. These video game consoles have an expired warranty. Click the button below to get your PlayStation 5.” The image on this shows a man holding a box featuring PlayStation 5 branding, and standing beside a pile of similar boxes. A sign on this pile again features the Argos logo and the text: “PlayStation 5 £3”.
All posts link through to a website. While they have different URLs, the pages appear to be identical, and are all seemingly designed to mimic the official Argos website.
The Argos logo appears in the top left corner of the page, and the browser icon—the small image that appears when viewing a webpage in the tab of a browser—is a white italicised A on a red background, identical to the one used by Argos.
The images on the top right of the webpage the posts link to resemble the same menu that appears on the official Argos website, though these do not link through to other webpages as those on the real site do. The search bar also features the same text that Argos uses—”Search products, brands or FAQs”.
The site then claims it shows “the biggest warehouse clearance sale!”, and states “The PlayStation 5, which has been in stock for over three years, has been confiscated as the warranty on this model has expired. Argos is giving away these leftovers for just £3.”
It then says that readers need to “answer a few questions and confirm you are a real person” in order to “receive the PlayStation 5”.
We checked similar Facebook posts claiming Argos was selling PS5 consoles at incredibly low prices multiple times last year.
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.
It is always worth checking posts sharing offers that seem too good to be true. One way to verify this is to see whether the offer has been shared by the company’s official page—this will often have more followers, a verified blue tick on platforms like Facebook or Instagram and a longer post history.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
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