Consumers urged to watch out for Black Friday scams and bad deals – business live

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• The Filter: The best Black Friday 2025 deals in the UK on the products we love

• ‘Black Fraud Day’: shoppers warned over Black Friday scams

The trick to avoiding a Black Friday scam could be the ability to discern content created by artificial intelligence software from the real thing.

Payments firm Visa commissioned a poll this summer, which found that people who mistake AI-generated content for real are much more likely to be tricked by scammers than those who don’t.

Consumers who mistake fake AI-generated content for real are nearly 9x more likely to be tricked by scammers than those who don’t (70% vs. 8%).

Visa reveals average online scam costs victims £124.50 and collectively costs UK economy an estimated £356.2m annually

Victims spend an average of 6.5 days resolving online scams, and 35% of those targeted saying they now avoid shopping with smaller or unfamiliar brands.

“The Budget delivered a smaller‑than‑expected fiscal tightening—around £18bn, or roughly 0.5% of GDP—and expanded fiscal headroom to about £22bn. That combination points to slightly stronger growth next year and a softer inflation profile, helped by measures that lower household energy bills and the continued fuel‑duty freeze.

“Taken together, the Budget is broadly neutral for monetary policy, but at the margin it increases the likelihood that the Bank of England will cut in December—taking Bank Rate from 4.00% to 3.75%—and guide towards a landing near 3.25% by mid‑2026