Allegro's price guarantee looked absolute — its limits stayed hidden

Allegro, Poland's largest e-commerce platform, promoted its Hungarian marketplace with 'árgarancia' — a price guarantee. If a customer found the same product cheaper elsewhere, Allegro promised a coupon worth 150% of the difference, advertising that shoppers could simply buy at the market's lowest price. The campaign ran from 1 October 2024 to 28 February 2025.

The guarantee was narrower than it looked, and Allegro withheld the conditions or communicated them too late. Only prices from 20 specified webshops counted for the comparison. The refund coupon was available exclusively to registered users who were logged in. And the coupon could not be used for cash-on-delivery purchases. Hungary's competition authority found that omitting such material information misled consumers into transactional decisions they would not otherwise have made — an unfair commercial practice.

On 30 June 2026 the GVH fined Allegro 42,500,000 forints (case VJ/4/2025). The platform cooperated, did not dispute the facts and waived its right to appeal; it also committed to running an internal compliance programme for at least three years, verified by the authority.