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Supermarket special offers are misleading consumers and breaking government guidelines, the consumer group Which? said today.
Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's are all accused of labelling products as having money off when they have only briefly been sold at a higher price.
Guidelines state that for an item to be a genuine offer it must be sold in the store at the advertised higher price for the previous 28 days.
The item must also not stay on offer for longer than it has been at the higher price, unless the retailer displays a sign saying otherwise. The only other exception is if an item is going out of date.
However, by buying the same basket of items once a week between June and August in Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer, Which? found some retailers were flouting those rules.
The offending deals were:
• M&S cherries were marked as half price at £2.49, despite selling for £2.99 immediately before. The cherries had only been sold at £4.99 for 17 days, a month before the offer
• Waitrose blueberries were only at the higher price of £3.99 for two weeks before being sold at "half price" (£1.99) for six weeks
• Sainsbury's Gallo Cabernet Zinfandel and Chardonnay Sauvignon had £1 off at £3.99 for five weeks, then briefly returned to the higher price of £4.99 for one week before going back to £1 off
Which? also found Tesco strawberries and M&S bacon were "on offer" for the entire three-month investigation. Although these offers did not break the guidelines they could "hardly be described as special", Which? said.
Nikki Ratcliff, head of research services at Which?, said: "Supermarkets need to comply with the spirit of the new government guidelines and stop misleading consumers into thinking they're getting great deals when they're not."
An M&S spokeswoman said: "We always aim to offer our customers excellent value and follow guidelines on promotions wherever possible.
"For the bacon, unfortunately we made a mistake with the ticketing of this product and we apologise to our customers. We rectified it straight away."
Tesco said it had clear policies in place to ensure it followed the guidelines and that all its offers were genuine. "Competition among retailers is strong and we're absolutely focused on delivering the best value while following regulations," it said.
Waitrose and Sainsbury's said they would be taking action in light of the findings to make sure they stuck to the guidelines in future.
A survey of 3,039 Which? online panel members found almost three quarters thought special offers were good value and more than half often bought items because they were on offer.
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