What was claimed
Argos is selling Kärcher K5 Power Control Pressure Washers for £1.98.
Our verdict
This is not a genuine offer from Argos.
No, Argos is not selling pressure washers for less than £2
Posts on Facebook have claimed that the retailer Argos is “giving away” or selling Kärcher K5 pressure washers for £1.98.
But this isn’t true. A spokesperson for Argos confirmed to Full Fact that these are not genuine Argos offers.
The Facebook posts feature the same image, a photograph of an unboxed yellow and black machine branded with “Kärcher K5 basic”. The machine sits in front of several boxes labelled “K5”, and it appears to have been taken in a warehouse store. A sign appears next to the machine, including a logo resembling the Argos logo, with text that reads “Karcher K5 £1.98”.
We’ve found the same image on a Ukrainian website, but, crucially, without the “Argos” sign alongside it.
Text that accompanies one of the Facebook posts claims that “Argos is giving away Home Pressure Washer Karcher K5 that have been in stock for more than 2 years to get rid of excess inventory”, while the other says “Argos is selling the Karcher K5 Power Control Pressure Washer for just £1.98”, before adding: “We are closing non-commercial warehouses, so we are offering 2023 models, which we have in stock, at a reduced price for UK residents”.
Both posts encourage people to answer questions and click on a link in order to obtain a pressure washer. These links direct people to identical websites that seem to make an attempt to resemble the real Argos website—for example, the Argos logo appears twice on the page. But there are a number of clues that these are not the real Argos website. Neither URL matches that of the real one, for example, and the menus at the top of the pages are also different.
Posts offering fake deals are very common on Facebook. We have fact checked them many times before, with examples including supposed offers for products such as iPhones, MacBooks, laptops, airfryers, mattresses, vacuum cleaners and PlayStations, which, despite claims to the contrary, were nothing to do with 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.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because Argos is not selling pressure washers for £1.98.