Unfair commercial practices are ways of dealing with consumers that UK law prohibits because they distort people’s decisions: misleading them, hiding information they need, pressuring them, or falling below the standards of honest trading. Since 6 April 2025 the rules have sat in Part 4, Chapter 1 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, usually called the CPRs.
How unfair commercial practices work
The law covers anything a business does when promoting, selling or supplying to consumers, before, during and after a sale. Most of its tests ask how the “average consumer” would react and whether the practice causes, or is likely to cause, them to take a decision they would not otherwise have taken. That decision can be small. Clicking through to a product page or staying on a sales call counts, not only paying.
The practices fall into five groups:
- Misleading actions: false or deceptive information about the price, the product, its availability or the trader, including an overall impression that misleads even when each statement is technically true.
- Misleading omissions: leaving out, hiding or giving too late information the customer needs, such as a total price that includes compulsory fees.
- Aggressive practices: harassment, coercion or undue influence, including putting deliberate obstacles in the way of someone trying to cancel.
- Contravening professional diligence: falling below the standard of skill and care expected of an honest trader in your field.
- Banned practices: Schedule 20 to the Act lists practices that are unfair in every case, with no need to show their effect on anyone. They include fake reviews, false claims that an offer is only available for a very short time, describing something as free when it is not, and bait advertising.
Hidden compulsory charges that only appear late in checkout are treated as a misleading omission; the drip pricing entry covers them in detail. Many dark patterns, such as fake countdown timers and pre-ticked add-ons, fall under these rules too.
Why it matters
The 2024 Act gave the Competition and Markets Authority power to decide for itself that consumer law has been broken and to fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover, without first going to court. Trading Standards still enforce through the courts, and some breaches are criminal offences. Consumers also have their own rights against a business that misled them or used an aggressive practice, including the right to unwind the contract or claim a discount.
For marketing, this reaches everyday work: ad copy, landing pages, email subject lines, “was” prices, review widgets and urgency messages. The CMA has named fake reviews and hidden fees among its early priorities under the new regime, so claims that once went unnoticed are now more likely to be looked at.
Common mistakes
- Countdown timers that reset. A “sale ends in 2 hours” clock that restarts for every visitor is a false urgency claim.
- Headline prices without compulsory fees. Booking fees, admin charges and mandatory service charges belong in the first price a customer sees.
- Curating reviews. Showing only the best reviews, or rewarding positive ones without saying so, can make the overall picture misleading.
- Reference prices that never applied. A “was £199” claim needs a genuine, recent period when £199 was the price actually charged.
- Burying cancellation. A subscription that takes one click to start and a phone call during office hours to end is the kind of barrier the rules target.
How to act on it
Read your sales journey the way a first-time customer would, from the ad to the confirmation email. At each step, check that the price shown is the price paid, that every claim could be backed with evidence today, and that nothing important is tucked into small print or behind a link. Any claim you cannot support needs substantiation or needs to go.
Then look at the mechanics: timers, stock warnings, review displays, pre-selected options and the route to cancel. If you are building or rebuilding landing pages for paid campaigns, write these checks into the brief so that compliance is part of the design rather than a correction after launch. Advertising claims are also judged separately by the ASA under the CAP Code, so a page can need to satisfy both.