Apple is holding a one-day sale for turkey-tired customers in the US on Black Friday, traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Some reports have suggested that the company could be slashing prices by 15 per cent to lure cash-strapped Americans to buy their goods tomorrow.

Black Friday comes the day after Thanksgiving and marks the start of the holiday shopping season in the US. This year the sluggish economy is forcing many vendors to offer tasty discounts to customers who are increasingly shy of parting with their cash.

An Australian restaurateur left holding a hefty unpaid bill when five young diners bolted used the popular social network website Facebook to track them down.

Peter Leary from seafood restaurant Seagrass on Melbourne’s Southbank was fuming when the diners ate their way through the menu, pairing oysters, trout and red emperor with some expensive wines, slipped out for a cigarette — and never returned.

But Leary, left with an unpaid bill of A$520 ($340), remembered one of the diners asking about a former waitress, whom he then contacted and she suggested they check through some contacts on Facebook.

“We searched a few names and there in front of us his face came up,” Leary told Reuters, referring to one of the diners.

“He was pictured with his girlfriend who was the only girl in the group. We also knew where he worked, at a nearby restaurant, which was handy. It’d been clear they were in the trade.”

Leary contacted the manager of the other restaurant, where both the man and his girlfriend worked, and explained the situation.

Within hours the diner returned to apologize and paid the bill — and left a generous tip for the staff.

Leary said the fellow restaurateur called him later to inform him that both the man and his girlfriend had been sacked.