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- Written By: Tricia Ellis-Christensen
- Edited By: O. Wallace
- Last Modified Date: 04 January 2012
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The bait and switch is a fraudulent sales tactic that is punishable by US law, as false advertising. Though the law forbids the bait and switch, it is commonly used, and one can find examples of it in virtually any advertising circular for major department stores, electronics and computer stores, and automobile retailers. The purpose of the bait and switch tactic is to get customers to visit a store or business by advertising very low prices. Once the customer is in the store, the salespeople attempt to offer the customer items at higher prices.
The bait and switch begins with the bait, an advertisement for a product at what seems like an extremely low price. Sometimes these products, such as a mattress, are of very low quality. Other times, the price may apply to one specific style of, or model of an item. In general, the bait is stocked in very low numbers. In some cases, only one or two of items are available at the low price.
Once the customer has walked into the retail establishment, the bait and switch moves to the switch. The salesperson will inform the customer that the store has sold out of the advertised item and offer a similar item at a higher price. Alternately the salesperson may push hard to be certain the customer understands that the lower-priced product is of inferior quality, and try to sell a better quality product at a higher price. Bait and switch may also be used to bring in customers with bait, low prices, and also raise prices of unrelated items that customers might also pick up at the time.
To avoid prosecution for bait and switch tactics, advertisements frequently place in small print that the store does not allow rain checks, or that the item is limited to the quantity in the store. Reading the fine print of an advertisement can often alert customers that the advertisement is clearly employing a bait and switch tactic. In auto sales, one will often see a new car, priced below high blue book. The customer should be aware the price refers not to all cars of this type in the auto retailer’s inventory, but usually to one car, which is quickly sold.
With resolve, a customer may ignore salespeople and purchase the low-priced item, but quality of the item should be carefully evaluated before deciding on a purchase. One may also want to avoid purchasing other items from a retail store where the prices seem higher than usual. It may be less costly to purchase needed items from a store that does not practice bait and switch techniques.
When a true bait and switch scam exists, the store can be sued for fraud. However, such lawsuits are frequently not successfully resolved without a great deal of time and documentation. What customers can do to reduce bait and switch sales is to report this activity to the Better Business Bureau in the US.
Reports can be made over the Internet, and can usually be completed within a few minutes. The Better Business Bureau keeps records on companies with significant customer complaints. Evaluating a Better Business Bureau report on a retailer can help one decide whether they want to plow through the bait and switch tactics of a store, or give their business to more deserving retailers.
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anon185243
Post 28 |
Here's an interesting switch that I bet is more common than I previously thought. I took a job with good benefits "Full Medical and Dental". After I quit my previous job (that did have medical and dental) and got the paperwork done for the new job I found all I had was "Emergency Medical" where they don't pay a dime unless you rack up more than $2500 in bills and no Dental at all - just AFLAC. Of course, by that time I was screwed. Unfortunately, I haven't found any way to be legally represented in this situation. |
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anon169411
Post 27 |
Sears is horrible. They nickle and dime you to death, coming up with new charges at the last minute after you have made your decision. I walked out. They will never get my money. |
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anon145967
Post 26 |
I worked for Sears for a couple of years selling Electronics. they are a bunch of scam artists that know very little in the fields they are selling. I give them 5- 10 years and they will be out of business. |
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anon131288
Post 25 |
Just like every other company Sears does not know how many people will be purchasing the sale items and are only able to take a guesstimate. When sales have exceeded the guesstimate then the item becomes out of stock. To say that Sears is liable for that is outrageous! Come on people if it was your company then you would be more reasonable to understand how the retail business works. You all sound like you need to get a life and find something better to do instead of stomping around fussing about your out of stock item! Please Sears has been around for a hundred years and they are not going anywhere! Try this, act reasonably and they may try to help you more! Hmm there is a thought! Until then, go Sears!
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anon130702
Post 24 |
Black Friday 2010 second in line at the Radio Shack store in Centerton Square Mt Laurel NJ store for the Acer laptop they had advertised in newspaper circulars, online and extensively on TV. Problem is the bait and switch scum of a company shipped one per store. Two words: Bait and Switch. |
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anon129124
Post 23 |
Rented a computer from Rent a Center. Brought it home and could not get online with it because the ethernet card was bad. I had it for three days before they came and got it and brought me a loaner. Continued to pay for it. Payments down to one payment left and they bring the original one back, and it is 1/3 of the loaner they brought out and mine sat in the store for a month. I called and the manager said well we had that computer since 2005 and it has nothing in it and I can bring the loaner back out for another 300 or so in payments! Bait and switch! This guy knows me and I have paid off a computer before at the same store. He knew I would not be happy with the original one. I am so pissed! It does not even have 256 ram in it which is the least a computer should have too run half way decent. I called corporate and am going to talk to a lawyer. Bait and switch for sure! |
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anon103704
Post 22 |
To anon91441: Take the van back and get your truck back. If you absolutely must write them a check, do it over a stated objection. As soon as you come home, cancel the check. (Don't forget to make copies of all the paperwork and make copious notes on everything that took place and was said. Be ridiculously meticulous with all the details.) Write the BBB. If they put up any fuss over the cancelled check, tell them you will sue them and press charges. Of course, you could just sue them now, but that's probably more of a drain on your time and energy than you want. At any rate, if everything you allege is correct, then they did commit fraud and, what's more, sale, since the trade of your truck for the van was also done fraudulently. If they bother you, contact your local prosecutor's office. |
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anon91441
Post 21 |
We went Saturday to trade our 2004 truck in for a van. We had already seen it online and talked to the car dealer by e-mail for the past three days. We drive 2 1/2 hours to see this 2004 van. We had done all the research and knew it was a great deal. When we got there, they had the van but they wouldn't let us see it. They automatically started trying to sell us a 2000 Honda Odyssey. We liked the 2000 van but we wanted a newer model, so we said well we want to drive the 2004, and they said, oh it doesn't have air and it needs new brakes and you wont be able to drive it today. (they knew we drove 2 1/2 hours. We were there for six hours). They were making deals after deals. They said they could do an even trade on our truck for the van. They gave us the prices for each (truck-$8500 Van-$8000) and said they would write a check for the difference, which they said was $500. So anyway, we make the trade, come home and look at our papers they stuffed in an envelope and looked online. Our truck was valued at $2000 more than the van. They charged $699 for a customer service charge (which they didn't tell us anything about it). We kept telling them we wanted to think about it and come back the next day. They said well, if you don't like it you have two days to bring it back, or we will pay your taxes etc. on the van. We were fixing to leave and they just kept on and kept on. So we said OK and we knew the next day we had made a mistake and we did research and found out our truck was worth about 2k more than the van, they had lied to us and only gave us 7k for our truck and charged us 6k for the van and 599 in charges and we are supposed to get a 500 check. So anyway I asked them this morning what the charges were for and one guy couldn't even tell us, and the other guy said for paper and ink! (that is some expensive ink and paper!) We called and talked to three different people and they all say they will talk to the manager, but the manager will not return our phone calls or even get on the phone when we call. they say he is busy! They said that if we wanted our truck back to give them the van, the check they wrote and $500 extra. They want us to pay them to give us our truck back! We got screwed, and as far as I know there is nothing we can do about it. We think they pulled the Bait and Switch, because the van we went to look at, they wouldn't even let us look inside! |
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anon91352
Post 20 |
Chase pretends to offer a small safety deposit box at no fee, for premium account holders. But, the offer is phony as there are none available. They conveniently have some larger ones available for a fee. What a scam. Bait and switch offer if I've ever heard of one. |
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anon91302
Post 19 |
I purchased a vehicle in March and as of last Friday, the dealership was still promoting it online, including a photo. They even lowered the price of the vehicle for an "alleged" sale. I emailed the dealership three weeks ago and the owner thanked me in an email for bringing it to his attention. Nearly three weeks later, it was still listed online, so I went there and asked to see it. Wouldn't you know, "It was just sold yesterday" and when questioned, the salesman went in "to check the computer" and came out with a story that "it was sold two weeks ago". I let him know he was mistaken as I and my wife bought it nearly three months ago and why were they still selling it? At one point earlier in the conversation he even told me he had shown it earlier in the week and it was "very clean". As of yesterday, guess what? The ad was off the internet. Would you buy a car from this dealership? I surely won't again. Funny thing, I get an email from the dealership this morning thanking me for my interest in the vehicle. Is it illegal to promote online a vehicle that was sold three months earlier? Just curious. |
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anon85755
Post 18 |
My complaint concerns the local grocery store. Brookshires is infamous for advertising terrific deals. One that burned me this week is if you buy two cans of Lucky Leaf pie filling, you get a free cake mix. The ad said selected varieties available. As a consumer, I saw many different varieties on the shelf. I bought two and was charged for the cake mix because I didn't choose the right variety. Shouldn't the ad be required to say only specfici varieties allowed? Brookshire's Grocery is also well known for raising their prices to accommodate their "terrific" sales. Our town has only one grocery and that's because Brookshires makes sure no other chain will fight long enough to be able to get the rights to bring other stores into our town. |
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anon85288
Post 17 |
In going through my mail, I came across an ad for a stainless steel BBQ at OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware). Today is Wednesday, and the ad was in Monday's junk mail. The ad was for a "Char-Broil" BBQ offered at $199.99 (normally $299.99). I quickly made a 20 mile trip to my nearest OSH, only to be informed that the store had none. "How could this be?" I asked the salesperson. "We don't have any, and the warehouse is out too", she said. "Would you like a raincheck?" "Sure", I said. Then I drove to another OSH, (another twenty miles or so) only to hear they didn't have any either. "Would you like a rain check?" I thought to myself, "No thanks I already have one." I suppose the rain check just covers their butts from a law suit, but I wonder if I will see a BBQ before the end of summer. I won't be shopping at OSH anymore. Been scammed before. |
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anon80226
Post 16 |
anon78893: Next time they try that BS with the BOGO, ring your items as two separate purchases. This way you would have gotten one expensive buckle free and one cheap buckle free. |
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anon78893
Post 15 |
Spencer Gifts was having a buy one, get one free sale on belt buckles so I got four belt buckles. The sales person rang them up, but rang them up so that the two most expensive ones were the ones I was paying for and the two cheaper ones were the free ones. The sign clearly said that the free items had to be "equal or lesser value" but instead I was forced to take the lesser value ones as the free ones. That is definitely a bait and switch. They always have Buy One, Get One sales there, now I know they will make you take cheaper items even though their signs say you can pick out equal items. |
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anon78567
Post 14 |
cox communications sold me a package that contained certain free zone programs. recently they removed these although their rates have increased. this looks like a bait and switch to me. i informed the f.c.c. |
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anon68972
Post 13 |
An online travel site posted and advertised the vacation package that I had been watching for the past several months "on sale". The price was significantly lower than usual. I immediately called the specialist agent to purchase and was told it could not be viewed, but there were several other packages they could view (at a significantly higher price). After several attempts to communicate with the agent, to book me with the current advertised price on my vacation, I gave up. Contacting their customer service has done nothing. Their response was "the sale" must have expired. After popping up on my screen for five seconds? This site shows the world that bait and switch is in full swing. Disgusting business practices. |
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anon67749
Post 12 |
Sears is using the phrase BOGO in their shoe department. Beware! Payless coined this phrase and it means what it says. Buy one get one free (equal or lesser value). Sears signs only read BOGO- Buy one get one. When you go to pay for the items, then they tell you "No it is buy one get one 1/2." I asked, "Where does it say that" and they said, "it doesn't but that is what it means." Can I read their minds? |
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anon54842
Post 11 |
I bought a hybrid from a Honda dealership and was told that in order to get gap insurance i needed to buy the maintenance plan because it only is offered as a package which includes oil changes. Stupidly i believed them. When I went for my first oil change i found out that hybrids only need an oil change every 10,000 miles! Now I am upside down for no reason! On top of that they told me i should go with honda financing since it the best and that i should get a six year finance. They said it would be better because in a year I can refinance and get a lower interest rate. After a year I found out that Honda doesn't refinance. I am such a sucker. I fell for every one of their lies. But don't you think what they did is criminal? Please advise. |
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anon52301
Post 10 |
You act and talk like you know the law, but you don't. Why would someone at the check in counter of a car rental office -- of all places -- actually care what kind of car you got? They work on an hourly wage, and I promise you, don't care how big of a "sale" they make.
Also, you people need to read the fine print more often. If it's not in stock, it means people got there before you did, and you're just out of luck because you took too long to get that perfect deal. It's the way things are. Get over it, get used to it and shut up. |
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Bucky36
Post 9 |
I called Hertz car rental to reserve a car for two days. I was told that it would cost me $90.56 for the two days and I can have either a Ford Crown Vic or Mercury Grand Marquis when I get to the aulsa Airport. I then asked the reservation clerk whether the charge included full coverage insurance, and she said “Yes, it does”. When I arrived at Tulsa Airport, the female clerk (at the enclosure on the ground floor of the parking garage) at first would not help me when she found out that I was not one of their “Gold” members. She was going to send me back to the desk inside the terminal. I said that I had already walked (with great difficulty due to knee surgery) from the terminal and asked her not to send me back upstairs. She reluctantly agreed. Then she proceeded to tell me that my reservation was for a Toyota Camry, not a Crown Victoria or Grand Marquis, and that if I wanted full insurance coverage, it would cost me $29 per day extra, and if my wife would be driving the car, it would cost us another $19 per day. A $90 rental suddenly became $186, plus tax and fees. What she told us was entirely different from what I was told on the phone when I made the reservation. She probably figured that we just got off the plane and had to have transportation, so she had us over a barrel, so to speak. Is this not a “Bait and Switch” tactic which is an illegal sales practice? If it is, to whom should I report it? |
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anon44139
Post 8 |
Some 4 or 5 years ago JPMC (JP Morgan Chase) and some other lending institutions (Citi Group and WAMU---who went belly up but was gobbled up by Chase-- as well as others I am not aware of) offered a deal to many card holders a low interest rate for balance transfers.
The rate ranged from 1.9 percent to 3.9 percent on the customers' available balances on their bank issued Chase and Master Cards. The offer was straight forward, pay on time and you get the low interest rate until the balance was paid off. Well, Citi and WAMU dropped the program after they realized that lending for the "life of the loan" really wasn't such a hot deal because (duh) interest rates would ultimately go up and the banks would be stuck with, in effect, sub-prime loans. I am disabled and on a fixed income, so I took advantage of these offers for a down payment on a condo. It seemed like too good a deal not to take advantage of! Citi stopped the program when they saw that it was a big loser for them. They are now using their bailout money to make baseball fields. WAMU tanked and was taken over by -- ta da --JP Morgan Chase. Personally, I never missed a payment to any of these people. The egg-heads out at Chase continued with the low interest for the rest of your life stuff. Where we stand now is that Chase "revamped" on the offers and raised the monthly minimum payment amount from two to five percent. Personally, I now have to sell my condo for about half of what I paid for it. This could literally drive me out to the street.Thanks you, JP Morgan Chase for pulling out of your "no strings attached offer". They are disgraceful. This "great offer" has just about ruined me. It surprises me that this story does not get more coverage by the mainstream press/TV. It has been covered by MSNBC. |
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robertus
Post 7 |
I read an e-book title Merchant of Deception. This is about Multi-Level Marketing, especially with a specific company. I would like to find a good argument to help my son to cut the business with a certain company. My son lives in Perth, Australia. I need help for my son to be aware of the deception act from this company. Do you mind to provide me with whatever tools for avoiding the cults of Multi-Level Marketing? with my deep thanks robertus |
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anon26402
Post 6 |
I recently was contacted by a mortgage company that offered me a fixed rate mortgage with a 5% interest rate. Which is much better than what I was paying. Here it is 4 months later after we've put out money for appraisals and other fees and closing is today and now the rate went up and my payment went up. Is is right? |
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clydeml
Post 5 |
I had a similar issue with Sears. I purchased a Samsung Washer and Dryer on Black Friday. I Arrived at the store at 4am for the 5am opening. When the store opened I was the fourth person in line at the appliance center. The first three people ordered another advertised set of washer and dryer, but I wanted the better set. I was told they would be available in 2-3 weeks. My order was placed and my money taken. A couple of weeks later they called me and tried to offer me the lesser size and quality LG's for the same price, telling me it will be 3-4 months before these units are available. Since then they have called me with two other offers, both times for smaller lower quality items, one GE and one Frigidaire. This is classic Bait and Switch. I have filed a complaint with the FTC and I encourage anyone else with similar issues to do the same. Sears has already been fined by the FTC for these tactics in the past. |
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anon22671
Post 4 |
I went to the Toy"R"Us on 1960 in Houston, Texas on 12/7/08 to purchase a bike I saw in a flier. I saw the bike advertised, but there were 4 or 5 bikes on a rack too high for me to reach so I was told to go to the check out counter and someone would assist me. I paid $79.99 for the 20" Schwinn Spitfire and waited for someone to get the bike. AFTER I paid for the bike, I was told there were no boxed bikes and would have to pay and additional $10.00 plus tax for a display bike. I was given 2 options, pay the additional fee or get a refund & go home empty-handed. At this time, I had already waited almost an hour for this process, so I went ahead and paid the extra fee. I have never had to pay extra for a display item; usually it is less because I don't know if it had been used before. This is a classic bait & switch scam. It is fraudulent and against the law. |
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anon21656
Post 3 |
Sears recently ( in the Denver area) advertised a buy one get one free washer and dryer pair for $899.99. It was a nice Samsung pair, which was advertised for what they call a Friends and Family night (11/16/08) The very first customer to try and buy that unit at this particular store was told that the units were already sold out. This was at 6:00pm, the earliest it could be purchased. They offered to replace those units with a lesser model LG pair, which was magically already loaded into the computer for the same price( as if they knew, which they did, that none of the advertised units were available. A call to a Samsung rep relayed that Sears did not buy what would have been enough units for a sale.) It seems they lured people in with the high demand Samsung units, never intended to have them, or if they did, knew they would have to substitute the lesser LG's and had already at 6:00 loaded the lesser quality units in the system at the same price. Is this not illegal "bait and switch" ? |
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anon9124
Post 2 |
I want to know what it is called if you log on to a website to buy supplies see an item for one price place your order for it and then get the invoice and the price was changed from $27.99 x 40 to $33.61 x 40? The President of my company did that to one of my customers and I just don't see how that is legal. Please tell me what you know about this? |
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jolilakame
Post 1 |
I live in Houston, Texas.
I have been searching for a used car for my oldest daughter. Found one on the internet at a local Ford Dealer. Took printout from internet ad with me and went to take a test drive. Car was perfect, very low miles and very low price (been shopping for 2 weeks so know it is a very good price). Go into the salesman's office, fill out the paperwork and check the carfax all is ok. Salesman goes to enter my information into the computer and finally comes back somewhat grim-faced and says we have a problem, a big problem. The dealer paid the seller of the car more $ than they offered to sell it on the internet and they can't sell it to me. I was shown what appeared to be a photocopy of the check made out to the seller of the car, which indicates they paid the seller $15,100 for the Ford Escape that I have the printout from the web for sale at $14,995. Saleman says they probably have another $800 in cost for checking out and detailing the car so it they would lose $105 plus $800 or so!
I got the name of the dealership owner. Before I call to talk to the owner of the dealership, I want to know what my rights are regarding whether I should be able to force the sale at the advertized price.
This morning it has been changed to an asking price of $18,995 on the internet. The advertizement carries the "Stock#" of the automobile so I can prove that the car we test drove is the one in the internet advertizement.
The car fax indicated it was purchased by the dealership on June 8th, so I guess it has been for sale since the 10th -12th, yet no serious buyer before me!
Can you give me any specifics. I'm in a hurry. |
