Bait and switch is an unfair and deceptive trade practice. It usually happens when a service or product is advertised for a certain price, only for the seller to claim it’s no longer available at that price or switch it with a different service or product. It can also involve making misleading statements and offering items or services at higher prices in order to discount them.

In this post, we reveal the four most common bait and switch practices in the garage door industry. Being aware if these practices can help you make better decisions when searching for and hiring a garage door repair company.

1. Lifetime Warranties

Lifetime warranties are often used by some garage door repair companies. They may claim that their product lasts forever or that they guarantee their products, such as openers, rollers, or springs, and their garage door repair service, for life. These warranties have been proven themselves to be empty promises, misleading and useless, not only in the garage door repair industry.

Lifetime warranties come with various limitations, terms, and conditions. One of them is the exemption of breakage due to usage. Garage door springs, for example, mostly break due to normal wear and tear. Only in rare cases does something happen to the spring, such as the spring’s cone getting dislodged from the coil. Arguably, however, this can also be considered as breakage due to normal wear and tear.

2. The $15, $19, $25 and $29 Infamous Service Call Fees

A legitimate garage door repair company would likely charge $50 to $100 for a house call. These low service call fees are often offered by garage door lead generation companies to attract unsuspicious consumers and get their business.

The catch is that these companies outsource their business to independent workers who are paid a percentage of their sales (commission-based pay). While some customers might try to save a little on the initial house call cost, in the end, they are likely to end up spending hundreds of dollars more than they should have.

3. Misleading Discounts and Coupons

Some garage door repair companies offer big savings and low price tags that catch your attention. You may have noticed them on the internet or in TV commercials. Below, you can find common discounts that garage door companies offer to attract unsuspecting customers:

• $100 Off garage door repairs.
• 15% Off garage door repairs.
• 20% Off garage door repairs.
• $200 Off double garage door.
• $69 Garage door tune-up and inspection.
• $100 Off new garage door opener.
• $700 Garage door replacement.

Many of the offers might sound like a great deal, but in fact, these are “promotions” on goods and services that have been significantly marked up. These steep discounts are usually offered to potential customers for services like repairs, maintenance, broken spring repair, opener replacement, and for products such as new garage doors, new openers, rollers, and springs.

There are the impractical offers kind such as new garage doors installed for only $700. These low offers and advertisements are usually designed to prompt potential customers to call and schedule a service call, then dispatch a salesman to close the sale (a classic bait and switch). Legally speaking however, these offers might not be considered as bait and switch since technical terms and conditions are often being used in the fine print, which frequently go unnoticed.

Some offers may be applied towards an “On Sale” service like an annual maintenance and “multipoint inspection” for example, just to have a service technician inspect the garage doors and be on the lookout for possible upsell opportunities.

4. 2X Points Garage Door Inspection

Although regular maintenance is an excellent way to ensure that garage doors are functioning properly and safe for use, nowadays, the term 20 and something points inspection is mostly being used to overcomplicate things and as a gimmick to get unsuspecting customers to buy goods and services that they don’t actually need.

It might be tempting to “Save Big” on garage door repair services, claim “Fantastic Deals” or use the discounted house call fee of company X. However, these discounts might have been designed for the purpose of making consumers feel good about their purchase. Although some offers may be legitimate, usually, these sales practices and “best price in town” offers will cost consumers hundreds of dollars for their garage door repairs and installations.