4 Bait and Switch Garage Door Repair Tactics to Avoid

Published on By Champion Garage Door Repair.
(Last modified on October 18th, 2023)

Bait and switch is an unfair and deceptive trade practice. This can be done by advertising a service or a product for a given price, then claiming that it’s no longer available for the advertised price or switching it with a different service or product. This can also be done by making misleading statements and offering items or services at higher prices in order to discount them. In this article we reveal the 4 most common deceptive practices in the garage door industry to help consumers make better decisions when searching and hiring a garage door repair company.

Garage Door Repair Sale
Garage door repairs go on sale? Not so fast

1. Lifetime Warranties

Lifetime warranties is another misleading trade practice that is being used by some garage door repair companies. They may claim that their product lasts “FOREVER”, or that they guarantee their products like their springs and their garage door spring 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 exempt of breakage due to usage. Garage door springs for example mostly break due to normal wear and tear and only in rare cases something happens to the spring like the spring’s cone will get dislodged from the coil (this usually happens when the springs are purchased from online sources). Arguably, however, this can also be considered as a 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 mostly being offered to customers by garage door lead generation companies to attract consumers and get their business. The catch is that these companies outsource their business to unlicensed independent workers who are being paid a percentage of their sales (commission-based pay). While some customers might try to save a little on the initial house call cost, at the end of the job, they are likely to spend hundreds of dollars more than they should have been.

3. Deceptive Garage Door Repair Discounts

Some garage door repair companies offer big savings and low-price tags that just scream for your attention. You may have noticed them on TV or on a website online. Bellow we list common misleading discounts that garage door companies offer in order 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.
  • $349 Dual spring replacement.
  • $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 marked-up significantly. These steep discounts are usually being offered to potential customers for services like garage door repair, 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, or $349 dual spring replacement. 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 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 and equipment testing 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.

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