Baiting
- Fraud: "A knowing misrepresentation of the truth
or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her
detriment." Black's law dictionary page 685.
B-1. Luring customers for legitimate purposes such as offering a "loss
leader." While the loss leader may be inexpensive and of value the
rest of the merchandise in the store is high priced.
B-2. Luring customers with a "loss leader" while the rest of
the merchandise is cheap or shoddy and of little value.
B-3. Luring a customer or client with no genuine intent to deliver fully.
Offering the symbol of service or value but giving cheap product or service.
Bait and Switch
Offering the symbol but not the substance. A product might appear to be
something of value or of high quality but in reality it is cheap or of
poor quality. This is a deceptive business practice.
Bait and Hook
Unlike bait & switch, bait & hook seems a more legitimate practice
in business. From a conventional ethical standpoint there might seem something
unethical about bait & hook. However in the practical world businesses
are forced to try many creative methods to drum up business. There are
many types of business where a systematic extraction process follows hooking
a customer. The ethicacy of bait & hook can be found in an analysis
of how aggressive the business implements their baiting. Does the bait
have the look of value but in fact having little value? Was the bait overpowering
playing on powerful emotions. For example, a buyer and seller of homes
outfit houses he puts on the market with fancy gold facets. This can be
distracting to a first time buyer who sees only a staged house but not
a marginal foundation and marginal structural integrity. The staging appears
to strong emotions, the facets push them over the edge appealing to fantasies
a first time buyer might have. There is a definite point where baiting
can overwhelm clear thinking. In making an ethical evaluation of a business
this might be one of a hundred factors taken into consideration to determine
the ethical framework a business is operating in.
Baiting
Luring a potential buyer or client to a business. An example of this can
be seen in the practice of advertising a "loss leader." A specialty
shop that replaces brakes on cars might advertise a $79 brake job. A
closer examination of the fine print states this includes labor and brake
pads for the front disc brakes on most cars. This is a very good price
for changing brake pads. What the repair shop does not tell you is that
they will not guarantee the work unless your worn rotors are either machined
or replaced with new ones. And for technical reasons they are only replaced
in pairs. By the time the customer gets out of the shop they have spent
$700. Moreover, they have a brake job that uses cheap brake pads and
rotors. The customer could have gone to a reputable auto shop that specialized
in repair their brand of automobile and paid the same but the parts would
have been of the highest quality and highly professional mechanics working
on the car. It’s difficult to say this is unethical. There is a
learning curve involved in shopping around for food, clothes, houses,
cars and services. Word gets around about businesses that aggressively
bait customers. As their reputation grows, it limits their ability to
expand their customer base. Most shoppers have a good sense of value
and seek out something better.
- Extraction
- Concealment of a Material Fact
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