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Bait-and-switch
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{{Short description|Form of fraud}} {{About|the form of fraud||Bait and Switch (disambiguation)}} '''Bait-and-switch''' is a form of [[fraud]] used in [[retail sales]] but also employed in other contexts. First, the merchant "baits" the customer by [[advertising]] a product or service at a low price; then when the customer goes to purchase the item, they discover that it is unavailable, and the merchant pressures them instead to purchase a similar but more expensive product ("switching"). Bait-and-switch techniques have a long and widespread history as a part of commercial culture. Many variations on the bait-and-switch appear, for example, in China's earliest book of stories about fraud, [[Zhang Yingyu]]'s ''[[The Book of Swindles]]'' (c. 1617).<ref>{{cite book |url=https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-book-of-swindles/9780231178631 |title=The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection |author=Zhang Yingyu |translator-last1=Rea |translator-first1=Christopher |translator-last2=Rusk |translator-first2=Bruce |date=2017 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-23117-862-4}}</ref>
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