Allstate Insurance Company Bait and Switch "Quote for illustration purposes" Nationwide

Bait  and  Switch   seems  to  be  part  of  Allstate's   business  model.

I  am  with  GEICO   and  requested  a  quote  from  Allstate  a  while  ago.   They  could  not  compete  with  GEICO  but  last  month  I  received  an   "updated  quote"  which  was  about  $ 80,-  less  than  what  I pay  for  my  2  cars  with  GEICO.  I  went  to  office  of  the  agent  who  had  signed  the  quote  and  explained  that  I  was  interested.   the  first  lady  that  I  talked  to  told  me  that  the  quote  was  not  from her  but  from  another  lady  in  the  office.   So  I  talked  to  her  and  mysteriously,   she  was  not  able  to  pull  up  the  quote  which  she  had  prepared.   Instead  she   came  up  with  new  numbers:  about  2  times  higher  than  on the  quote.   She  didn't  ask  me  any  questions  because  she  had  everything  in  her  computer,  from  MVD  driving  records  (no  accidents)  to  current  insurance  company  and  current  vehicles.  

She  was  not  able  to  come  up  with  any  numbers  close  to  what  was  quoted.    I  asked to  talk  to  the  owner  of  the  agency  who  explained  that  this  was  a  "Generic  quote"  mailed  out  by  Allstate's  headquarters  and  that  she  didn't  have  anything  to  do  with this,  despite  her  signature  on the  quote.   "They   mail  these  out  all  the  time  and  the  numbers  on the  quote  don't  mean  anything,  they  could  as  well  put  a premium of   $ 20,-   for  2  cars  for  6  months  on the  quote,  these  numbers  are  for  illustration  purposes  only,  as  you  can  see  in the  fine  printed  part  of  the  quote"

This  is  classical  bait-and-switch,  even  if  the  fineprinted  says   "for  illustration  purposes".    The  bold  letters  clearly  say   "updated  quote"   and  a  quote  should  be  calculated  somehow.   At  no  point  in time  the  agency  owner  was  able  to  explain  to  me  why  I  would   not   be  able  to get  the  premium  offered  in the  quote.   There  was  nothing  like  a  claim,  a  ticket,  additional  vehicles  etc.   This  so  called  "Updated  quote"   was  just  something  to  call  my  attention and  to  make  me  visit the  agency   to   sit  in  front  of  one  of  their  sales  agents  and  to  listen  to her  sales  pitch:   ("You  don't  want  to  go  with the  required  insurance  minimums....")