ICON Health & Fitness, Inc. Nordic Track Bait and switch sales, deceptive sales, up-charge, poor customer service, long wait times Logon Utah

On 10/12/15 I placed a telephone order with Michael J. During this order process, this agent did not tell me that delivery to my door and setup was extra. When he went through the order items he stated, "Free shipping and setup?" and I replied, "Yes, of course, why wouldn't I?" The agent did not even attempt to clarify at that point when if he truly meant, "Free shipping OR setup?" my answer did not make sense.

Later I was offered up-charges for additional delivery options, and at that point I realized what situation I was being put in. The delivery company offered to drop the 300 lb product in my garage for an additional fee. When I called Michael J. to complain, he also offered me setup for the "discounted rate" of $149.

After 2 days and 6 phone calls trying to find someone to cancel this order, I finally reached a billing agent on 10/21/15. Bear in mind this was a 17 minute hold time which is egregious business practice for any company and shouldn't be legal. The agent initially "accused" me of placing the order online where I would have seen the shipping/setup differentiation. She then offered me the same $149 or a restocking fee of $359, which I argued against. She then accused me of knowing the return policy because it's online and I advised her the sales agent did NOT tell me about their return policy on the call (and again that I did not place the order online).

A normal consumer would have balked at those options and taken the $149. I refused to pay either and demanded they cancel my order. The agent insisted they would collect their money and of course I insisted they would not. While placed on hold for another extended period of time, the order was cancelled and the supervisor waived all fees.

While this is a win for a single consumer, how many others give in and pay the extra $149? 50M treadmills are sold each year. If Nordic Track has 10% of the business, that's 5M treadmills per year. If only 1% of their customers are taken by this scam at $149 each, that's an extra $7.5M per year. If I'm half wrong, that's $3.7M per year. Keep lowering my estimates if you want, but what dollar amount is low enough to ignore this scam?