False advertising misleads customers in purchasing, making it difficult for them to protect their rights in the door and window equipment industry.

A Review of the Current Situation of False Advertising Misleading Procurement and Customer Dilemmas in the Protection of Rights for Door and Window Equipment: As China's door and window manufacturing industry transforms towards large-scale and refined production, the market demand for door and window processing equipment continues to rise. Many small and medium-sized door and window processing practitioners, urgently needing to improve production efficiency, are often misled by exaggerated advertising during the procurement process, falling into false advertising traps. Subsequently, they face multiple practical difficulties in protecting their rights.

False advertising tactics in the window and door equipment industry are diverse: First, core performance is misrepresented. Some vendors claim that their cutting equipment can process 12 meters of profile per minute and their bending equipment can produce 150 standard windows per day, but the actual operating parameters are only 60%-70% of the advertised values, and the performance deteriorates even faster after long-term operation. Second, functional packaging is misleading. Semi-automatic equipment that requires manual assistance is packaged as "fully intelligent and unattended," or hidden problems such as high maintenance costs and high material consumption are deliberately concealed, misleading buyers to only focus on the initial price. Third, qualification endorsement is falsified. Some vendors forge industry certifications and certificates, or use the success stories of similar brands to mislead customers. In reality, the core components are low-cost OEM products, and the quality is seriously inconsistent with the advertising.

For example, a window and door processing factory owner in the Yangtze River Delta region purchased aluminum alloy window processing equipment in 2022. The supplier verbally promised "150 standard windows per day, no extra manual polishing required," and the promotional materials even featured impressive test videos demonstrating high production capacity. Trusting the industry's reputation, the owner did not include these promises in the purchase contract, only signing a contract at a discounted price. After the equipment arrived, the actual daily production capacity was only 80 sets, the profile cutting precision deviation exceeded industry standards, requiring two additional workers for secondary processing, and frequent material jamming occurred. The owner contacted the supplier multiple times to request rectification, but the supplier consistently used excuses such as "improper operation" and "environmental impact" to evade responsibility, eventually even refusing to respond to requests altogether.

The difficulties in protecting rights following such purchases are a common problem faced by most small and medium-sized customers: First, the cost of evidence is too high. Most false advertising is based on verbal promises or temporary website promotions, without written contract terms. Some merchants delete chat records and remove promotional pages after the transaction, making it difficult for purchasers to retain effective evidence. To prove that the equipment performance is substandard, it is necessary to commission a third-party professional agency for testing, which costs anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan. For customers whose equipment purchase amount is only a few hundred thousand yuan, the cost of protecting their rights far exceeds the actual loss. Second, there are obstacles in the connection of rights protection channels. When purchasers complain to market supervision departments, they are often advised to take legal action on the grounds that it is a "civil contract dispute." Filing a lawsuit requires preparing a complaint and collecting evidence. Small and medium-sized customers lack professional legal knowledge and find it difficult to cope with the cumbersome procedures. It is very common for them to give up on protecting their rights due to the high time and energy costs. In addition, some merchants operate in different locations, making it difficult for regulatory departments in the purchaser's location to enforce the law across regions, resulting in their demands not being implemented.

The combination of false advertising and difficulties in protecting rights has not only caused small and medium-sized door and window processing practitioners to suffer double losses in terms of funds and production, but has also disrupted the market order of the door and window equipment industry. Even compliant businesses are facing a crisis of trust due to the negative industry label of "false advertising." Most practitioners said that although they repeatedly check the advertising content when purchasing, it is still difficult to completely avoid new tricks—some merchants change "can achieve XX parameters" to "achieved under ideal conditions," using language that blurs the boundaries of responsibility to further put them in a passive position when protecting their rights.