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To be honest this was always the case, even when i was a kid - stores selling "telescopes" that were essentially junk. Some examples I recall:
- "refractors" with a singlet lens and eyepiece also consisting of 1 lens...
- refractors with a stop inside the tube effectively limiting the aperture to a third of the actual lens aperture, one way to control the various aberrations (whole also cutting most of the light);
- uncoated lenses,
- mounts so rickety they could barely support their own weight, never mind hold a telescope in position or find anything,
- reflectors with spherical mirrors,
- huygens/ramsden eyepieces, or a "symmetrical" if you were lucky (!)
- as below, scopes assembled with components way out of their correct orientation/collimation,
- "finders" that are hopelessly inadequate; you could do better sighting down the side;
- eyepiece focal lengths hopelessly mismatched to the scope - usually exceedingly high magnifications that were impossible to use,
- a well known telescope brand widely known as "Trashco" figured prominently...
etc etc etc...
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