Siding repair question

Question about siding repair -- 

I live in an HOA where are townhomes are sided with vinyl siding.  I just
found out that when we have asked for repairs, their way of "repairing" is
to take the damaged siding off, and just swap it out with another piece on
the building that is in a less noticeable area.  I am told this is "typical"
because if they replace it with new, they have problems with matching due to
fading.

For those of you who are in HOAs -- is this truly typical in your
experience?  It seems very sloppy (almost fraudulent) to me, but the part
about fading makes sense.