I guess people must fall for this. Magic air conditioning.

[saveasteading]

Magic air cooling.

Squeeze all the tech terms you can think of to impress the gullible and charge a low price.

 

A magic box that you screw to the wall, plug in,  and don't have to vent.

 

This is a small extract as the guff goes on and bonus.  But I've spared you it. I've deleted the trade name to reduce its visibility.

 

Facebook don't care....

 About anything other than  thing: money.

And world domination. 2 things.

 

 

 

The xxxxx  Mini Portable Air Conditioner utilises an advanced hydro-thermal absorption technology. This compact device draws in the suffocating, muggy indoor air and channels it through an internally sealed cryogenic cooling chamber. There, a specialized nano-honeycomb matrix strips the thermal energy from the air molecules, instantly converting the oppressive heat into a refreshing, crisp, and ice-cold breeze

[ProDave]

Trading standards?

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

Trading standards?

It is from Facebook. Nothing can be done.

 

BTW this machine seems to be about 350 x 100 x 75 and is fixed on a wall.

 

Poor old Martin Lewis gets mentioned again as backing it, and I guess even he can't stop it.

[Square Feet]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

Trading standards?

A few years ago the Tories hollowed out trading standards and bunged Citizen's Advice a few quid to handle most of it for them. The people at CA are volunteers who do a lot of good work but they can't go to bat in the way that TS used to. The net result is a massive weakening of consumer protection in this country. Add to that the fact that most online platforms are based in the US and it's a complete free-for-all. I recently tried to report a listing on eBay for being fraud and an AI bot decided it was all fine and let the listing stay up. Nobody cares. FB and YouTube are happy for these ads to be on their platform as they are banking the cash. Meanwhile your granny falls for a scam like this one. 

[-rick-]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

It is from Facebook. Nothing can be done.

 

A common refrain from many but not really true if the government was motivated to fix it. Make platforms responsible for false advertising/scams covered on their platforms. Put an enforcement scheme in place with large, escalating fines for repeat offences (the point of Trading Standards is good, they need to be bulked up). Ultimately, give courts the power to ban these platforms after repeated violations.

 

The government doesn't want to upset Trump and feels somewhat powerless. But Brazil vs X (Musk) shows that sovereign governments/courts do have the power to get compliance if they want to use it. The EU is also really putting it's foot down recently (more in antitrust and GDPR than advertising but there was a recent court ruling that the platforms are legally responsible for any algorithmically selected content they show on their platforms, ie, almost everything)

 

Edit to clarify: I think a large part of the law required to implement the above is already in place. It might need some amendments/secondary legislation. But at least the Starmer government wasn't interested in using the levers they had here and instead focussed on banning children/asking everyone for ID. Dancing around the problem in a way they felt they could get away with without angering Trump. 'Protect the children' is always an easy sell.

Edited 23 hours ago by -rick-

[SteamyTea]

I think we would be better off slashing education budgets and reducing the checks on online sales.

Let the 'hard working family' loose their money, it is theirs to loose.

[MortarThePoint]

I'm surprised it wasn't developed by NASA

[saveasteading]

11 minutes ago, MortarThePoint said:

developed by NASA

and kept secret?

There was much more blurb but they missed that one.

[SteamyTea]

Can't we not put rare earth magnets on a fan blades?

It works to soften water, improve fuel consumption, cure headaches and rheumatism, it just has to cool air. 

[Andeh]

It's sad, but I do see it as a tax on stupid people. Better they learn their lessons on a £xx posh fan, and feel cheated, mugged off & embarrassed then when they fall for a dodgy email and take a £xx,xxx hit which the bank then refunds - at the rest of our expense.

 

 

[saveasteading]

There's a report on BBC website today saying ASA are aware of many such adverts. A fan and some cardboard fins in one case (and NASA mentioned).

They can't fine or control online stuff.

 

the nature of some of the businesses behind these ads means enforcement alone isn't enough to stop the problem," said the ASA.

 

Another story is about travel adapters. Amazon, alibaba etc say they "take safety very seriously." But clearly they don't.

[-rick-]

56 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

There's a report on BBC website today saying ASA are aware of many such adverts. A fan and some cardboard fins in one case (and NASA mentioned).

They can't fine or control online stuff.

 

the nature of some of the businesses behind these ads means enforcement alone isn't enough to stop the problem," said the ASA.

 

Did they include calls from the ASA to extend regulation to online platforms? Or talk about how Trading Standards/Ofcom does likely have the power? Or call for the platforms to be held liable for false advertising?

 

I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet over this stuff. We have too many people saying 'we can't do anything'. Yes, yes you can. You just need to get parliament to act (and likely not a major action as most of the rules are in place already), maybe you can't right penalise the companies but you should be putting equal effort in to obtaining that power. Put enough pressure on the tech companies and they will comply but if you are weedy and defeatist about it they will work around you.

Edited 1 hour ago by -rick-

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Andeh said:

It's sad, but I do see it as a tax on stupid people

I agree.

 

May have mentioned this before but someone I knew was banging on about the high cost if heating his mother's flat. Was heated by electrical panel heaters.

I suggested an A2AHP, but he decided that portable oil filled electric 'radiators' where better.

A few weeks later he told me that his mother's bills had been greatly reduced. I pointed out that it was now spring and a lot warmer (∆T now 5K rater than 25K).

No, it was the new heaters.

He kept quiet about it this winter.

 

Some people think buying something new will always be an improvement.

[saveasteading]

16 minutes ago, -rick- said:

Put enough pressure on the tech companies

I think the EU are becoming stronger on this.

19 minutes ago, -rick- said:

Trading Standards/Ofcom does likely have the power? 

Not a lot of resources though.

[marshian]

8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I agree.

 

May have mentioned this before but someone I knew was banging on about the high cost if heating his mother's flat. Was heated by electrical panel heaters.

I suggested an A2AHP, but he decided that portable oil filled electric 'radiators' where better.

A few weeks later he told me that his mother's bills had been greatly reduced. I pointed out that it was now spring and a lot warmer (∆T now 5K rater than 25K).

No, it was the new heaters.

He kept quiet about it this winter.

 

Some people think buying something new will always be an improvement.

 

I'm so disappointed he didn't buy one of these for each room

 

 

I loved the advertised claims, then the test and finally the deconstruction of the unit

 

The old adage is "if it looks too good to be true then it probably is" has never been more apt

 

 

[-rick-]

37 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

I think the EU are becoming stronger on this.

 

The EU are doing fine. They have been putting record fines on the tech companies for non-compliance with various rules. Not sure about advertising. But most of those rules we have too as they predate Brexit.

 

37 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Not a lot of resources though.

 

The amount you can bring in in fines should easily pay for enforcement. The pre-existing EU derived rules have plenty of fines based on % of revenue/turnover (depending) and so does the Online Safety Act. EU court has just ruled that under existing rules the tech companies are liable for content on their platform so they can be sued if they host defamation, take part in fraud (false advertising), etc. Again those same rules should apply here.

 

Basically this country should stop making excuses. The government has already shown it can force the tech companies to implement ID/age verification all over the place that in my view is a huge detriment to the open internet ('want to access this reddit post that might contain the answer to your tech issue, we need to create an account and verify your identity first'*). If they had put the same energy into forcing the companies to take responsibility for what's on their platforms the platforms would likely have got much more kid friendly, fraud would be down, etc.

 

* We aren't quite there yet. AFAIK you need to verify ID to post but not to read, but with the under 16 ban I can't see how they implement that without every website like reddit being completely blocked until you create an account and verify ID. Even if you are ok with doing it for one site, if you are doing a search and you get 10 results and every webpage on the list requires an account and verification to proceed it becomes completely unusable. People will just ask AI instead (which creates a whole host of other problems).

[SteamyTea]

15 minutes ago, -rick- said:

can't see how they implement that without every website like reddit being completely blocked until you create an account and verify

Which will enshittify the world even more.

 

 

What amazes me about these scams is that the creators have a flair for marketing/advertising/promotion/sales, and then take a risk by selling total crap.

They could use the exact same skills they have and sell viable goods, and probably at a higher markup.

I used to work at one of the largest jewelry retailers in Europe. The markup was about 10 times the wholesale price.  It is never worth stealing jewellery, you may, at best, get 20% of the wholesale value.  Not really worth it.