Multi Billion Dollar AC Industry Destroyed and Other Scam Advertising

Has the multi-billion dollar AC industry been destroyed by a college kid from Phenix(sic) as claimed in a youtube ad?

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

In this thread I will discuss two fake tech-related scam adverts for products that I saw a lot on youtube. The first one is a product that claims a college kid from Phenix(sic) destroyed the billion dollar AC industry:



One reason I may have seen ads like this is my participation on a conspiracy site like ATS, because the ads use some different marketing gimmicks and that one sort of appeals to the idea that a conspiracy of fat cats in the AC industry is ripping us all off on air conditioners, when you could save huge amounts of money on the cost of the air conditioner bill and even more on your electric bill on this miracle invention which cools a room dramatically for only pennies. The ad claims the invention of the college kid cooled his classroom from 95 to 65 degrees in just 2 minutes:


Everyone who has a working BS detector should find it pegged out when seeing some ridiculous claim like that.


I thought these ads were so ridiculous that nobody could possibly believe them except maybe young kids with no life experience who aren't the target market for selling air conditioners, but I must have been wrong because the ads kept running so they must be selling these things to somebody. Then another even more ridiculous claim appears in the ad, that it performed that amazing cooling using 90% less electricity than a regular AC system:


Or is it 98.7% cheaper as the ad claims a little bit later?


Since I never bought one of those units, how do I know the claims are false? We have the old adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, plus you can see they are just making up claims that don't even agree with each other like the 90% versus 98.7%. So I knew it was some kind of scam, but I didn't know what you would really get if you ordered that product until I watched this informative YouTube video which tests the product against the claims in the ad:

Is Chillwell Portable AC a Scam? (Yes, Here’s Why) - Krazy Ken’s Tech Talk


To summarize what the video says, almost everything in the ad is a lie. The exception would be it really does use a lot less power than an AC (Air conditioner) because it's only an AC (Air Cooler), sometimes called a "swamp cooler" which cools by evaporating water, which actually makes the air in the room more humid (something that you usually don't want if you're already feeling hot, because higher humidity makes it feel even hotter).

The ad says the "college kid cooled his classroom from 95 to 65 degrees in just 2 minutes", so he ran the cooler for 2 minutes and the room he tested it in went from 84 degrees to 84 degrees (no change). Looks like the ad was a lie.

After 30 minutes, it cooled the room by one degree, but keep in mind he followed the instructions to place the wet cooling pad in the freezer to freeze it before the test, so he actually incurred extra refrigeration costs from putting that pad in his freezer, above what electricity the unit itself uses. Maybe some of that one degree of cooling came from the pad he froze in his freezer. We could do an entire youtube video on just why removing cold things from your freezer to cool a room is not an economical cooling solution.

One other ad I'll cover in the OP is for an amazing plasma torch that doesn't use any butane and runs on electricity according to the ad, but when you get the product, it absolutely does not run on electricity and only runs on butane. So the ad is probably 75% lies, but 25 % is true, like the ad shows it burning the paint off a soda can, it will do that.

The youtuber poses the question of why youtube allows these ads, and he says if youtube blocks this one, they probably have 40 other companies that can market essentially the same product under another name so it's difficult for youtube (and possibly the FTC, since these ads are illegal false advertising) to keep up even if they do block a product. They come from China where it's difficult for western courts to prosecute the perpetrators.

Unlike the air cooler ad above which is marketing a total piece of junk that you probably don't want to use, he says the butane torch that claims to not run on butane is actually a decent product once you put butane in it, though it's not what the ad claims, and you pay $40 getting it from the scam ad when you could buy the same thing on Amazon for about $15-16 (one of the many lies in the ad is that you can't buy it on Amazon!).

⚠️ YouTube Scam Ads EXPOSED!😡 No Gas Electric Plasma Torch! 🔥

In this video, I expose scam ads on YouTube about the BrightFire or Fireblaze gasless plasma torch device. I not only show that these ads are total lies, but I walk you through each step of the video and teach the secret psychological techniques they are using to fool millions into buying their product. I also reveal the dirty little secret of how they make money even after they refund your money.

This video analyzes the five main psychological marketing tricks employed not only in this ad but also in many other marketing ads, so if you're not familiar with these marketing tactics, I recommend watching the video to arm yourself with this knowledge, which makes you more prepared to defend yourself against these tactics, when you are exposed to them in many other places.

The topic of this thread is scam advertising, so in addition to the AC and torch scam ads, please post about any other scam ads you've run across, which will help inform others of what to watch out for. Have you ever bought any technology from any advertising that turned out to not be as advertised?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

We had a big swamp cooler where in worked. About four feet square. It worked great as a fan. The water cooling part really did not do anything in the 90% plus humidity in the plant.

I ran the cooling tower out back that worked on basically the same prencipal to cool the machinery, force air through water to cool the water. It was he size of a small house. It's fan was 8 feet in diameter on a 15 horsepower motor. It did drop the water to just below the temperature of the ambient air but not much. Mostly from direct transfer and little from evaporation.

Yes, they try to convince the ones that don't known any better to buy the latest flavor of something that is decades old if not older. Enough fall for it to keep them selling more junk.

a reply to: BeyondKnowledge3
Yes, swamp coolers do have some applications, and if you're in a low humidity environment, they can be even more effective because water can evaporate even faster when the humidity is low. The OP video on the cooler mentions that large swamp coolers can be used effectively in some applications, and Phoenix tends to have lower humidity than other places so that's one area where you can see them used effectively.

However, these tiny things they are selling like the "Chillwell" or whatever name of the day they are using do almost nothing to cool the room as shown in the tests, and raise the humidity. Here's another video for a similar product, but he talks about some real applications of swamp coolers:

Mythbusting a Miracle Cooling Machine: Basically a Sped Up Sweat Box- Arctic Air Pure Chill Review

This 'Arctic Air' Pure Chill machine is trying to sell itself as an air conditioner, but it's actually a cleverly disguised evaporative humidifier, like you'd use in an old house in wintertime. Ridiculous. Here's a bit of testing and science fundamentals to help you avoid re-branding and other marketing tricks in your home. For the testing, I used the temperature/humidity datalogger HOBO MX1101.

There are so many scams out there these days that you can't believe much anymore without researching if there is anything to it. I do know someone who modified an engine system to burn water with a little bit of organics in it, they sold the patent to brigs and straton I think and the technology got buried...evidently the government could not regulate the kind of organics added to water added by the user so they could not regulate what the exhaust composition would be.

But at least they got a million bucks for selling the patent and B&S can develope it someday...It does require modified catalytic converters and starting the car on gas tll the converters get hot.

There were five guys in on it, so they basically got their money back and any profit they made was equivalent to an hourly wage of the time they put into developing it. It separated the water to make hydrogen some how, I saw the patent papers....before the guy I know dies I should get a copy of the design just in case we have a gas shortage. They stilll have one of the cars I guess...but are restricted from ever selling the technology. I think Briggs sold the patent too. Just think of how many jobs would be lost if we did not need gas stations or oil refining and aquisition....that was the big reason this was buried....also you cannot tax water, a lot of loss of income for the government.

originally posted by: rickymouse
There are so many scams out there these days that you can't believe much anymore without researching if there is anything to it.

Some of these scammers are clever. I remember running a search, trying to do some research as you say, and the search results gave me lots of links to lots of fake articles about how great these coolers were. They must have figured out how to game the Google search algorithm to show results favorable to their scam, even when you're searching for results to expose the scam.

Adding anything to gasoline, you need to consider what effect if any it will have on the catalytic converter. If it coats the converter with some kind of residue, then eventually the car may not pass the smog test and if you have to replace the catalytic converter, those things are very expensive.

Speaking of gasoline additives, most of those are probably ineffective and not worth the money, especially if you buy good gas that already has detergents in it to keep your fuel injectors clean. It turns out it's pretty easy to test the products discussed in the OP, but testing fuel additives is much more difficult, especially if you are evaluating long term degradation of engine and exhaust system components, you need to invest in control engines and exhaust systems, test engines and exhaust systems, and test them over a long time or maybe 50,000 miles equivalent or even more if you expect to get 100,000 miles out of the vehicle. It gets so expensive that few labs can afford to do that, the auto makers can do it if they think it might be worthwhile but even they have limited budgets for testing.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

There's a similar ad for a small plug-in space heater. I think I've seen at least 3 variations with a completely different back story on how it was developed. Ex NASA rocket scientist - geeky high school kid - retired insurance salesman and tinkerer.
Rule of thumb - don't believe anything

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

One reason I may have seen ads like this is my participation on a conspiracy site like ATS

Weird. YouTube keeps recommending videos to me of women cleaning house in body paint. Somehow, YouTube seems to know how much I want to have someone else clean my house.

But the algorithm must be a little off. I'm not getting videos of some woman in body paint cleaning gutters, pushing a lawnmower, or raking leaves.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I use a variation of that system at work to cool my water bottle in the summer (my office is the only room that does not have AC and is full of computers): I take a paper towel, wrap the bottle in it and then I soak the paper towel with water. After 30 minutes the water is noticeably colder and after one hour its cool. If I put the bottle in front of the fan then it works faster.

Maybe I should advertise water coolers on YouTube.

originally posted by: VictorVonDoom

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

One reason I may have seen ads like this is my participation on a conspiracy site like ATS

Weird. YouTube keeps recommending videos to me of women cleaning house in body paint. Somehow, YouTube seems to know how much I want to have someone else clean my house.

But the algorithm must be a little off. I'm not getting videos of some woman in body paint cleaning gutters, pushing a lawnmower, or raking leaves.

Between Alexa and Siri listening to everything we say, and the cameras in our smart TVs watching everything we do, you'd think they would have profiled our wants and needs better. I would prefer the maid to wear a French maid uniform when doing maid stuff, but it would get really dirty cleaning gutters and might get grass clippings all over it mowing the lawn. So would the body paint for that matter, but my church-going neighbors would probably complain more about the mowing in body paint than in a maid outfit.

The Seinfeld episode about getting involved with the maid was funny but it also seems like a cautionary tale for real life maids. I won't give spoilers in case someone hasn't seen it.

a reply to: ArMaP
I'm sure that method works a whole lot better cooling a water bottle, than it does cooling an entire room with a tiny little cooler smaller than a loaf of bread.

If I see an ad about a Portuguese guy destroying the trillion dollar water cooler industry with a revolutionary new method he just invented for cooling water bottles, I'm sure I'll think of you, ArMaP!

Computers put out a lot of heat, even more if using high wattage modern graphics cards to do lots of graphics stuff. Here's a real tip that helped me in the summer, I put the computers in an enclosure near the window with the air conditioner in it. The enclosure had a filtered opening for fresh cool air at the bottom, and had three brushless exhaust fans at the top rear blowing air into some air conditioner ducting router to exhaust out the window. (at first I tried using a bathroom exhaust fan, but when I had a surge from the power company, the EMP from that wiped the data from some hard drives, so I gave up on that and switched to brushless fans which don't seem to have similar problems when there are power surges).

That way the hot air from the computers went outside in the summer and the air conditioner needed to run a lot less since it wasn't working against all that computer heat. Then in the winter time, I disconnected the vent so it blew the hot air into the room to help keep it warm. If you run 2-3 computers putting out 500W each, that adds up to 1000W-1500W, enough to "destroy the space heater industry" except it won't, because simple space heaters are not only relatively inexpensive, but usually reliable if you keep it simple. Computers cost a lot more and aren't as reliable, but if you're using the computers anyway, may as well benefit from the heat they produce in the winter.

By the way, that reminds me, there are all kinds of questionable ads for overhyped space heaters, too, don't be fooled by those, directed at everybody, not you specifically.

Don’t Get Scammed by the Heat Space Heater Scam – Read This

Viral ads promoting Heat Space Heater portable heaters are spreading across social media and inboxes using dubious claims, fake reviews and fake endorsements to lure in consumers. But disappointed buyers report these heavily marketed Heat Space Heater units fail to live up to the hype. This article will uncover how this prevalent heating scam works and provide tips to avoid getting ripped off...

These anonymous scammers rely on viral Facebook, Instagram, YouTube ads and spam emails making unbelievable claims about Heat Space Heater’s performance. Some examples of the exaggerated claims are instantly heating rooms from top to bottom in 2 minutes, slashing energy bills by 30%, advanced safety protections, fully adjustable heating, and thousands of positive reviews...

After payments are extracted, refunds are notoriously difficult or impossible to obtain. The anonymous scammers work aggressively to bury negative reviews and feedback exposing the true underperformance of these units.

They routinely ignore refund requests and complaints, providing absolutely no way to contact them after purchase. These shady tactics are designed to limit the truth about the scam coming to light, while keeping the fraudulent marketing campaign going. Legitimate businesses that stand behind their products do not operate like this.

Something about that 2 minute claim must appeal to our "fast food" society that we want everything "now" and don't want to wait more than 2 minutes for it, since we see the same 2 minute false hype for both the scam cooling and the scam heating products.

That really seems to be true about putting lots of fake positive reviews out there, and hiding the real reviews about how terrible the products are. When you try searching for the bad reviews about how the advertising is a hoax or scam, somehow they game the search engine so you get directed to the fake "good" reviews.

Here's another fake product scam that hits close to home for me, because I'm getting ready to buy one of these soon, not a fake one hopefully, I want to get a real one. It's a solid state drive for a computer called NVMe, but you can find fakes for any kind of drive, so also beware of the incredibly cheap USB or thumb drives, and even spinning hard drives (SATA).

Your best defense again is to follow the adage, "if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is not true". I've been looking for either a 1 TB drive or a 2 TB NVMe solid state drive just to run the operating system and apps, then I'll use a larger spinning SATA drive for data storage.

The approximate NVMe pricing I've seen recently is as follows:

1 TB NVMe about $60
2 TB NVMe about $120

So, how much do you expect a 4 TB NVMe to cost? Well, you're not going to get one for less than $100 unless it's a fake, or possibly used but I don't know if you could even get a used one for less than $100, unless something is wrong with it. So this youtuber buys a new 4 TB NVMe drive from Ali express for $38, expecting it to be fake, because he knows that price point is not realistic at the present time.

The scary thing about these fakes is, you put them in your computer, and the computer recognizes them and shows the capacity as 4 TB (as advertised). See the screenshot, the 4 TB fake drive is the bottom one here and it does show it's 4 TB:



That's from this video:

Same Scam, Different Day - Fake 4TB NVMe Drive


What? So how can it be fake if it's showing up as 4 TB? What they do is take a really cheap drive, in this case he thinks it's probably a 0.12 TB drive instead of a 4 TB drive, and hack the firmware to make it report 4 TB even though it's only 0.12 TB.

He tries writing data to the drive and the drive works, but once it gets close to writing 0.12 TB, it slows down writing so much he stops the test. So that's why he thinks it's a 0.12 TB drive. But he says the other fakes have an even bigger problem, instead of stopping when they reach the .12 TB limit, they allow you to keep writing to the drive, but it just overwrites some files already on the drive, without telling you. So you can think you saved .24 TB to the drive, but the first .12 TB is gone (overwritten) and only the second .12 TB you wrote remains, because that's all the capacity it has.

If you're going to try to get in touch with the drive source to complain, good luck, because what they did is take the Samsung packaging for the real NVME drive, then copy that except photoshop out the first S in Samsung, so it shows the support site is www. amsung.com, it's literally like that with a space where they photoshopped out the first S. Except it's multilingual and in one or two of the languages they forgot to photoshop out the S so it still says Samsung, but you can be assured you won't get any support from Samsung for this product.

They also removed all the identification numbers that appear on the memory chips and on the memory controller. If it was still there you could ID the chips to see exactly what they are. Sometimes the youtuber has been able to ID memory chips in the past, but these fakers are a little more thorough in removing evidence of the fakery.

If ones understanding of basic physics is so negligible as to think something like this is possible, well they are likely lacking in other areas of smarts as well.

If ones understanding of finance and capitalism is so lacking, I am betting they have trouble feeding themselves.

And just think, such people are allowed to vote.

a reply to: texas thinker
Lack of physics understanding could be an issue with some of the buyers of these hoax products. But as I said, I think the ad is also geared toward exploiting the "conspiracy angle" that some "college kid" came up with a miraculous invention. It kind of ties in to some of the science skepticism comments we see on this site, like "Scientists think they know everything, but they don't".

Well first of all, scientists do not think they know everything.
But more importantly they have models based on observations that are extremely well supported, yet people want to believe that people have invented cars that run on water and such, which would require throwing out all of our evidence-based models. We even see people here supporting Nobel Laureates like Pierre-Marie Robitaille, who did good science in his field to earn a Nobel prize, but then went off the rails in a field he knows nothing about, to claim that all mainstream astrophysicists are wrong, and he claims the CMB satellites like Planck are actually measuring Earth's ocean temperature instead of the CMB, despite the fact the satellite is over a million miles from Earth and pointing away from Earth measuring the CMB.

Believing this guy is not just ignorance or lack of knowledge, it's practically an anti-science mindset, and that's the vibe I get from the advert saying some college kid destroyed the multi-billion dollar AC industry.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

first thought i had was as seen on tv. but wait due to supply chain issues you are limited to to only three at a discounted price of 3 easy payments of not 399, not 299, but just 199 plus shipping and handing fee.

hardly anything you see on tv works like they say, why do you think the fat guy in those flex seal commericals is always smiling. he knows some chumps are going to buy that sh@@.

Here's another scam, advertising ridiculously high lumens for flashlights and headlights. One reason this can happen is because calibrated lumen testing equipment is costly, so it's a lot more difficult to test and debunk than say the temperature meters folks are using to debunk the "air conditioner" or "air cooler" claims. But the Torque Test Channel on youtube made a lumen tester, and calibrated the results from its lumen tester with the super expensive test equipment. What also supports their testing is when they looked at a more reputable brand of flashlight, their measured 913 lumens came in very close to the advertised 900 lumens, see the last item in this chart:


But look at the other items on that list, like the one advertising 100,000 lumens, that only measured 2030 lumens. We can see how ridiculous and out of control these claims have been. That's from this video from July 2022



Now this video was just released today, and while it still has some outliers where lumens are nowhere near what's advertised, it has more that are closer to what's advertised, some even a little more. If you really want to know what you're getting, videos like this which test a lot of products are invaluable:

Finally! Flashlights That Are Brighter Than Advertised!

I wish he did a summary chart like the earlier video showing claimed lumens versus measured lumens, but I didn't see such a chart. All the information is in the video, if you wanted to make one, but his charts are more about comparing the tested products to each other, and not against their advertised specifications. I guess that's useful if you want to figure out what to buy.

By the way I got a similar non-rechargeable head-mounted flashlight for $7 from Harbor Freight with a $6 off coupon, it included 3 non-rechargeable batteries and I've been using it for months and haven't needed to change the batteries. That second review says it only covers rechargeable lights, which of course are more expensive (probably cheaper in the long run if you use it a lot, but I don't use mine much, so I got my $7 worth). Mine advertises 300 lumens on high and 100 lumens on low setting, and it probably is close to that, is my guess after watching those videos above. Not super bright, but bright enough for my needs at relatively close range, not more than 10 feet away, and not being too bright results in good battery life.

4Patriots Solar Generator…

Need I say more? LOL!!

For those that havnt seen the ad, it’s marketed as a Portable Generator set that uses solar energy, implying it’s similar to a portable gas generator with endless power….Scam.

originally posted by: rickymouse
There are so many scams out there these days that you can't believe much anymore without researching if there is anything to it. I do know someone who modified an engine system to burn water with a little bit of organics in it, they sold the patent to brigs and straton I think and the technology got buried...evidently the government could not regulate the kind of organics added to water added by the user so they could not regulate what the exhaust composition would be.

There are guys that make gasifier powered cars.



There are guys that take fryer grease and run their diesels on that.

If there was a truly simply and economical way, people would know about it. And be using it.

originally posted by: 38181
4Patriots Solar Generator…

Need I say more? LOL!!

For those that havnt seen the ad, it’s marketed as a Portable Generator set that uses solar energy, implying it’s similar to a portable gas generator with endless power….Scam.

Solar generators are actually a thing.




You just have to understand their limitations.

You can also invest in a solar system for wells.



When I was looking at back up power options for my well, I wanted solar. But the cost and how unpredictable sun light is / clouds, a regular duel fuel generator (propane/ gasoline) made more sense for my climate.

originally posted by: Lazy88
Solar generators are actually a thing.

You just have to understand their limitations.

Actually, the name "solar generator" is sort of a naming scam, because it's not a generator. It's almost as misleading as trying to market the air cooler products as air conditioners.

What Is a Solar Generator?

A solar generator is actually a misnomer. The machines that are often referred to as solar generators are often a rechargeable battery that can be powered by a solar panel.

That's from a site apparently pushing "solar generators" and they even admit they are not generators, it's typically a rechargeable battery or batteries with an inverter connected to some outlets and some places to plug in solar panels.

But sure if you want a battery you can recharge with solar panels, there are numerous such products advertised on the market.

originally posted by: 38181
4Patriots Solar Generator…

Need I say more? LOL!!

For those that havnt seen the ad, it’s marketed as a Portable Generator set that uses solar energy, implying it’s similar to a portable gas generator with endless power….Scam.

Yes, I've seen the 4patriots ad, and it seemed pretty scammy to me, partly because they call it a generator when it's not a generator, and they never really explain it's just a rechargeable battery you can hook up to solar panels. Also when I checked the price I think it was $3000 and I think I later found comparable products elsewhere for $1500.

So I put that sort of in the same category as the "plasma torch" that doesn't really have plasma, because the "solar generator" doesn't really generate. That said, that doesn't mean the products are useless, they both have some value, even if overpriced when you get them from the scammy ads. In fact I've watched perhaps 10 more youtube videos on solar generators since seeing the 4patriots ad, some where people buy available products and test or compare them, and others showing how you can make your own for less. This video calls it a "solar setup", not as misleading as the term "generator". It's a pretty good guide to how you can build your own, for the DIY folks out there, but DIY isn't for everybody.

How To Build A Solar Setup: COMPLETE Step-by-Step, DIY Guide (12V, 2000W)

One advantage of the DIY approach I like, is if something goes wrong with this DIY setup, you have the opportunity to troubleshoot it and if some component has failed somewhere, you can fix it by replacing the failed component. When you buy pre-made units, when they stop working, it just turns into an expensive brick, because you're less likely to be able to fix it yourself. The batteries are so heavy that shipping these things back and forth for any kind of warranty repair has to be a nightmare, if you're even up to figuring out how to package such a heavy thing so it won't be damaged in shipping, and some shippers don't want to handle such heavy items because of possible employee injuries from such heavy lifting.

I have a gasoline powered generator, but keeping gasoline on hand that doesn't go stale is an issue I wouldn't have to worry about with solar panels. Since I may need to keep my refrigerator running during an ice storm and the aftermath, the solar panels may be useless in a storm so then I'm back to the gasoline generator.

One function some of the higher end "solar generators" can perform is called UPS or "Uninterruptible Power Supply", but the cheaper "solar generators" don't seem to have that function and even the higher end models I'm not sure will work keeping sensitive equipment like computers running that don't like to lose power even for one second. I have a product I purchased as a 1500 VA UPS and it keeps my computer running fine when the power goes out and also protects it from power surges, but since it will only run the computer for 30 minutes after the power goes out, that's just long enough to save some files and do a proper shutdown, it doesn't have enough capacity to carry me through longer power outages.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
]Actually, the name "solar generator" is sort of a naming scam, because it's not a generator.

2.
a dynamo or similar machine for converting mechanical energy into electricity.

The only thing different is it doesn’t burn fuel to creat a motive force. So. Solar panels generate electricity to charge a battery where the energy can be used or stored. Yeah. Solar generators are a thing.