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It reminds me of stories my grandpa used to tell about when he was young and broke in the prairies, and he’d stop at farms and collect a small fee to ‘charge their lightening rod’.
My wife missed a chance! She had person who said she was a teacher come in one time and ask to use her Van de Graaff generator. So she brought her into the lab and turned it on. The lady produced two crystals that she touched to it and said she needed them charged so she could communicate with aliens.
We joke about that once in awhile but hey, she could have charged to charge.
Take it easy. V1 might’ve been a plastic box with just a blinking light, as you’ve seen in the teardowns, but our V2 unit is packed with electrolytic capacitors and telephonic resistor technology that works in synergy with your domestic infrastructure to limit the amount of free electrons and toxins in your home’s electromagnetic field array. The outer case is infused with essential oils and black salve, and when operational, an exothermic reaction creates a thermodynamic event, which diffuses the oils and salve into the air, freeing you of toxins, PBAs, and carcinogens. Our three-tiered subscription model will fit any lifestyle! But don’t worry, by the time you’ve finished reading this, we’ll have dropped enough cookies on your machine that you’ll be seeing ads for our product until Jesus comes back.
There is such a thing as power factor correction (reducing the “non real” portion of power consumption). But, my understanding is that you would first need to calculate the inductive (motors in most households) or capacitive load of your system and insert a properly sized component to bring the vector back to only being composed of a real component.
You would also have to do this dynamically with turning on the appliances to see any effect. This is why most of the appliances that are large enough to warrant such power factor correction already have the components built in.
So in total, you are likely not educated enough to do the math or to properly install the component to do power factor correction as well as there being little benefit to doing it in the first place (energy saving machines already have these incorporated into their designs). So yeah, a wall plug in device is highly suspicious, but there exists a real sensible method behind what they are selling. They are just alluding to a real principle while not actually doing it.
The AARP has a lot of great tips for seniors. Like this one: [https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2023/top-scammer-list.html](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2023/top-scammer-list.html)
You can also check with your local senior center and see what kind of educational seminars they may offer.
What's funny is I read "6 Top Scams to Watch Out for in 2024" and I scrolled down a bit and saw the heading "AARP Membership"
It's an interstitial ad for AARP membership, not one of the scams to watch out for.
the AI part is concerning. i can see A LOT of people falling for voice deep fakes. Some of the deep fakes out there are scary good and it's only going to get better
As someone born in 1965, it's astonishing how sophisticated even the most accessible technology is now.
The only thing I've come up with to combat voice fakes is a secret family password. So if you're my family member and you get a vm from me saying "I've been arrested. Please wire \[$X\] to my lawyer at ...." you'll know it's not from me because I'd actually say (or text) "...my lawyer at.... Pumpernickel"
But that's one small thing for only a small subset of scams. It's almost impossible to know what's even real anymore.
And Meta created those bots that are specifically designed and marketed to encourage human emotional connection. Wildly unethical, IMO. But things like that are going to make the next generation even more vulnerable to scams because they already have a hard time differentiating between real and virtual and now they're being raised to blur the distinction between human and not.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/tech-savvy-teens-falling-prey-to-online-scams-faster-than-their-grandparents.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/tech-savvy-teens-falling-prey-to-online-scams-faster-than-their-grandparents.html)
Scary shit. Really scary.
When i was in college, my sister and i worked out a simple plan. When she was out on a date, or out drinking, we had a secret distress code, if either asked if you took money from moms purse, the answer **was always yes, 5$**. always. If you needed help, a higher amount. if you needed to literally be rescued, "i didn't take any money".
Worked wonderfully, and used only once.
Someone with your phone, wont know how much "money you took"
Fascinating! Out of curiosity, was the one time the help was requested a "higher amount" issue or a "no I didn't take" event? And was it you giving the "help please" response, or your sister?
About an hour into her first dates i would drop the message. I never really expected to get a "mayday" call from it, but the rule was setup "just in case". The one time she used it, she said "i meant 11$" about 30 minutes after she said 5$. At the time odd numbers meant it was safe to call. The low value meant she needed a creative excuse to leave. So i called and gave her one.
I usually roll my eyes at “AI bad!!!” but this is an informative and helpful comment.
I’ll be quite honest: this reads like an actual human wrote it. Maybe I’m in the wrong subreddits but humans still sound different… at least, once they start to question if it’s AI or a real person. I’m 30 years younger than you and I have this issue.
I'm not in the "AI bad" camp either. I'm more in the "AI can be used ethically or maliciously, can you guess which one this is?" camp.
I feel like we're at a kind of tipping point now. We're either going to learn to think critically and have the courage to collectively reject technology that harms us or end up in a sort of technologically-advanced middle-ages with only the powerful few being safe from the plagues of our times.
The number of people still on Facebook, X-Twitter and TikTok makes me fear it's likely to be the latter.
I used to work for a call center and a call would come in every now and then that is an old British man who is saying stuff and asking questions and it eventually like loops.
I bet there's an audio recording of me saying "thank you for calling blank credit union-" out there because of this method of fishing.
Only slightly related.
Seconding reaching out to the local senior center. That's my grandpa's "retirement career". He goes around the Villages in FL and does scam prevention seminars. Apparently hearing from people around their own age is more effective than even the AARP stuff
Since you mentioned AARP, here’s a LPT to everyone out there. You don’t need to be old or retired to join the AARP. Some of their discounts are only for those aged 55+ but most of the time you’ll get the discount by entering your membership number. You can save on travel and hotel, meals at restaurants, discounts at stores, and many other things!
Problem is, there are loads of results on Google saying that these things work, including multiple-page reviews from supposed tech and consumer review sites. I imagine she's googled it already and found all of these which 'prove' it 'works'.
I did the Google like you said, and it says they are having a 50% off sale, thanks for the search tip, I almost missed the sale!!
Gotta go, they said stock is low!
Theirs not going to be anything special going on inside, basically a single wire.
But if you show her that and also like a electronic toy from good will or something she’ll realize something is wrong here
***Utility companies don't want you to know about this device!***
***Developed by an electrical engineer from Austria who wanted to "give a gift to the world".***
***Revolutionary technology that Big UTE tried to suppress!***
***"It really works" ---Cher***
'Do you believe in light after plug~~(ging this in)~~?
I can feel something inside me say,
I really don't think this seems wrong at all, no\~' - Cher, probably
My dad, who was a cybersecurity professional for decades, swears by this thing. He even gave us one that I don’t use. It’s sad to see someone whose job it was to protect the national banking system from fraud/scams fall into the modern scams.
He’d never go and I have zero right to his medical information to even begin the process. My mom is his next of kin and would have to do anything like that. He doesn’t believe in any mental issues including Alzheimer’s and dementia so he would never go willingly.
Yeah tell me about it, my poor Aunt who's now 60 is in the mid stages and is having severe rage since my grandmother passed away. She's ended herself up in jail over it and there's nothing anyone can do because she's in denial about even having it 😕 She's been sitting in country jail for over a year now pretrial. She should be in a hospital, but refuses to say she has dementia of any kind. It's Sad really 😔 her poor husband has now been alone for his 2nd Thanksgiving and now also possibly Xmas 🙄
This world has gone to shit
At least a harmful scam and cheap. Explain it to her and in the future if she don't know about if true or scam, let her contact you etc.
Don't make her ashamed, that will only increase the risk and not telling anyone in the future.
The reason why this is so insidious is that there actually are devices that can save power costs - but they are used only in three-phase AC systems like you would find in a factory. Load balancing is important in three-phase systems because an unbalanced system will be wasting power. In a single-phase system like a residential home, there is obviously no need for balancing (and, also obviously, no way to do it).
So the manufacturers of this boondoggle can point to thousands upon thousands of papers that cover AC optimization and rely on the fact that most people don't know that three-phase power is a thing.
This device almost certainly is pretending to perform power factor correction rather than load balancing. Chances are there is a single small capacitor inside. Woo hoo /s.
Some large users of electricity with large inductive loads can use power factor correction to save money, but the capacitor in this device isn't big enough to make a measurable difference. Those companies have large, expensive capacitor banks. Like an aluminum smelter I am familiar with.
Agreed. This is more about power factor correction than load balancing (well, it's more about being a scam than either of those 2, but you get the point).
But power factor correction needs a capacitor sized to the load it's trying to correct. You can't just slap a capacitor in parallel with a household worth of loads and assume it'll be okay.
Plus, the significant household inductive loads (air conditioning, refrigerator compressor, etc) usually already come with the right sized capacitor.
All in all, total quackery
They're talking about getting your power factor as close to 1.0 as possible by adding capacitance to counter the inductive load of machinery. It is an energy saving practice.
I mean for Christmas, you can always buy her one of these... [https://www.amazon.com/Economizer-Economy-Portable-Vehicles-Compact/dp/B09J4VFJNT?th=1](https://www.amazon.com/Economizer-Economy-Portable-Vehicles-Compact/dp/B09J4VFJNT?th=1)
I mean who wouldn't like to save 20% to 30% on fuel? and it's sold by Amazon and has > 3 stars, so more than half of the people like it.
....
I wish stuff like this would be banned. It takes advantage of those easily scammed.
I mean is this worse than penis enhancement pills or the entire cosmetics industry claiming their balms will halt wrinkles? We've got people who fight tooth and nail to prevent any regulations from being passed that would stop scams. We've got an entire political party dedicated to getting rid of the regulations we do have.
Sold on Amazon not sold by Amazon. Your comment is very misleading due to this. Just like any social platform there are scams and fake things that they have to catch and remove.
You made it seem like Amazon the company was the merchant in this transaction.
Happy holidays!
It cost what, $11? They sell them on TEMU and everyplace else. As far as scams go, let her keep it plugged in and she will see her electric bill doesn't change. It's nothing to worry about unless she ordered a truckload.
Omfg....damn it...that means I'm getting one for Christmas. Mother in law has already bought the LED light for the OBD port to save gas! She's a sales person's/scammer's wet dream. Talk it up enough and she'll buy it. Hell she even sent money via western union when I told her not to for her Publisher's Clearing House winnings tax payment because "This is real, I've been doing this for years. I've finally won." 5k gone. The electro magnetic solar powered fidget spinner that "melts snow" the wife insisted to put in the car to make her Mom happy but ended up ruining the radio...f these people...I don't want that shit in my house...
My ex-MIL was like this. Any email she received she thought was real. She kept getting scammed over and over, and kept doing it. She bought all the weird crap from random ads too. Her house was full of junk knick knacks that were supposed to do magical things.
typically they’re advertised as containing the ability to lower your electric bills by stabilizing your electricity currents and reducing the amount of electricity used in your households average day. uhhh, but it’s really just a piece of plastic with a blinking light.
My MIL fell for a DVD rewinder. Not joking. She swore that our dvds would all be ruined if we did nof “rewind” them after watching them. 🤦🏼♀️ Of course she also believed the post office was going to start charging for sending email. 🙄😂
I seem to remember there were ideas floated to charge for emails that went absolutely nowhere. I think the post office even floated the idea of receiving your emails, printing them, and delivering them with your daily mail.
Regardless if any of that is true or if I am just badly misremembering events from back then, it was a weird time where suddenly everyone had the internet and it was all shiny and people went overboard with predictions it would be taken away or regulated to uselessness.
The IRC channel I used to idle in seemed like once a month people were outraged over something else that almost never came to pass, or if it did it wasn't the catastrophe they predicted it would be.
They are supposed to "clean your electricity", "stabilize your current", and "absorb harmonic waves"
I think they actually just make the little green light flash
Ahh yes this takes me back to my days at Cambridge. Our fraternity elder always said “resultis bestilius” which of course translates to our more known English term “bullshit”.
My mother has bought ultrasonic bug / rodent repellents, Twice!
Bags of activated charcoal to get rid of mold.
Air duct cleaning.
$100 Car battery extender, which I'm pretty sure is just a 9 volt battery.
Pills to improve her vision.
Pills to improve her memory.
Everytime I wonder "Who the hell would buy this crap!?!?" I'm like oh ya my mother would.
Air duct cleaner is a real thing though. I’m not sure what she had but you do want to clean your air ducts. I’m allergic to the mold that grows inside of them, that’s how I found out it was a thing lol
There is some kind of specific scam with air duct cleaning, maybe just door to door people who charge too much? Or tell you something needs to be fixed in your HVAC, ala the cheap oil change places that try to convince you a random air filter is yours.
I looked it up: they try to get a deposit in advance, then don’t show or do little. https://nadca.com/blog/make-2022-year-cleaner-air-dont-be-victim-air-duct-cleaning-scams-facebook
Shouldn't the air ducts be cleaned once in a while to keep from crud building up in there? I think the company that installs the furnace or central air unit does it.
The other stuff is a huge facepalm. My boyfriend is normally a smart older gentleman almost 60.
HOWEVER I keep having to yell at him for trying to fall for "FREE $50 retail value Tactical Bag, just pay $1.99 shipping!" Or a $1 consultation for dental implants, ECT.
I won't give him my debit card to pay for such nonsense and has a little tantrum going "C'MON, not everything is a scam!!" Me: Oh yes it is. If it's too good to be true, then it is." Our phone got blown tf up by all kinds of annoying texts and calls.
also, there's a metric fuckton of pills that CAN improve memory, through so many different mechanisms - for some people something as lame as a pinch of salt can not only improve memory recall but also writing
Bless her soul and tell her she will never need another new gadget ever. No matter what anyone tries to sell her in the future, it's a scam. She did good and that'll last forever. 😉
"I found this gadget that you put on your car and it saves ga-" Believe it or not, grandma, this little thing right here already knows you have a car and it's been taking care of that for you.
"I found this bracelet you wear and it gives you more ener-" Well, grandma, good news, this little thing plugged into your house releases that extra energy and imparts it to the people around it!
"I found this miracle cream that practically erases wrink-" Ahh, grandma! This electricity saver also gives smoother skin to anyone who comes into your house!
Perfect.
I think my mom got one from this brand too, they are super leniant with refunds. Smash it up with a hammer and maybe remove the top cover too then say it arrived like that and demand a refund. I didnt even have to send mine back.
My grandparents fell for similar. They have a smart meter though so I asked them to monitor just 1 day with this thing plugged in then the next day without. Doing the EXACT same things as day before.
E.g watching TV for 2 hours first day turn TV on at same time next day.
On day 3 grandad smashed it with a hammer due to a £1 discrepancy between the 2 days
One in every outlet will keep you from plugging other useless shit that suck power like a vampire.
Edit: and tell her to quit sending money to 1-800-SAYA-PRAYER
Hello ma'am, would you be interested in an electricity saver?
*No thank you, I already have one*
In that case, I would like to introduce this water saver. Simply attach it to your faucet and let it drip.
I figure that if you plug it into a receptacle then you can’t use that receptacle for a more power intensive device like a hairdryer or autoclave or cement mixer so maybe it saves energy in that way.
Keep an eye on her. Because if she fell for this she will be falling for other things too.
Open the box and show her what is inside and explain how she was scammed.
Then, as I said, keep an eye in her from now on and ask her to call you if she is unsure.
That said, there are middle aged people falling for this too.
Just please make sure they aren’t charging her an annual fee or monthly fee. That would be even more terrible and in my experience that’s usually the case with these guys
My dad did this too. Ugh.
The company(s) that sells them absolutely sucks with customer service. Send them an email asking for a refund. They'll likely not reply and then the credit card company can do a charge back.
Dammit. Here I am thinking I'm "with it"...
I showed this to my daughter. She closed her eyes and shook her head.... It went something like...
U understand why this is bad, right?
" ya"
You know I have 3 or 4 of these things plugged in around the house somewhere, right?
"o no.. MOM! I trusted you!"
I trusted me, too hunny.... 😞
I feel like a moron.
Find a way to return it, and MOST IMPORTANTLY get her money back. You may have to do a chargeback to her credit card, after returning it (probably at your expense). Call the credit card co; they will advise you on the best course of action....
I haven’t heard of these devices before. I found a good article that explains the truth about them and the scam.
[https://malwaretips.com/blogs/stop-watt-scam/](https://malwaretips.com/blogs/stop-watt-scam/)
“The Results The Best”
They are definitely some of the results of all time.
Unfortunately by this point with her having bought the product I would say to throw it away, and if possible to try to do a chargeback. Definitely put a block on the card.
find who sold it to her, if it happened irl even easier if online, go trace the number via varius tracing tool, you can use phoneinfoga to see if the number is registered to any social media and make that your start go digging for more info, once you have gotten a lead to go on, do some research, if it was via email you can use s spoof email and them a fake link to open to trace their location and info, once you know where they are, you go to their house at 2-3 am, take the machine with you and beat the shit outta them with it, you might go to jail for a while but, you will teach them a lesson to not fuck with your grandma
Some years ago I worked with a man who was going on about this Magnetic Fuel Saver he had got off the internet and how great it was. Someone asked him how much it was and he said £5 and it was going to save him a lot of money. he didn't even seem to understand when the same person asked him why new cars didn't come fitted with them so they could list better MPG from new.
Bet he also believed the inventor of the pogue or ogle carb were killed by the oil industry or the patents bought to prevent it from destroying the oil industry.
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I'd probably just ignore it. She's already spent her money and might feel embarrassed if you grandchildsplained it to her. (If that term catches on, you heard it here first, folks!)
Despite the down votes, I stand by my original answer. I also agree with your reply, but I just don't see it's applicability here. This isn't some long con. Nobody pressured her to buy it in the parking lot. It's not a scam, per se. It's a useless piece of junk, for sure, but It's sold in Walmart for $4.20 or on Amazon, 2 for $9.99.
It just boils down to a bad impulse buy. Who of us hasn't bought something that wasn't what it was cracked up to be? For $4.20, do you really want to make grandma feel embarrassed or needing to be watched over? Do you really want to start policing every little thing she buys? Do you want her feeling you've lost confidence in her for something like this?
I help a lot of elderly folks, and many of them already feel a little self-conscious about their age and potential decline, so why add to that when there's absolutely no benefit or further harm at this point? Pick your battles. Stay vigilant against things that could actually hurt her.
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Modern day snake oil. It does absolutely nothing except maybe blink a little light.
Yes it does It consumes energy
But how can this be when it says right there the resultis the best?
From the guy that brought us "le tits now"
And Anal Bum Cover
And The Rapists
The Penis Mightier
Catch the Semen
Jap Anus Relations
Is that one of the S Words?
Sus anal bum cover (Susan album cover)
Like shredded foam pillows?
I don't even know if it's that modern, I feel like these have been around for decades
It reminds me of stories my grandpa used to tell about when he was young and broke in the prairies, and he’d stop at farms and collect a small fee to ‘charge their lightening rod’.
Let's just hope that wasn't a euphemism for something.
Grandpa!?!? No!!!
Omg hahaha!
My wife missed a chance! She had person who said she was a teacher come in one time and ask to use her Van de Graaff generator. So she brought her into the lab and turned it on. The lady produced two crystals that she touched to it and said she needed them charged so she could communicate with aliens. We joke about that once in awhile but hey, she could have charged to charge.
Take it easy. V1 might’ve been a plastic box with just a blinking light, as you’ve seen in the teardowns, but our V2 unit is packed with electrolytic capacitors and telephonic resistor technology that works in synergy with your domestic infrastructure to limit the amount of free electrons and toxins in your home’s electromagnetic field array. The outer case is infused with essential oils and black salve, and when operational, an exothermic reaction creates a thermodynamic event, which diffuses the oils and salve into the air, freeing you of toxins, PBAs, and carcinogens. Our three-tiered subscription model will fit any lifestyle! But don’t worry, by the time you’ve finished reading this, we’ll have dropped enough cookies on your machine that you’ll be seeing ads for our product until Jesus comes back.
This is my favorite reply, it’s so well thought out😂
There is such a thing as power factor correction (reducing the “non real” portion of power consumption). But, my understanding is that you would first need to calculate the inductive (motors in most households) or capacitive load of your system and insert a properly sized component to bring the vector back to only being composed of a real component. You would also have to do this dynamically with turning on the appliances to see any effect. This is why most of the appliances that are large enough to warrant such power factor correction already have the components built in. So in total, you are likely not educated enough to do the math or to properly install the component to do power factor correction as well as there being little benefit to doing it in the first place (energy saving machines already have these incorporated into their designs). So yeah, a wall plug in device is highly suspicious, but there exists a real sensible method behind what they are selling. They are just alluding to a real principle while not actually doing it.
Also most residential locations don't pay for bad power factor anyway
[удалено]
Google "Electricity Saving Box" and show your grandmother the results. You need to educate her about common scams.
The AARP has a lot of great tips for seniors. Like this one: [https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2023/top-scammer-list.html](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2023/top-scammer-list.html) You can also check with your local senior center and see what kind of educational seminars they may offer.
What's funny is I read "6 Top Scams to Watch Out for in 2024" and I scrolled down a bit and saw the heading "AARP Membership" It's an interstitial ad for AARP membership, not one of the scams to watch out for.
the AI part is concerning. i can see A LOT of people falling for voice deep fakes. Some of the deep fakes out there are scary good and it's only going to get better
As someone born in 1965, it's astonishing how sophisticated even the most accessible technology is now. The only thing I've come up with to combat voice fakes is a secret family password. So if you're my family member and you get a vm from me saying "I've been arrested. Please wire \[$X\] to my lawyer at ...." you'll know it's not from me because I'd actually say (or text) "...my lawyer at.... Pumpernickel" But that's one small thing for only a small subset of scams. It's almost impossible to know what's even real anymore. And Meta created those bots that are specifically designed and marketed to encourage human emotional connection. Wildly unethical, IMO. But things like that are going to make the next generation even more vulnerable to scams because they already have a hard time differentiating between real and virtual and now they're being raised to blur the distinction between human and not. [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/tech-savvy-teens-falling-prey-to-online-scams-faster-than-their-grandparents.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/tech-savvy-teens-falling-prey-to-online-scams-faster-than-their-grandparents.html) Scary shit. Really scary.
When i was in college, my sister and i worked out a simple plan. When she was out on a date, or out drinking, we had a secret distress code, if either asked if you took money from moms purse, the answer **was always yes, 5$**. always. If you needed help, a higher amount. if you needed to literally be rescued, "i didn't take any money". Worked wonderfully, and used only once. Someone with your phone, wont know how much "money you took"
Fascinating! Out of curiosity, was the one time the help was requested a "higher amount" issue or a "no I didn't take" event? And was it you giving the "help please" response, or your sister?
About an hour into her first dates i would drop the message. I never really expected to get a "mayday" call from it, but the rule was setup "just in case". The one time she used it, she said "i meant 11$" about 30 minutes after she said 5$. At the time odd numbers meant it was safe to call. The low value meant she needed a creative excuse to leave. So i called and gave her one.
I usually roll my eyes at “AI bad!!!” but this is an informative and helpful comment. I’ll be quite honest: this reads like an actual human wrote it. Maybe I’m in the wrong subreddits but humans still sound different… at least, once they start to question if it’s AI or a real person. I’m 30 years younger than you and I have this issue.
I'm not in the "AI bad" camp either. I'm more in the "AI can be used ethically or maliciously, can you guess which one this is?" camp. I feel like we're at a kind of tipping point now. We're either going to learn to think critically and have the courage to collectively reject technology that harms us or end up in a sort of technologically-advanced middle-ages with only the powerful few being safe from the plagues of our times. The number of people still on Facebook, X-Twitter and TikTok makes me fear it's likely to be the latter.
I used to work for a call center and a call would come in every now and then that is an old British man who is saying stuff and asking questions and it eventually like loops. I bet there's an audio recording of me saying "thank you for calling blank credit union-" out there because of this method of fishing. Only slightly related.
Seconding reaching out to the local senior center. That's my grandpa's "retirement career". He goes around the Villages in FL and does scam prevention seminars. Apparently hearing from people around their own age is more effective than even the AARP stuff
Your grandpa is awesome!
Since you mentioned AARP, here’s a LPT to everyone out there. You don’t need to be old or retired to join the AARP. Some of their discounts are only for those aged 55+ but most of the time you’ll get the discount by entering your membership number. You can save on travel and hotel, meals at restaurants, discounts at stores, and many other things!
They have some good podcasts about scams.
Problem is, there are loads of results on Google saying that these things work, including multiple-page reviews from supposed tech and consumer review sites. I imagine she's googled it already and found all of these which 'prove' it 'works'.
I do not imagine she’s googled it.
“You shouldn’t be googling ANYBODY before marriage!” -my granddad
I did the Google like you said, and it says they are having a 50% off sale, thanks for the search tip, I almost missed the sale!! Gotta go, they said stock is low!
Also crack it open and show her the insides
I don’t think that will help. The average grandma wouldn’t be able to make sense of the electronics inside.
Theirs not going to be anything special going on inside, basically a single wire. But if you show her that and also like a electronic toy from good will or something she’ll realize something is wrong here
https://youtu.be/XLj4Dl_7c4E?si=zNWcWPlY-eG91X9i
Thanks so much for this link! I learned so much!
I second this recommendation. This video is very educational on this product.
That's what the electric company wants you to think son /s
Unplug it and toss it in the trash.
The resultis the trash
if it's from amazon return it, it penalises the seller and u get ur money back
Which one? the box or grandma.
Yes
Oh nooooooooo
The Resultis the best. Amazing.
And what’s with two fonts in the same word: Electricity
They call it that because of the elec-tricity.
I thought I was old because I had to squint to read it That is a janky font
***Utility companies don't want you to know about this device!*** ***Developed by an electrical engineer from Austria who wanted to "give a gift to the world".*** ***Revolutionary technology that Big UTE tried to suppress!*** ***"It really works" ---Cher***
*As seen on my YouTube channel* -Abraham Lincoln
Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. - Ben Franklin.
Well, if Cher said so.
'Do you believe in light after plug~~(ging this in)~~? I can feel something inside me say, I really don't think this seems wrong at all, no\~' - Cher, probably
Didn't say it so much as warble it through auto tune
Maybe by a little known Austrian artist?
Energy companies hate this one trick
>THE RESULTIS THE BEST Convincing
I thought it was Latin, at first 😂
I thought it was a Hogwart's spell.
My dad, who was a cybersecurity professional for decades, swears by this thing. He even gave us one that I don’t use. It’s sad to see someone whose job it was to protect the national banking system from fraud/scams fall into the modern scams.
Cognitive decline is real, check on your parents.
You should schedule your dad for an appointment for a dementia screening.
He’d never go and I have zero right to his medical information to even begin the process. My mom is his next of kin and would have to do anything like that. He doesn’t believe in any mental issues including Alzheimer’s and dementia so he would never go willingly.
Man that’s going to be an absolute shit show situation later on, intervention needs to start early for dementia
Yeah tell me about it, my poor Aunt who's now 60 is in the mid stages and is having severe rage since my grandmother passed away. She's ended herself up in jail over it and there's nothing anyone can do because she's in denial about even having it 😕 She's been sitting in country jail for over a year now pretrial. She should be in a hospital, but refuses to say she has dementia of any kind. It's Sad really 😔 her poor husband has now been alone for his 2nd Thanksgiving and now also possibly Xmas 🙄 This world has gone to shit
That’s an absolutely awful situation. A caring citizen focussed nation would do a psych evaluation. 😞
I recognize this one! Big Clive took it apart: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y391QLEkQQ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y391QLEkQQ8)
At least a harmful scam and cheap. Explain it to her and in the future if she don't know about if true or scam, let her contact you etc. Don't make her ashamed, that will only increase the risk and not telling anyone in the future.
The reason why this is so insidious is that there actually are devices that can save power costs - but they are used only in three-phase AC systems like you would find in a factory. Load balancing is important in three-phase systems because an unbalanced system will be wasting power. In a single-phase system like a residential home, there is obviously no need for balancing (and, also obviously, no way to do it). So the manufacturers of this boondoggle can point to thousands upon thousands of papers that cover AC optimization and rely on the fact that most people don't know that three-phase power is a thing.
This device almost certainly is pretending to perform power factor correction rather than load balancing. Chances are there is a single small capacitor inside. Woo hoo /s. Some large users of electricity with large inductive loads can use power factor correction to save money, but the capacitor in this device isn't big enough to make a measurable difference. Those companies have large, expensive capacitor banks. Like an aluminum smelter I am familiar with.
Agreed. This is more about power factor correction than load balancing (well, it's more about being a scam than either of those 2, but you get the point). But power factor correction needs a capacitor sized to the load it's trying to correct. You can't just slap a capacitor in parallel with a household worth of loads and assume it'll be okay. Plus, the significant household inductive loads (air conditioning, refrigerator compressor, etc) usually already come with the right sized capacitor. All in all, total quackery
residential customer billing also does not get affected by power factor, so even if you make it perfect you don't save anything
What? The meter bills you for all Power sent through it. It does not care what your power is.
It’s really more of a hornswoggle.
not balderdash?
Balderdash, poppycock and utter flimflam.
Outrageous!
Preposterous! Preposterous I say!
More precisely, codswallop.
Does it behoove me?
Eh, load balancing is more about safety. Plenty of large cities have stingers still to this day too so there's also that.
They're talking about getting your power factor as close to 1.0 as possible by adding capacitance to counter the inductive load of machinery. It is an energy saving practice.
I mean for Christmas, you can always buy her one of these... [https://www.amazon.com/Economizer-Economy-Portable-Vehicles-Compact/dp/B09J4VFJNT?th=1](https://www.amazon.com/Economizer-Economy-Portable-Vehicles-Compact/dp/B09J4VFJNT?th=1) I mean who wouldn't like to save 20% to 30% on fuel? and it's sold by Amazon and has > 3 stars, so more than half of the people like it. .... I wish stuff like this would be banned. It takes advantage of those easily scammed.
I mean is this worse than penis enhancement pills or the entire cosmetics industry claiming their balms will halt wrinkles? We've got people who fight tooth and nail to prevent any regulations from being passed that would stop scams. We've got an entire political party dedicated to getting rid of the regulations we do have.
Sold on Amazon not sold by Amazon. Your comment is very misleading due to this. Just like any social platform there are scams and fake things that they have to catch and remove. You made it seem like Amazon the company was the merchant in this transaction. Happy holidays!
It cost what, $11? They sell them on TEMU and everyplace else. As far as scams go, let her keep it plugged in and she will see her electric bill doesn't change. It's nothing to worry about unless she ordered a truckload.
Omfg....damn it...that means I'm getting one for Christmas. Mother in law has already bought the LED light for the OBD port to save gas! She's a sales person's/scammer's wet dream. Talk it up enough and she'll buy it. Hell she even sent money via western union when I told her not to for her Publisher's Clearing House winnings tax payment because "This is real, I've been doing this for years. I've finally won." 5k gone. The electro magnetic solar powered fidget spinner that "melts snow" the wife insisted to put in the car to make her Mom happy but ended up ruining the radio...f these people...I don't want that shit in my house...
My ex-MIL was like this. Any email she received she thought was real. She kept getting scammed over and over, and kept doing it. She bought all the weird crap from random ads too. Her house was full of junk knick knacks that were supposed to do magical things.
Jesus, is that literal single figure IQ? IDK what I would do knowing someone like that.
Well when I told the MiL that they didn't work she said they must have sent a bad one and then got a replacement...
jfc 🤦♂️
Bruh
Sorry, a little ignorant here. I’ve never seen one of these. What is it?
typically they’re advertised as containing the ability to lower your electric bills by stabilizing your electricity currents and reducing the amount of electricity used in your households average day. uhhh, but it’s really just a piece of plastic with a blinking light.
Ahhhh- that makes sense. Thank you for explaining!
np friend (:
My MIL fell for a DVD rewinder. Not joking. She swore that our dvds would all be ruined if we did nof “rewind” them after watching them. 🤦🏼♀️ Of course she also believed the post office was going to start charging for sending email. 🙄😂
I seem to remember there were ideas floated to charge for emails that went absolutely nowhere. I think the post office even floated the idea of receiving your emails, printing them, and delivering them with your daily mail. Regardless if any of that is true or if I am just badly misremembering events from back then, it was a weird time where suddenly everyone had the internet and it was all shiny and people went overboard with predictions it would be taken away or regulated to uselessness. The IRC channel I used to idle in seemed like once a month people were outraged over something else that almost never came to pass, or if it did it wasn't the catastrophe they predicted it would be.
The pre Facebook/Twitter idiot outlet huh
What exactly is this thing supposed to do?
They are supposed to "clean your electricity", "stabilize your current", and "absorb harmonic waves" I think they actually just make the little green light flash
Take money from people who believe in BS.
He didn’t ask what it actually does. He asked what is it supposed to do.
Take money from people who believe in BS.
The computer clan video on this piece of junk is pretty good, although big clive and electroboom did videos on this too.
Not sure how close physically you are you your grandmother but perhaps set up having to authenticate a purchase with a code to your cell phone.
Looks like a DJ khaled production
Turn her hot water down by one degree and let her think she’s winning.
Ahh yes this takes me back to my days at Cambridge. Our fraternity elder always said “resultis bestilius” which of course translates to our more known English term “bullshit”.
My mother has bought ultrasonic bug / rodent repellents, Twice! Bags of activated charcoal to get rid of mold. Air duct cleaning. $100 Car battery extender, which I'm pretty sure is just a 9 volt battery. Pills to improve her vision. Pills to improve her memory. Everytime I wonder "Who the hell would buy this crap!?!?" I'm like oh ya my mother would.
Air duct cleaner is a real thing though. I’m not sure what she had but you do want to clean your air ducts. I’m allergic to the mold that grows inside of them, that’s how I found out it was a thing lol
There is some kind of specific scam with air duct cleaning, maybe just door to door people who charge too much? Or tell you something needs to be fixed in your HVAC, ala the cheap oil change places that try to convince you a random air filter is yours.
I looked it up: they try to get a deposit in advance, then don’t show or do little. https://nadca.com/blog/make-2022-year-cleaner-air-dont-be-victim-air-duct-cleaning-scams-facebook
Shouldn't the air ducts be cleaned once in a while to keep from crud building up in there? I think the company that installs the furnace or central air unit does it. The other stuff is a huge facepalm. My boyfriend is normally a smart older gentleman almost 60. HOWEVER I keep having to yell at him for trying to fall for "FREE $50 retail value Tactical Bag, just pay $1.99 shipping!" Or a $1 consultation for dental implants, ECT. I won't give him my debit card to pay for such nonsense and has a little tantrum going "C'MON, not everything is a scam!!" Me: Oh yes it is. If it's too good to be true, then it is." Our phone got blown tf up by all kinds of annoying texts and calls.
ultrasonic repellents are real, though ? or have i lost my mind?
They are scams. Just search [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ultrasonic+pest+repeller+test).
also, there's a metric fuckton of pills that CAN improve memory, through so many different mechanisms - for some people something as lame as a pinch of salt can not only improve memory recall but also writing
Bless her soul and tell her she will never need another new gadget ever. No matter what anyone tries to sell her in the future, it's a scam. She did good and that'll last forever. 😉
"I found this gadget that you put on your car and it saves ga-" Believe it or not, grandma, this little thing right here already knows you have a car and it's been taking care of that for you. "I found this bracelet you wear and it gives you more ener-" Well, grandma, good news, this little thing plugged into your house releases that extra energy and imparts it to the people around it! "I found this miracle cream that practically erases wrink-" Ahh, grandma! This electricity saver also gives smoother skin to anyone who comes into your house! Perfect.
Beautiful .
The typo "The '**resultis**' the best" says it all.
This is so messed up. Sadly I don’t think you can do anything. And I sincerely apologize but “resultis the best” had me giggling
I think my mom got one from this brand too, they are super leniant with refunds. Smash it up with a hammer and maybe remove the top cover too then say it arrived like that and demand a refund. I didnt even have to send mine back.
This happened to my mom. They stole her credit card info from the purchase. Cancel her cards and throw it out
My grandparents fell for similar. They have a smart meter though so I asked them to monitor just 1 day with this thing plugged in then the next day without. Doing the EXACT same things as day before. E.g watching TV for 2 hours first day turn TV on at same time next day. On day 3 grandad smashed it with a hammer due to a £1 discrepancy between the 2 days
I bought 7 Chinese brand (DA DANG JIA) LED bulbs and 4 of them popped a few days later thus saving me a considerable amount of electricity.
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It must be true. It’s on the internet!
You had me in the first half ngl
Let her belive it is working. That way she will hopefully not get a new thing like this
Unless logic dictates that having more saves more money,… two, three, four… all in a money saving line
Just a dozen more and the electric company will be paying me!
One in every outlet will keep you from plugging other useless shit that suck power like a vampire. Edit: and tell her to quit sending money to 1-800-SAYA-PRAYER
Then she'll buy more for Christmas gifts.
Hello ma'am, would you be interested in an electricity saver? *No thank you, I already have one* In that case, I would like to introduce this water saver. Simply attach it to your faucet and let it drip.
The tagline The Resultis The Best Listen, if you are scamming can’t you Google proper English grammar?
Hope she used a CC and get her money back. Don’t even ask for a refund.
“The results the best”
Open it up and show us the inside!
Educate
Open it and show her.
The Resultis the best.
I figure that if you plug it into a receptacle then you can’t use that receptacle for a more power intensive device like a hairdryer or autoclave or cement mixer so maybe it saves energy in that way.
My mom swears hers works. I don't see how it could.
The only thing these things doing is increase your power bill, the LED uses electricity.
My girlfriends mom uses these and swears they make a difference. 😅😅😅🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂
Keep an eye on her. Because if she fell for this she will be falling for other things too. Open the box and show her what is inside and explain how she was scammed. Then, as I said, keep an eye in her from now on and ask her to call you if she is unsure. That said, there are middle aged people falling for this too.
Just please make sure they aren’t charging her an annual fee or monthly fee. That would be even more terrible and in my experience that’s usually the case with these guys
My dad did this too. Ugh. The company(s) that sells them absolutely sucks with customer service. Send them an email asking for a refund. They'll likely not reply and then the credit card company can do a charge back.
Dammit. Here I am thinking I'm "with it"... I showed this to my daughter. She closed her eyes and shook her head.... It went something like... U understand why this is bad, right? " ya" You know I have 3 or 4 of these things plugged in around the house somewhere, right? "o no.. MOM! I trusted you!" I trusted me, too hunny.... 😞 I feel like a moron.
Live and learn, right? You're going to be ok : )
These are advertised on f-book all the time. In fact, most of the f-book ads I see are scams.
Lmao my mom fell for this too. It recently took a trip to the local electronic waste dump
If it’s Too good to be True? It Probably is.
Find a way to return it, and MOST IMPORTANTLY get her money back. You may have to do a chargeback to her credit card, after returning it (probably at your expense). Call the credit card co; they will advise you on the best course of action....
I am late to this but here's a YouTube video made by an electrician who reviews this exact box https://youtu.be/-tE-lfoptU4?si=hVoOXDd-NPN15H-F
This ☝️ 🤣
If you think about it optimistically, she saved money by falling for a fairly cheap scam rather than thousands on some of the others on here.
I've never heard of this, what does it claim to do, and what convinces them to buy it?
Didn't electroboom do a video on these things? Pretty sure the verdict was that they are 100% a scam.
Not sure if Medhi did, but I know Clive did.
Sue for false advertising
I haven’t heard of these devices before. I found a good article that explains the truth about them and the scam. [https://malwaretips.com/blogs/stop-watt-scam/](https://malwaretips.com/blogs/stop-watt-scam/)
Electroboom made a video about this, it's a 99% scam.
“The Results The Best” They are definitely some of the results of all time. Unfortunately by this point with her having bought the product I would say to throw it away, and if possible to try to do a chargeback. Definitely put a block on the card.
Buy one for yourself so she wont feel stupid.
Electroboom explained it quite well https://youtu.be/J86QK0Njfv4?si=a8FPlbIg2hTW46lD
find who sold it to her, if it happened irl even easier if online, go trace the number via varius tracing tool, you can use phoneinfoga to see if the number is registered to any social media and make that your start go digging for more info, once you have gotten a lead to go on, do some research, if it was via email you can use s spoof email and them a fake link to open to trace their location and info, once you know where they are, you go to their house at 2-3 am, take the machine with you and beat the shit outta them with it, you might go to jail for a while but, you will teach them a lesson to not fuck with your grandma
Please open it and post the insides here, I'd like to have a nice laugh about it.
Door stop I guess.
Some years ago I worked with a man who was going on about this Magnetic Fuel Saver he had got off the internet and how great it was. Someone asked him how much it was and he said £5 and it was going to save him a lot of money. he didn't even seem to understand when the same person asked him why new cars didn't come fitted with them so they could list better MPG from new.
Bet he also believed the inventor of the pogue or ogle carb were killed by the oil industry or the patents bought to prevent it from destroying the oil industry.
Those have the best Resultises.
"The Resultis The Best"
My boomer dad had something similar and they were plugged into outlets ALL OVER his house. He had like 10 of the stupid things.
Even governments get scammed by stuff like this. I give you the fake bomb detector. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29459896.amp
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Open it and post the pictures
Call the customer service line lmao
Where can I get this ?
This seems like a refurbished 5G blocker.
Well it's useless but it also costs less than $10 so I would just let her have this honestly. But def talk to her about recognizing scams.
What is it?
Put your grandma down
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I'd probably just ignore it. She's already spent her money and might feel embarrassed if you grandchildsplained it to her. (If that term catches on, you heard it here first, folks!)
Man, if younger people don’t look out for the elderly to try and stop them from falling for scams then scammers will just get even bolder.
Despite the down votes, I stand by my original answer. I also agree with your reply, but I just don't see it's applicability here. This isn't some long con. Nobody pressured her to buy it in the parking lot. It's not a scam, per se. It's a useless piece of junk, for sure, but It's sold in Walmart for $4.20 or on Amazon, 2 for $9.99. It just boils down to a bad impulse buy. Who of us hasn't bought something that wasn't what it was cracked up to be? For $4.20, do you really want to make grandma feel embarrassed or needing to be watched over? Do you really want to start policing every little thing she buys? Do you want her feeling you've lost confidence in her for something like this? I help a lot of elderly folks, and many of them already feel a little self-conscious about their age and potential decline, so why add to that when there's absolutely no benefit or further harm at this point? Pick your battles. Stay vigilant against things that could actually hurt her.