eco-scams.com

Back in late 2008 HHO Tec, a company selling HHO equipment, commented on my blog that HHO is in fact a scam.

Initially I allowed him to comment on my blog… mainly because I considered him to be more of a victim of the scam, foolishly but innocently setting up a company that bought into the scam, rather than a con-man himself.

Now I am not so sure, I feel that he may have become aware of his error but not admitted it, like so many before him he may have slipped from foolishness into fraud.

You see HHOTec’s own experiments show that the HHO generator makes no significant statistical difference to MPG or power. Look here where his own grossly un-scientific, un-controlled, un-revewable, experiments show a whole gain/loss of between 0.5% and 11%. These figures are well within the experiment’s error margin and certainly not the 25% he claims elsewhere. What is more they use other technologies at the same time as the HHO making his experiment complete pseudo-science gobbledegook.

Anyway… his comments on my blog got so long and random as to divert from the whole point of the blog post in the first place, feeling he was using me as smoke and mirrors to divert me from talking about the point in hand (that is is a scam and there is no evidence whatsoever to support it) I deleted what he had to say.

I also felt bad about censoring him, so here is the deleted conversation:

HHOTec

For you to make false claims that a product does not work is ridiculous we have hundreds of very satisfied customers. We are in fact one of the few companies that are selling a unit that actually works reliably that why i have no concerns at all about putting my phone number or the parent companies name on the site. We sell a quality product that DOES increase fuel mileage, if you choose to believe the hype that the oil companies post about this technology than so be it but do not deter people who are not blinded by the big corporations from saving their hard earned money.
If anyone has any question about this technology and how and why it works feel free to email me trevor@hhotek.com or call 828-748-7845

Jon

Trevor, I won’t deny you the right to respond to what I said about you, so your comment goes, and will remain, unedited.

Your unit may be of the highest quality, I would not know about that, but I assure you it does not save any gas. I am sure you are a nice guy, I suspect that you, and therefore your customers, are a victim of the scam (one of the reasons I feel this way is because your details are freely available on the internet, another is that you respond directly to me as yourself).

I have never seen any evidence whatsoever to back up any of the claims attributed to this “technology”, you hide behind pseudo-scientific words, conspiratorial theories, confusing and deliberate sidetracks but you offer no proof at all… this is all entirely consistent with scams, it is “smoke and mirrors”, it is a text-book model of how to run a confidence trick.

Once again I ask the same simple thing, please show me some evidence that this works, because so far I have not been offered or seen any. Why is it so hard for me to see some? Because it does not exist, and it does not exist because it is a scam.

Why do I have to email or call you with my questions? My questions are here in public but you, and everyone else, choose not to answer them.
- how does it work?
- where is the evidence that it works?

HHOTec

- how does it work?
- where is the evidence that it works?

to address the first question without going into extreme detail, supplementing hydrogen into your motor causes a more efficient burn of fuel. This more efficient burn of fuel enables the end user to lean there fuel back with devices suchs as EFIE,M&m, and o2 exntenders (i do not recommend 02 extenders it is possible for them to lean your car back to a dangerous point…possible but not likely) . The result of this is improved fuel mileage. for more details on how and why this works visit my web site.

i will post up a detailed how and why later today (oct6)
Proof that it works; i honestly dont know how to prove it to you i can take videos of a scan gauge in one of our test vehicles and you can visually see that the mileage improves but that not definitive proof without you having one on your personal vehicle and you seeing it work for yourself you most likely will not believe that it works i can show you results of what kind of increases we have had, but that still will not prove anything to you.

if you have any suggestions about definitive proof please share them.

Trevor Hunter

Jon

“supplementing hydrogen into your motor causes a more efficient burn of fuel” How? Who says?

So you are using HHO along with other devices? This is not a fair test, changing more than one parameter at once. Running O2 sensor extender will (if they do what they say they do) cause your engine to run lean on their own, which will increase MPG (presumably at the expense of something else, such as peformance).

Definitive proof is not something I could get from simply putting HHO on my own car. I swear that my car goes significantly faster with biodiesel in it even though I know it does not, my friend swears her car goes significantly slower with biodiesel in it, I am pretty sure she too is mistaken (true story BTW).

Definitive proof is when you carefully, methodically and scientifically test a hypotheses, you record your method and your results, you draw conclusions from them and submit them for peer review, so we can decide for ourselves if it was a fair test and therefore if we believe your conclusions are reasonable - this is the basis of science.

When one says things like “it works on my car, I used to get 16mpg but now I get 25″ it is not evidence because we have no idea if it was a fair test. You need to devise a test where all the parameters are the same, and your results need to be repeatable.

At the moment your giving me as much proof as the average homoeopath, crystal healer or astrologer.
In the UK you are not allowed to make claims about products or services that you cannot substantiate (except in very special circumstances), is it different in the US? Is it up to the customer to check if what they are buying is snake oil or not?

HHO Tec

our testing procedure is fairly complex.

we put the test car on the dyno and get a baseline reading. then we fill up with a predetermined grade of fuel from a specific company bp for example. then we run the car daily avergae driving for 500 miles or so we then get ourt baseline average of fuel consumption.

Then we install a device efie m&m either one and then get another dyno reading (this is usually a substantial loss in power) we then install the hho device and get another dyno reading with the correct amount of hho the dyno reading returns to normal with the other devices working. then we do a 500+ mile test run daily driving again city and hwy and we get our average and our improvement. Our goal with all of this is to improve fuel mileage without sacrificing power.

i know that sounds redundant but its the most accurate way of testing. we have never revealed our testing methods before now because i believe our testing methods are why our unit is superior to everything else on the market.

We go to energy conventions and cars shows and demonstrate how this works publicly we have nothing to hide we have our distributors come our to our manufacturing facilities frequently.

im not sure how much traffic you have but if it was substantially large i would not be opposed to sending you a unit for a reduced cost for 1 month for you to test and submit reviews. after 1 month you will want to keep the unit i have no doubt but if not for some reason any reason we will give you a refund.

Trevor

HHO Tec

Do you want proof that that hydrogen boosting works? Sure you do, but how much ‘proof’ is enough? Do you want to be shown that it is absolutely, undeniably, and positively true? Or would it be good enough if someone who you believed was very reliable and trustworthy told you it was true?
You have no Proof. A very common attack skeptics use against hydrogen supplementation is to simply state “there is no proof.” This very simple statement is basically a challenge to whomever it is spoken/written to. They are basically saying “show me some evidence that proves to ME that hydrogen boosting works.” A couple things can come of this:

FIRST - You Accept the Challenge;

If you, THE-DEFENDER-OF-ALL-THAT-IS-HYDROGEN, decides to accept their challenge, then you also must go along with their requirements. The evidence that you believe proves hydrogen boosting works, probably wont be good enough for them. Since THEY challenged YOU, they don’t have to do any work and can sit back and be the “judge” to decide whether or not your evidence is sufficient. Quick Detour:Wait… what do you mean by “sufficient evidence”?

If I provide evidence that something is true… doesn’t that prove it? Dictionary.com states proof to be “evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.” Notice the end, “to produce belief in its truth.” What this means is that proving something is true doesn’t mean that it is absolutely, undeniably, and positively true. It just means you provided enough evidence for them to believe its true. So when you accept a challenge to prove to someone that hydrogen boosting is true, you have actually taken on the challenge of overcoming his current believes and convincing him its true. Otherwise, if your evidence isn’t sufficient and didn’t convince him its true,to him, you haven’t proved anything (to him). Quick example: Some people don’t believe we actually landed on the moon.

SECOND - You Decline the Challenge.

If you don’t accept the the “skeptics challenge”, you risk him looking right (especially in forums). By not presenting any evidence, it looks as though you have none. So… when someone states “there is no proof.” What they are really saying is that “there is no evidence that can change my beliefs.” That doesn’t mean there isn’t evidence out there, it just means there isn’t any they accept as sufficient

Jon

HHOTec, with all due respect, what the hell are you talking about?

I am deleting your two recent few posts, you are ranting and not making a whole lot of sense, I feel your trying the smoke and mirrors method of diverting attention from my point (that you have no evidence) and I shall not be approving any more from you unless they address this, the only relevant issue here.

I know what I mean by “proof”, most people know what they mean by “true” - if you want to go argue about the nature of these please feel free to log on to http://www.philosophyforums.com and fill your boots.

Meanwhile back on on Jon’s blog, you still fail to provide me with any (as in I have been shown nothing whatsoever) scientific (as in not anecdotal) and impartial (as in not you or me or your friend or your customer) evidence that any of this HHO stuff is anything other than bullshit.

On your website you clearly state “Most applications will see far greater than 25% increase in mileage”, so why not take the $1,000,000 challenge ?

HHO Tec

Ok when you say proof what would be satisfactory proof for you i believe i asked you that already. I can email you excel spreadsheets with data. I can make a video from one of our test cars, video the scan gauge with the unit not powered up and then drive another 20 miles with the cell powered up and that would be proof. But i have a hunch that this would not be satisfactory for you either. So if you tell me what i can do to PROVE that this technology does in fact work exactly as i state on my website i will very gladly do it. If you can think of a way to Prove this over the internet beyond a shadow of doubt i would greatly appreciate it.

Jon

You have asked what would make good proof and I have answered; scientific impartial evidence. It should not be a big deal, you are suggesting that your device can improve fuel economy by 25% or more, multiply that by the billions of vehicles in the world, you should be the richest man alive, not wasting your time arguing with some bloke in the UK about the nature of truth and the definition of evidence.