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Carbon Monoxide Detectors: Guaranteed to Fail in 7 Years

Kidde alarmTo help prevent illness and death, some states require carbon monoxide alarms to be installed in various parts of your home.

Kidde is one of the large, recognized brands of smoke alarms and other fire prevention products. Certain of their carbon monoxide detectors, however, come with conflicting promises and warnings.

In the manual’s introduction for one of their basic carbon monoxide detectors, it reassures customers they have made a good choice:

“Thank you for making Kidde a part of your complete home safety program. With proper installation and use, your new Kidde CO alarm will provide you with years of dependable service.”

Buried on page 8, however, is some starting news:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Kidde 7 years

A similar disclosure appears in fine print on the box itself. On one hand, the company seems to take safety seriously and doesn’t want to give customers a false sense of reassurance that their detectors are working when they have really lost the ability to sense carbon monoxide. On the other hand, one would not normally expect to have to throw out a $25 to $70 product after only seven years.

What’s going on here? The answer is that carbon monoxide detectors do indeed have a limited life. Inside many detectors is an electro-chemical cell that reacts in the presence of carbon monoxide. It tends to be very accurate. But, over time, the chemical can degrade and its performance is diminished. Accordingly, a national safety standard for carbon monoxide detectors published by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) requires that manufacturers build in a warning system to alert consumers that the unit is no longer functioning properly.

*MOUSE PRINT:

8.1 The unit (including the sensor) shall have a specified lifetime of at least 3 years from the date of manufacture, or from the date the unit is placed into service.

38.1.6 The unit shall indicate end-of-life, based on the manufacturer’s specified lifetime, with an end-of-life signal (see 3.11). This signal shall be triggered either by an internal timer or by a self-diagnostic test(s).

3.11 END-OF-LIFE SIGNAL – An audible signal, differing from the alarm signal, intended to indicate that the device has reached the end of its useful life and should be replaced. … The end-of-life signal shall repeat once every 30 – 60 seconds ±10 percent. — UL 2034, Standard for Single and Multiple Station Carbon Monoxide Alarms.

So, no matter what brand of carbon monoxide detector you buy, the unit will automatically commit suicide at the end of its useful life.

Note: MrConsumer is a member of UL’s Consumer Advisory Council.
 

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The Straight Poop About Online Product Reviews

A friend is constantly annoyed by seeing help wanted postings on Craigslist where business people are looking for common folks to write and post favorable reviews about their products and services in return for compensation.

Since so many shoppers read and rely on product reviews written by actual purchasers when deciding whether to buy a particular product, no wonder sellers are eager to display positive reviews. The problem, of course, is that the reader cannot tell whether the review is genuine, fake, or possibly tainted because the reviewer has been paid for his or her comments.

Enter the Federal Trade Commission.

Under their revised testimonial guidelines, even bloggers are required to disclose in their reviews if they have been compensated for their review or received the product free that they are reviewing:

“When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.” — 16 CFR 255.5

Now how often have you seen a blogger make such a disclosure?

Enter MrConsumer.

bidetLast week, I received an email from the company that sells the bidet that I recently purchased from Amazon. (This bidet is an attachment you install on an existing toilet to rinse your heinie with a narrow jet of water.) They asked if I would write an “honest review” of the product and post it on Amazon. (Seriously, I was NOT asked to write a positive review, but rather an honest one.) In return, they would send me a second bidet free.

Since I was intending to write a review anyway (I love the product), this was the prompt I needed to actually do it. And of course, who wouldn’t want another bidet for nothing?

I wrote the review “So Long Toilet Paper”, and included the following disclosure that I dare to say no other poster has ever included in their review:

*MOUSE PRINT:

“NOTE: As required by Federal Trade Commission guidelines, I am disclosing that I was promised compensation for posting an honest review. And the review is just that — my honest opinion — something I would have written exactly as you see it irrespective of any future compensation that I might receive.”

Upon hitting the submit button, Amazon flashed up a notice that it may be up to 48 hours before the review is posted because they have to examine it first. Well, I said to myself, they will never approve this. Funny thing, later that night, they did.

I then notified the bidet company of its posting. Well, I said to myself, they will never send me the free bidet. Funny thing, almost immediately, they thanked me for my “wonderful review.”

I guess no one reads anything thoroughly anymore. In any event, at least shoppers who read the review will be put on notice, as required, that I was promised compensation in return for the review.

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Pom (Not So) Wonderful Fights Back

The Federal Trade Commission recently sued the maker of Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice contending that it did not have reliable evidence to back up the health claims it made.

A federal administrative law judge two weeks ago ruled in favor of the FTC, issuing a cease and desist order against the company because it did not have sufficient evidence to support its claims that its juice reduced the risks of heart disease, prostate cancer and impotence. (Full decision)

Turning their defeat on its head, the company took out full page ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times like this:

Reading the advertisement, you’d think that the company won the lawsuit. What they did instead was cleverly excerpt out-of-context quotes from the judge that seemingly supported their case.

Look at the first claim in the advertisement above, where the company quotes the judge as saying that scientific studies support the claim that pomegranate juice supports prostate health including by slowing the rate of increase in a man’s PSA level. What they failed to tell you was the following, that the judge said immediately after that.

*MOUSE PRINT:

“However, the greater weight of the persuasive expert testimony shows that the evidence relied upon by Respondents is not adequate to substantiate claims that the POM Products treat, prevent, or reduce the risk of prostate cancer or that they are clinically proven to do so. Indeed, the authors of the Pantuck Study and the Carducci Study each testified that their study did not conclude that POM Juice treats, prevents, or reduces the risk of prostate cancer. And, as Respondents’ expert conceded, no clinical studies, research and/or trials show definitively that the POM Products treat, prevent, or reduce the risk of prostate cancer.” — Judge D. Michael Chappell, page 282.

Looking at the company’s third claim in the ad above about promoting erectile health, the company conveniently omitted the judge’s conclusion in the very next sentence:

*MOUSE PRINT:

“There is insufficient competent and reliable scientific evidence to show that pomegranate juice prevents or reduces the risk of erectile dysfunction or has been clinically proven to do so.” – page 188

What chutzpah this company has. It will be interesting to see if the FTC goes after Pom for the deceptive nature of these misleading ads.