Saved Pennies How to save your money one step at a time

The iRenew Bracelet commercial promises to restore your balance and renew your energy, but does it really work? This review will tell you the truth behind the iRenew bracelet.

How the iRenew bracelet supposedly works

On the outside, the iRenew bracelet is a fairly ugly product, so what makes it so special? According to the iRenew commercial and official website, the bracelet works by sending electrical waves at ‘natural frequencies’ that your body ‘positively responds to.’ They claim to renew your balance, strength, energy, overall health, increase mental and physical performance, and reinforce ‘natural immunity to stress’ and enhance a sense of well-being. It looks like the folks who make this bracelet are promising anything and everything they could think of.

The harsh reality

Does this $20 bracelet sound too good to be true? We thought so. The fact of the matter is that there have been no scientific studies which link radio frequencies of any kind to a ‘positive effect’ in humans. Period. In fact, radio frequencies in most spectrums have no measurable effect on human health at all. We’re surrounded by radio waves every day, including radio stations, wireless mice and keyboards, wireless network cards, cell phones, over the air HD television channels, background radiation, etc. So right away we know there is no scientific basis for how this product could actually work. Even if there was a magical ‘natural frequency’ that the body responds too, I find it incredibly hard to believe that such a small bracelet would ever have enough power (and I’m not talking about magical power, I’m talking about electrical power) to make any noticeable effect o human health.

Scam, or well intentioned company?

For years, I have been fascinated with scams and have studied many of them. The iRenew bracelet falls squarely into the pseudoscience fraud category. This is where the designers of the product are well aware that their claims are bogus, but they don’t care. The commercial throws in words like ‘biofield’ and ‘frequencies’ in an attempt to dupe television viewers into buying their hoax. They’re scam artists, and their goal is to take your money. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that their bracelets don’t even send out any frequency of any kind. Fortunately, I do not send my money to scam artists to find out. However, I do hold a BSE and MSE, both in electrical engineering, so if someone would like to donate a bracelet, I’d be happy to dissect it, measure any electrical signal, and post the results online.

But it worked in the commercial!

What? The test where the host of the commercial pulls people backwards and they lose their balance? This is purely a placebo effect. Don’t believe me? The results in the commercial are remarkably similar to this video. Should you decide to watch the full video, you will immediately see why it worked in the demonstrations on the commercial, and why it is strictly a placebo effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_MzP2MZaOo

The Verdict

The iRenew bracelet product is obviously a scam. There is no scientific basis behind the product; the demonstrations in the commercial are successful because of the placebo effect. The commercial tries to tell you how their product is a good deal because athletes have spent thousands of dollars for the same ‘technology.’ Notice how they didn’t mention any names. And even if they did, it doesn’t matter. Athletes aren’t typically known for academic knowledge. Stay away from iRenew. It won’t hurt you, but it certainly won’t help you either.

Posted under Avoiding Scams, Technology

It’s hard to imagine that an entire corporation could be based off a scam, but that’s exactly the case for Amway and Quixtar. This article will detail exactly how Amway and Quixtar work, and why it is a scam you should avoid. Because Amway and Quixtar are the same company, I’ll just be using the name Amway from now on.

Like many scams, the Amway scam is based off people’s urge to be rich, drive a nice car, and live in a big house. People often want to live that lifestyle so badly that they will do anything and believe anything in order to achieve that goal. This is where Amway steps in. The main idea is that you become a salesperson and sell Amway products, such as vitamins, electronics, and various other goods. Of course, you won’t get rich selling knifes door to door, but that’s where the twist comes in. The idea is that the more people you recruit into Amway, the more money you’ll make because you’ll get a percentage of their earnings. If the people you recruit, recruit more people in turn, you’ll get a percentage of that, and so on. So the main idea is to recruit as many people as possible, and have an automatic stream of revenue. Does this sound like a pyramid scam to you? Well, it basically is. Technically, it’s labeled as multi-level-marketing, which is nothing more than a legal pyramid scam.

So where is the harm? So far, everything sounds legitimate, and harmless. That’s exactly what they want you to think. The fact of the matter is that once you’re recruited, Amway starts selling things to YOU. That’s right, anything from motivational tapes, to motivational books, to tickets for conventions and rallies, and even entire bus trips to rallies. Through a series of talks, basic brainwashing techniques are used in order to convince you that you will succeed and become a millionaire, but only if you buy motivational tapes which hold the key to your success. In fact, it is commonly said that Amway rallies resemble religious revival meetings more than anything else. Now, I’m not trying to knock on religious revival meetings, but Amway preys on your desperation, and preys on your dreams. They tell people over and over that they will become rich if they follow the Amway business plan. Unfortunately, virtually the only people making any sort of significant money are the people selling motivational tools at the rallies and so forth. According to Amway itself, the average amount of money people make at Amway is a measly $1,400 a year. This doesn’t include all the money for meetings, rallies, travel, books, tapes, and everything else. When all is said and done, most people actually lose their money, friends, and a huge amount of time.

Posted under Avoiding Fees, Avoiding Scams, Hidden Fees, Making Money

In the ultimate quest to save money, people often look at how to save or reduce their gasoline consumption. There has been a lot of buzz about promising technologies like HHO, or burning salt water as a fuel instead of gas. First, let me be very clear; HHO technology is nothing more than a scam. Many HHO venders use pseudo-scientific explanations and videos of electric cars (which don’t use HHO) as a well to sell their fake gas-saving product on the unsuspecting masses. But this article isn’t about HHO; it’s about burning sea-water as fuel.

About 70% of the planet’s surface is covered with salt water. This means that if there were a way to burn the sea-water and use it as a fuel, it would completely solve all of the world’s energy problems. There has been a lot of buzz about an invention by John Kanzius. His invention uses radio waves to actually burn saltwater. The chemistry is a bit complicated, but for now, it’s confirmed that 14 MHz signals do indeed ignite saltwater.

This is great, isn’t it? Well, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Unfortunately, the amount of power needed to generate the radio waves exceeds the amount of power produced by burning the saltwater. Unless an even newer technology is developed, this means that it is impossible to generate any power from seawater. It’s an unfortunate truth, but it is what it is. So the next time to you a Youtube video about the saltwater torch, just remember that an enormous amount of electricity is used to generate the flames, and that electricity has to come from somewhere! While it was an interesting discovery, it is extremely unlikely that this technology will ever be able to power cars, power plants, or anything else. Save your money and don’t buy any fuel savings devices that claim to work by burning saltwater.

Posted under Avoiding Scams, Saving Gas, Technology

You’ve likely seen Jeff Paul’s infomercial about how you can make internet millions with his money making system. You’ve seen the testimonials and the two incredibly hot girls in bikinis hosting his infomercial. But what if you want to try Jeff Paul’s money making system for free, without paying any money at all? Well, you’re in luck, because I’m going to save you more time and money than you can imagine. First, I’m sorry to say that it’s not possible to download Jeff Paul’s money making websites on Rapidshare, Megaupload, or any other file sharing service. The reason for this is that Jeff Paul’s money making websites don’t exist. That’s right, you heard me. Jeff Paul’s shortcuts to internet millions is a scam, plain and simple. But wait, in the infomercial, Jeff Paul says for a little money you can get 10 free websites, right? Well, wrong. Like I said before, Jeff Paul’s shortcuts is a complete scam, and the commercial is full of flat out lies. I’m going to save you some serious time and money by telling you to just walk away, it isn’t worth it. For $50 or so, you get a package with some vague information about how to make money on the internet, but you don’t get any websites as promised. Then, for thousands of dollars, they try to upsell you their internet website packages. These websites need to run on their servers, and they charge you absurd amounts of money for it. Remember in the infomercial when Jeff Paul said you’ll get new money making websites every month for free? Well, that simply isn’t true. You’ll be charged hundreds of dollars. Once Jeff Paul has your credit card number, he will never, ever stop charging you every month. It is not possible to cancel Jeff Paul’s program. The only way to have the payments stop is to cancel your credit card. Sure there are plenty of people who make money on the internet, but not with kits like Jeff Paul. Keep searching, and eventually you’ll find a genuine opportunity.

Posted under Avoiding Fees, Avoiding Scams, Hidden Fees, Making Money, Saving Money, Technology

Some people claim that HHO devices can make your car up to 50% more fuel efficient. These HHO ‘fuel savers’ are little more than a jam jar filled with water. A natural question for many people is, if it were so easy to make a car 50% more fuel efficient, why aren’t any major car manufacturers designing, making, and installing HHO devices in their vehicles? By major car manufacturers, I’m talking about companies like Ford, GM, Toyota, BMW, etc.

This reason, along with technical reasons, it is my opinion that HHO is a scam. The scam simply feeds on people’s despair at the gas pump. People may be willing to pay 50 dollars for bogus plans and schematics if they think it’ll save hundreds of dollars at the gas pump. Because HHO is not a legitimate technology, scammers are forced to make up excuses and explanations for some obvious holes in their advertisement. Some claim that HHO is a secret technology that the oil companies don’t want you to find out about. Take a step back and ask yourself if you think something you can buy cheaply on the internet is some sort of industrial secret. Obviously, the answer is no.

So why aren’t any car manufacturers making HHO devices? Scammers tend to claim that there is a secret conspiracy between car and oil companies. This is absurd, mainly because the automotive industry strives to have higher fuel efficiency in order to attract more customers. A popular example is the Toyota Prius hybrid, which isn’t made fast enough to fill demand. This means that you have to have your name put on a waiting list in order to get one! The only reasonable conclusion is that HHO isn’t made by any major automotive companies because it is not a legitimate technology. It’s nothing more than a scam which is carefully designed in order to take your money. Instead of spending your money on bogus and fraudulent products, consider changing your driving habits in order to save fuel.

Posted under Avoiding Scams, Saving Gas, Technology

To sell a product successfully, people need to know about the product to begin with. This is equally true for scams. The HHO scam is highly successful for many reasons. One of the reasons the HHO scam is successful is because of its use of pseudo scientific lingo coupled with people who aren’t properly educated in science, at least in the fields of chemistry, electricity and thermodynamics. The advertising methods used by the HHO scammers depend on the fact that most people in the US do not have engineering or science related college degrees.

Confusion about hydrogen

Hydrogen is the most common element in our galaxy. Hydrogen has many interesting properties and is used in many different ways by many different types of technology. First, let me briefly explain the technology behind HHO.

HHO in motor vehicles - Massive amounts of electricity is used to separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules from water. This gas is fed directly into the gas lines leading to your car engine. The new oxygen levels trick your car’s onboard computer into running lean. This damages the engine, but also increases your miles per gallon. If you want to destroy your car engine, or have a car which is going to die within a year anyway, HHO may actually save you some money.

Hydrogen in fuel cells - Unlike the HHO scam, fuel cells is a promising technology. The majority of this technology was developed by NASA in preparation for the Apollo program. Hydrogen in fuel cells is a vastly different technology than HHO. The idea behind fuel cells is that a device recombines hydrogen and oxygen to form water and electricity. This electricity is most often used to drive an electric motor. Even though fuel cell technology has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with HHO, the scammers promoting HHO post videos of fuel cell cars, and then proceed to claim that the cars are using HHO ‘technology’ when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

HHO torches - This technology is similar to HHO in the respect that the gas combination of hydrogen and oxygen is burned to produce a flame. Like HHO, these devices use electrolysis to separate hydrogen out of water. Unfortunately, the similarities end there. There are many sites claiming to make your car run on water, when in fact it is still running on gasoline. HHO torches don’t use gas at all, but just use massive amounts of electricity. The reason these torches are not mainstream is because it is often cheaper for companies to buy and operate regular welding torches, rather than pay for electricity. Of course, the HHO scammers don’t care. They continue to publish videos on Youtube and other sites claiming that cars can run solely on HHO gas just like the torches. The truth is that your car’s alternator can’t supply enough electricity to create enough hydrogen to even operate a lawnmower, much less a car.

Solar power - Solar power has nothing to do with hydrogen or HHO, but that doesn’t stop scammers from posting videos about solar powered cars, and then continue to say that the cars operate using HHO. This is one of the most egregious lies from people promoting HHO just to make a quick dollar.

In summary, there are very different technologies listed above which have nothing to do with HHO. However, HHO scammers post video after video of these devices and claim that HHO is being used in the video. Does this sound like legitimate advertising to you? The answer is no. Its false advertising at best and blatant lying at best.

Why are there so many videos promoting HHO on Youtube? The answer is simple. Most of the major HHO websites have an affiliate program. When you sign up for an affiliate program, you are encouraged to post bogus videos about HHO on Youtube over and over again, and include your affiliate ID in the video comment section.

Posted under Avoiding Scams, Saving Gas, Saving Money, Technology

If you hate paying money for gas, chances are you’ve looked for ways to lessen your pain at the pump. Sometimes, the best way to save your money is to avoid scams like HHO. These scams operate under many names, including water4fuel, and water4gas. If you’re not familiar with the scam, read on and learn all about it.

How the HHO scam works

The water for gas scam is rather simple. Websites claim to sell you kits or plans that involve you putting a jam-jar of water in your engine. If you’ve taken high school chemistry, you may have performed an experiment where you run an electric current through water to create hydrogen and oxygen gas. The main idea is that you can feed this gas into your fuel line where it dissolves into the gasoline, and magically gives you more miles per gallon. Many websites which promote this scam for tremendous profit make claims that you can cut your gas consumption in half. Is this really possible?

At first glance, these HHO systems may seem plausible, especially to those who want to believe. The only way to tell if these systems can really save you gas and money is to delve into the science. First things first; water is inert, much like nitrogen. It can’t be burned, and does not convey chemical energy in the same way as other molecules. In order to ‘burn water’ as these websites like to say, you need to spend about twice the amount energy in electrolysis in order to separate the hydrogen, oxygen and water. Where does all this energy come from? The alternator! What powers the alternator? The engine!

And there you have it, folks, plain and simple. In order to make hydrogen and oxygen gas, or HHO, you need to use gas, to run the engine, to turn the alternator, to make electricity, to make HHO just so you can burn it in the engine. Needless to say, the total energy loss for this system is enormous. Overall, you need to burn more gasoline than you will ever produce from water. The law of second dynamics forbids you from creating energy from nothing, in this case an inert liquid like water.

The efficiency argument

But wait; there is another part of the argument! The scam artists claim that the presence of hydrogen and oxygen make the gasoline burn more completely, those more efficiently, thus overcoming the amount of energy wasted in the electrolysis. This can and has been disproved by experiment, but there’s another way to debunk this argument. I like to call this argument a reality check. The amount of gas most HHO generates is less than 1 liter per minute, not even enough to run a 1 HP lawnmower on idle. Do you really think this amount of gas is going to have any impact on the efficiency of a 150 HP engine? The answer is a resounding no.

Testimonials

With a little searching, you should be able to find people who swear up and down that they’ve installed the system into their car and now they get 50 mpg. Of course, many people who write articles claiming HHO is not a scam, and then give you their affiliate links to several different websites selling HHO kits and plans. Ignore all testimonials that give links to any specific websites! When people make a purchase by clicking those links, the person who wrote the fake testimonial makes money…your money to be exact.

On the other hand, there are people who aren’t selling anything, and still claim it works in their cars. How can this be? As it turns out, virtually all modern cars have oxygen sensors in the exhaust system to determine how much gas to put into the cylinders. Hooking up an HHO system to your car won’t improve your fuel efficiency directly, but it will be enough to trick the oxygen sensor. As a result, the car uses less fuel, and begins to run lean. A lean-running engine will use less gas, and should become fuel efficient. As a result, people wrongly attribute the improved gas mileage to the HHO device.

Problems of running lean

If running your engine lean improves your gas mileage, then why aren’t automakers make all their engines run lean? The answer is that it does horrible, horrible things to the engine! The engine and valves can be permanently damaged, and cost you a pretty penny. This can even cause engine knock. To prevent these problems, automakers set the engines to use the proper amount of gas in order to improve engine reliability and longevity. Think about this for a second…is it worth destroying your car just so you won’t have to pay as much for gas? Actually, if you’re getting ready to ditch your car and get a new one, maybe it’s worth it to set the gas/air mixture in your car to make it lean. But if you want to actually use your car for more than a year, than hooking up an HHO device to your engine could cost you a lot of money.

Deceptive advertising

If you want to see something really funny, go to Youtube and search for ‘run your car on water’ and see what happens. You are likely to see the same videos posted over, and over, and over again. Each video will have nearly identical video descriptions with affiliate links. This is how people try to make their money. What’s really funny is that many of the videos have nothing to do with the HHO devices at all. For example, there are videos of people with a torch running with HHO, and the videos claim that it’s proof that the device really works. What’s even more funny is that some videos which depict actual cars which use hydrogen and fuel cells in order to move the car. Again, this concept is nothing like the HHO device, yet the scammers want you to believe that it is. The best thing you can do to protect your money and your wallet is to take these videos with a grain of salt.

Another interesting thing to note is that all the videos on Youtube are tagged with the word ‘scam.’ This way, if you try to find videos exposing this scam for what it really is, you’re much more likely to stumble onto videos trying to sell you HHO. This is even true for websites and fake reviews. Why else would people write an article about how great HHO is, and then proceed to tag their own article with the word, ‘scam.’ The answer is that it’s just one more layer of protection in order to prevent people from reading literature such as this.

In conclusion, if something sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Right now, the RunYourCarOnWater and similar HHO scams are some of the biggest scams on the internet trying to get your money. The absolute best thing you can do is avoid these scams. If you drive a *lot* perhaps the best option for you would be to buy a hybrid vehicle. If you don’t drive very much and are looking for a new vehicle, try buying a lower end fuel efficient car. Toyota makes many efficient cars, and other manufacturers do as well, the Nissan Sentra, for example. For simple, cheap and easy ways to save gas, you can check out this page.

Posted under Avoiding Scams, Saving Gas, Saving Money

Believe it or not, there are legitimate companies on the internet which pay you small amounts of money to take surveys. The idea is that companies which do market research for their products pay online survey companies, which in turn, pay you. Unfortunately, some of these ‘survey for pay’ sites are not legitimate. The list of online survey sites is practically endless, so I’ll lie down some ground rules and signs you should look out for.

Ground rule #1: Do not participate in survey sites which use some sort of reward point system. An example company that does this is Harris Polls. These survey sites are little more than a scam, and no matter what you do, your chances of ever being paid are slim to none. These sites often have a list of potential rewards which you can purchase with your reward points. Unfortunately, these rewards are useless junk. So the best thing you could possibly do is not participate in any site which operates solely on reward points. Don’t fill out even one survey, and don’t bother to look at the rewards, it’ll just be a waste of your time. Harris Polls offers some decent rewards for an insane amount of points, but unfortunately, by the time you could ever possibly get that many points, your reward points will have expired. There is no way to win!

Ground rule #2: Do not, under any circumstance, pay any money to participate in any surveys. Yes, it’s true. Some websites force you to pay money for the privilege of taking surveys! Needless to say, these are scams. Some websites offer to sell you lists of survey sites, so you don’t have to go around looking. This may seem like a convenience, but in reality, you can expect most of the links to be broken. Honestly, there are enough free websites that list potential pay survey sites.

Ground rule #3: If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Some survey sites promise that you can earn tens of thousands of dollars a year, or 50 dollars or more an hour. These websites are usually scams in which it is impossible to ever actually get your money. If you see unrealistic claims, walk away. In my experience, earning 10 dollars an hour can be difficult.

Ground rule #4: If you find a legitimate site, you should be monitor how long it takes you to complete surveys, and hoe much you’re actually being paid. If you’re looking to make walking around money, you need to make sure you’re actually being paid a decent amount. If you’re earning less than 5 dollars an hour, then you should evaluate whether or not it’s really worth the time and effort. If you’re just looking to make a couple quick bucks every now and then, I’d suggest taking a survey during television commercials, or some other time in your daily life when you aren’t doing anything useful.

Posted under Making Money