The heat goes to vapourise water, and will reappear as heat wherever that vapour condenses. So I guess if it gets out of a window there could be a net benefit - except that opening the window lets hot air in. Otherwise it's going to condense in the house at some point, re-releasing the heat as well as possibly causing damp and mould problems (although something of this size won't make much difference, just like it doesn't for temperature).
Probably Facebook are trying to show they are acting on the fake adverts so no further action is required by the government etc
I guess that they took action since it was a recognisable brand*.
. So google also doesn’t take action, or considers false advertising to be permissibleYes, I did the same (post #5). Their reporting system seems completely useless, and AFAICT the ASA are powerless. I wonder if the ASA can put a stop to the many British newspaper websites that accept adverts for scams and junk products though, surely they’re under ASA supervision?I recently reported one of these ads to Google. (I clicked through to make sure it was a scam and i quoted the impossible claim it was making in the report). I just got an email back saying that the ad hasn’t been removed because it ‘doesn’t violate our policy‘
The problem is that Google and the like won't ban adverts that stretch the truth, since that's "how advertising works". And they won't ban ads that make outrageous claims since it "should be obvious" that the claims aren't realistic and are "satirical". The window of "untrue enough" to be taken down is, unfortunately, very narrow.
Given the tiny fan won't be pulling any current of note, and the thin wires on the inside I suspect that they would melt long before they generated enough heat to set anything on fire.-
Now that is impressively bad. Assuming it was USB-A rather than USB-C then the power would have been limited to something like 15W. If they managed to generate a significant amount of heat while also managing to run said agitator that's some first-class mis-engineering!
The one I’m seeing most adverts for doesn’t even have the water evaporation, it’s just a cheap fan in a box.
The ads aren't being pushed by big companies, typically the ads are being paid for by front companies for tiny drop-shippers. And the likes of Facebook and Google will remove ads for things that put them in direct legal jeopardy (so think that are patently unsafe or promote harm), but where it comes to claims, one person's lie is another person's puffery.
Unfortunately thermodynamics and energy conservation can't sue.
But these are blatantly false claims and deceptive. That’s not legal.
I don't see how that could work in practice. For one thing, how can someone prove that the only reason that they bought a product was a specific advertisement?
The wiring melting is a massive issue and the heat generated could easily cause a fire, remember a ring final circuit usually has a 32A breaker or a 30A fuse, that's a lot of power potentially passing through a thin and potentially not even copper cable.
That's exactly the point I was making: the high electrical resistance (copper-clad aluminium) and low thermal mass means that they would likely fail before being able to convert a significant amount of electricity into heat. So I'd expect to open a failed unit and find the wire turned itself into scorch marks on the inside of the case and not much more than that.
I wouldn't touch Ali Express with a bargepole, they're just as dodgy as the Facebook scammers!
www.bbc.co.uk
Ali Express is just a marketplace, the only difference is that the sellers are manufacturers rather than individuals. Same rules apply as would apply on eBay or similar.
Woukk ok caught it’s the other way round - the platform would have to prove that the advert /promotion had nothing to do with your decision to purchase (difficult if you bought it via them!)
A viewer clicking through on the ad would be a good start.
"Guilty until proven innocent" - not sure that idea flies.
They've seen a dozen adverts for similar products (or the same product advertised on a different site) and finally clicked through - was it this particular advert that scammed them?
