Keeping in mind that I am not a lawyer, and therefore this should not be regarded as legal advice (for which one should seek out a qualified professional in the relevant jurisdiction)...
I see the following faults with this add:
1. No such instrument exists. It doesn't show up in google searches anywhere.
Perhaps it is just their own name for something that measures current. Current is measurable. Them giving some fancy sounding name to it is not likely to be regarded as fraud.
2. No references are made to the length of the cables subjected to this test nor is the diameter of the cables ever mentioned.
Leaving out facts is not the same as fraud, which involves falsehoods. If they are talking about, let us say for example, mile long cords, then it would be irrelevant to real world use, but that would not make the claim false, and therefore not fraud. (It would just make the claim irrelevant, not false.)
3. Both graphs fail to indicate a valid x axes. Sure its labelled in mircoseconds but how many mircoseconds have passed. One million microseconds = 1 second.
That seems to indicate that the graph is literally not saying anything, but only appears to be saying something. A sentence devoid of meaning is not fraud. A meaningless graph, being meaningless, is not asserting any falsehoods, and consequently is not fraud.
4. The Y axes on the voltage graph is missing absolute voltage. There isn't any scale of measure.
Same response as to 3 above.
The left graph depicting current:
There is no power chord on earth that plugs into a regular house outlet capable of carrying 225 amps of sustained current. The fuses/circuit breakers in your electrical panel are rated to trip at 20 to 25 amps worst case. Most are rated 15 amps. (can't remember the current rating for the fuse on the dedicated electrial range circuit. I believe its 40 but not quite sure) Anyway, its far less than what the graph depicts.
Yes. What the power cord does or does not do at 225 amps is totally irrelevant to any real world use. But irrelevant facts, as long as they are true, do not constitute fraud.
Maybe the arguement is its short term current. Ok. Maybe it is. Maybe the current spike only last for a few 100th of a microsecond. The curve would be a totally different shape then whats depicted by this company BS graphs. Also, it takes longer than several microseconds to charge up the filter capacitors used in electronics power supplies so any advantages of this chord is lost to the chargiing times of the filter capacitors.
i think their pulling this out of their collective ar?es.
I think you have done two things quite well. You have shown what is wrong with their claims, and you have shown that it is not "fraud", at least as far as we can tell from these few bits of information (they may, of course, have committed fraud in some other part of their website or advertisements, and they may have some of their irrelevant facts wrong as well which might constitute fraud).
So, they definitely seem to be sleazy, but what they are doing does not appear to be fraud. Basically, companies can say many misleading things that are not fraud, and therefore are not subject to violations of laws concerning fraud.
For those who are too lazy to click on the link I already provided:
Common law fraud has nine elements:[2][3]
- a representation of an existing fact;
- its materiality;
- its falsity;
- the speaker's knowledge of its falsity;
- the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff;
- plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity;
- plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation;
- plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and
- consequent damages suffered by plaintiff.
Most jurisdictions in the United States require that each element be pled with particularity and be proved with clear, cogent, and convincing evidence (very probable evidence) to establish a claim of fraud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud
If only some of those apply, but not all of them, then it is not fraud. And that is forgotten in the normal everyday use of the term "fraud", which is broader and looser than the legal meaning of the term. Very often, unscrupulous people skirt the law by saying things that do not state any matter of fact, but appear to do so, or state irrelevant facts, as if they supported the conclusion that they want the buyer (or, equivalently, sucker) to believe. Neither meaningless sentences nor irrelevant facts constitute fraud, and so they are generally safe from prosecution with either of those approaches.
