I read an article by an author whom I usually support for her good work in protecting the consumer yesterday with a degree if disgust. The author is Wendy Knowler of consumer watch; she writes for the Star Newspaper and usually reports any businesses that are out to rip the public off. She has always impressed me to this end.

Recently she wrote a warning to the public about the petrol pills available these days that apparently save people on their fuel bill. Given the cost of fuel this certainly sounds like an avenue worth pursuing. Something that if I was in the market for, I would want to see results and not shooting it down before I had absorbed all the information.

Wendy starts of by telling us that she received an email about this and immediately dismissed it as a scam. On what basis I asked myself. She had not even considered the possibility that this may be possible. She then goes onto say that the clincher was when she realised that these pills were sold via a network of distributors. What does that have to do with the price of eggs? Why can distributors not sell a product? She quotes a variety of people who say it will or does not work.

Further investigation got her to reconsider her initial outright dismissal. Other people had tested it and had gotten significant results especially after the third tank. She ends the article by asking why this has to be distributed via the network instead of usual channels and also requests that people who have tested the product to contact her regarding this, as long as they are not distributors.

Now this report raises a few concerns for me. Firstly how can she write this report without doing due diligence first? Why was the distributor network the clincher for her? Since when have distributors had anything to do with the production of any product?

Here is what concerns me; it appears only bad news sells. Imagine if the product saved 40% of the gas bill she can’t report that as it is not in line with her work, which is being a consumer watch dog. The press doesn’t want to print these results as it means free advertising for the company concerned and loss of income from advertising. It now begs the question for me, is it all a conspiracy? Good news will never sell because it is free mileage for those companies. The more fear that is installed into the public the worse things will become. Wendy set the tone for this product by immediately assuming it was a con, she like everyone else should have been expecting good results if only for her own pockets sake. If she had been the deciding factor whether Thomas Edison continued to investigate the possibility of the light bulb we may all still be in the dark today.