Fake 'NASA-designed' air conditioners flood Facebook and YouTube ads

Full text

Ads for fake air conditioners are plaguing Facebook and YouTube

These appliances promise high performance features and claim to be ground-breaking

UK advertising regulator warns you should be sceptical and report them

The UK is having its share of sweltering heatwaves this summer and there’s never been a bigger demand for the best fans and air conditioners — but that's also come with a wave of fake air conditioning adverts.

Adverts for portable air conditioners allegedly ‘designed by former NASA engineers’ that can cool down a room ‘in less than 90 seconds’ are being pushed to consumers across the likes Facebook and YouTube. Portable air conditioners have been going out of stock pretty much everywhere — more recently Meaco’s Cirro lineup — so appliances from trusted brands are becoming a lot harder to come by as the UK is gripped by high temperatures

The advertised air conditioners claim to pack a punch all while having affordable prices, ranging between £70-£120 according to the BBC . Additionally, these product listings often feature fake customer reviews with overwhelmingly positive comments on performance features.

Civil engineer and content creator, Stuart Matthews, is just one online persona that’s raising awareness; “if it sounds too good to be true, it’s not ‘probably’ a scam these days, it definitely is a scam,” he shared in a YouTube video.

In one of his most recent unboxing videos, Matthews purchased one of the cheap air coolers, taking it apart bit by bit to give a closer look at the inner workings of these appliances — and they don’t work in the same way as proper air conditioners.

Here's how to spot a fake

The product he showcased was sold as a ‘mini portable air cooler’ with a small water tank that can ‘chill quite a sizable room by a number of degrees very quickly’. Once he took the machine apart, Matthews found what he described as ‘cardboard fins’ that essentially soak up water from the tank, which the fan blows air through at a very weak speed — all of which he forked out £70 for, when he thinks it’s worth no more than £5.

With high demand, users in need will often take the first appliance that’s put in front of them, giving companies more room to scam, and now the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is officially warning you. But if you’re finding it difficult to tell the difference between legitimate and misleading adverts, the regulator has issued a few tips.

As mentioned, one of the biggest things to note is the overuse of positive reviews and comments that report life-changing results, so if an advert claims a small fan can cool a room in a very short space of time, be sceptical.

Just with the advert shown in Matthews’ video, you should also be wary of lengthy backstories and bold claims, i.e. “an ingenious invention that’s disrupting the £5 billion air conditioning industry” — a bold claim for a product that no one has heard of.

Additionally, a majority of the adverts seem to be AI-generated, with inconsistencies such as spelling and grammar errors, which you should also keep an eye out for. If you think you’ve run into a fake air conditioner advert, you can file a report on the ASA website .