Scammers like to prey upon the needs and motivations of people to cajole and coddle them into transferring their money. Whatever the means of the scam may be, a faxed invoice or a worthless piece of car equipment, they tend to be facsimiles or counterfeits that mimic the real deal but provide nothing for the money you dole out.
Sometimes, there are tell-tale signs that can easily reveal if something’s real or a scam. But there are a few scams that are too well disguised to be figured out with just a Google search.
The Effuel Eco-OBD2 car connector is one such scam that is quite sophisticated in its methods and warrants a deeper dive into the workings of said OBD2 interface to find out the truth.
What is Effuel?
The Effuel OBD-2 connector is touted as a device that reduces the amount of fuel your car consumes, thereby improving the average miles per gallon that you get out of your car.
Given the rising gap between gas prices and disposable incomes, such a gimmick would catch the eye of anyone who wants to reduce their monthly travel expenditure. But that is exactly the kind of thing that one should be wary of.
However, spotting them is made ever so difficult when most of the information available about Effeul is nothing but ads and reviews that are skeptically positive to a fault. But first, let us see how Effuel is supposed to work, as per these pages.
Does Effuel work?
Effuel revamps the electronic control unit of the car (ECU) and “optimizes” the engine and the car’s performance, or so the advertisements claim. Once it is installed in the car, the device has to first start collecting data for the next 150 miles to optimize fuel consumption.
But when a company starts promoting a 25% increase in fuel efficiency with its products to reel in people, it is bound to raise suspicions. Of course, everyone wants to maximize their money’s worth and get as much out of the car as possible.
But can an external gadget such as Effuel even do such a thing?
How is Effuel a scam?
Technically speaking, all cars are optimized to their best performance from the start. If a device or a tuner chip could further improve fuel efficiency, car manufacturers would have implemented that technology anyway.
But in trying to figure out if it is a scam you ended up on an Effuel review page (really any of the results on the first three pages of Google search), you would have found that most of these so-called ‘reviews’ turn into full-blown advertisements after a few paragraphs. It is clear that they have bought off quite a number of Google pages and have a few domain names to put up foist their Effuel banners.
In terms of irrelevancy, these engine tuning gimmicks are to fuel efficiency what diet pills are to weight reduction. Don’t expect any results from them, only your car’s ECU mismanagement.
People have documented this Effuel Eco-OBD2 device and how it can actually be harmful to your car. Even if your car doesn’t come apart, you still won’t find any difference in your car’s mpg with it. But by the time you reach 150 miles for optimization purposes, your money would be long gone. Even their website is sketchy and is not one that can be considered secure.
There are many other scams like this whose legitimacy is hard to pick out. Effuel, however, is one of the biggest ones out there, not least because they have overtaken the first few Google result pages where most people usually get their information from.
Before purchasing such things, always do your research and find out what is technologically possible and what isn’t. Also, make sure that you always check the source of the information and be highly skeptical about things that seem too good to be true.
