A company advertising a product called Hydro-Assist Fuel Cell (HAFC ) on the Internet and in Newsweek, Popular Science, and Smithsonian magazines has claimed that its device will boost gas mileage fifty per cent and turn any vehicle into a hybrid.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission), in a lawsuit filed in a New Jersey federal court, says that the company, Dutchman Enterprises, is run by a Dennis Lee whom the FTC says is a convicted felon who has been prosecuted in eight states for violating consumer protection laws. As to the product's so-called scientific claims, the FTC is blunt in saying that the promoters are marketing a product that cannot function as claimed.

On a Web site registered to the HAFC promoters, they claimed to have scientific data on over two hundred vehicles right now that have gotten over 50 per cent increase in fuel economy and that there are a dozen of the smaller four cylinder cars that have gotten over 100 miles per gallon.

Lee made similar claims in video info-mercials posted on the Internet, according to the FTC. The companies also promote the device through representatives, whom they referred to as dealers.

The FTC asserts that the defendants’ advertising campaign has used pseudo-scientific explanations to describe how their device purportedly works. For example, according to the papers the FTC filed with the New Jersey court, the promoters of the HAFC have claimed that the device uses electricity to turn plain water into “water gas” that has five times the potential energy of gasoline. They say it uses powerful magnets to ionize gasoline so that it burns more completely.

According to an expert hired by the FTC, the device does not even meet the scientific definition of a “fuel cell,” and several of the processes touted by the companies either are impossible or would lead to a net loss of energy. The commissioners vote authorizing the complaint was 4-0.

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