Consumer Products Advertised To Save Energy--Let the Buyer Beware

GAO reviewed the problems experienced by federal, state, and local agencies in protecting consumers from potentially inaccurate or misleading energy-savings claims.

GAO noted hundreds of advertisements having questionable energy-saving claims. The ads: (1) appeared to exaggerate a product's capabilities; (2) did not disclose material facts affecting the product's performance; and (3) made performance claims which consumers could not compare with competing brands because of the lack of standard, generally accepted measures of energy savings. Consumers cannot easily determine the accuracy of energy-saving claims because: (1) sellers generally are not responsive to consumers' requests for information to support the claims; (2) the data that sellers provide consumers to support claims are often inaccurate, not relevant, or highly technical and therefore difficult for most consumers to understand or evaluate; and (3) consumers often cannot learn through experience and switch to more effective products because the energy savings are not always measurable even after purchase, and the purchases are often costly and made infrequently.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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