Clean Water, Dirty Tricks

Scare tactics have been used for centuries. From the caveman days, right up to the moment you are reading this, someone is being taken by a sly guy’s scare tactic. It’s like when you go and drive into a car lot, and ask how much that new car is, and they salesman goes off how this new Toyota is safer, with more airbags and ABS. This is when your old car is really just as safe. (Safer if you drive a Prius with the sticky gas pedal syndrome) There are millions of scare tactics in the world, some silly and some just pure genius.

Featured on CBC news’ Marketplace feature was the story of one of their reporters that went behind the scenes to uncover the scare tactics used by water purification system salesmen. These are salesmen that go around to the homes of people in American suburbia and tell them their tap water is dirty, when the fact it, the only dirty thing is them. The salesmen come to your home with a whole ‘testing kit’ and take a sample of your tap water, and a sample of their filtered water, and perform a test that was later found to be fake by scientists that are experts in that field. CBC found one elderly woman that was talked into spending $3500 on a full-home water purification system. After CBC had conducted its own tests on the water and showed the lady that bought the system, she was shocked that someone would actually be that low.

There are many people who will come to your door to try and sell you something. It’s all part of living in the ‘burbs. It’s unbelievable how many people will buy that new cast iron skillet that is way over-priced from the guy knocking on their door so they don’t get relatively harmless amounts of Teflon in their food. The salesmen tell the people how bad the effects are, when the truth is he is blowing them way out of proportion and basing his facts on small numbers.

Be it a $3500 full home water system or a guy with a pamphlet coming to your door, the population falls for scare tactics constantly. It all started with the cavemen, up until the present. The method is the same, and humanity hasn’t learned how to not fall for their tricks.

Link to CBC Marketplace’s ‘Clean Water, Dirty Tricks:’ http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2011/cleanwaterdirtytricks/