Guangzhou's gas stove salesmen would deserve the Nobel Prize for Physics if their 20,000 yuan (HK$22,730) 'biochemical gasification stove' could actually transform chaff into natural gas.
But the city's Industry and Commerce Bureau received nearly 100 complaints from consumers who had paid for the 'new technology', which salesmen claimed could turn three yuan worth of chaff into natural gas valued at 80 yuan in a few minutes, officials said at a press conference to mark World Consumer Rights Day yesterday.
In a country overwhelmed by fake and substandard products, World Consumer Rights Day is celebrated with an annual gala show on China Central Television and a sudden outbreak of articles about consumer rights violations on newspaper front pages nationwide.
A raft of problematic 'Made in China' products, ranging from melamine-tainted milk powder to poisonous rice, fake medicine, memory-boosting pillows and the biochemical gasification stoves have been exposed by the media.
Guangzhou authorities said at least 99 people bought the stoves after being deceived by salesmen. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science's Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion said the technology did not exist.
International brands are also increasingly facing complaints from mainland consumers. The CCTV gala show last night highlighted two models of Hewlett-Packard laptop computers, HP dv2000 and HP v3000, against whose allegedly faulty graphics chips and display screens nearly 200 Chinese consumers had filed official complaints.