08:18 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 10, 2006

By STUART WATSON / 6NEWS
E-mail Stuart: SWatson@WCNC.com

How'd you like to offset high gas prices by getting better gas mileage? Twenty or 30 percent better mileage?

Well, who wouldn't? But consumer advocates are skeptical about a new pill for your gas tank which claims to boost your mileage. And they're even more skeptical about the way it's sold.

The gas pill is promoted by a little yellow fliers taped to mailboxes around Charlotte. "Save big on fuel costs!" the flier says. On the flip side, the slip of paper offers a business opportunity: selling the same product. The brochures are the work of Fuel Freedom International, known as FFI.

FFI is promoting a pill for your gas tank. A pill called MPG-CAPS or MPG-BOOST. The company’s web site promises big savings at the pump and the potential of big earnings from selling the pills yourself.

But the EPA, the FTC, the BBB all say there's no proof these gas pills actually work.

“They are lying because it's just not true,” says Tom Bartholmy of Charlotte's Better Business Bureau. “You can go to the EPA's website and find dozens of pages of products solutions, gimmicks, devices that they’ve over the years since the air oil embargo back in the 70s. All of these things have basically been debunked that they just don't work.”

FFI co owner, Randy Ray, tells a completely different story, saying, “I think the thing that's unique is that it works it truly does work.”

Ray cites his own tests and testimonials. But WPVI-TV in Philadelphia and Triple A tested the gas pill and found it didn't markedly improve mileage.

Ray complains that WPVI-TB “...didn't use the product the way it was instructed to use it.” But the station reported even when they used four pills at once at the company’s suggestion, it still didn't work. And then there's the offer not just to improve your gas mileage, but to sell the product yourself.

Laura Demartino with the federal trade commission says, “if a distributor is making dramatic claims about the product and its also making dramatic earning claims, consumers should be worried.”

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The 6NEWS investigators also showed FFI's sales plan to Robert Fitzpatrick who has written a book on pyramid schemes called false profits.

“They speak in there of making $25,000 a week,” Fitzpatrick says.  “That’s pretty exciting to most people. Better gas mileage plus you're rich.”

Fitzpatrick says FFI looks like a new twist on an old scheme. “It looks like the old pyramid,” says Fitzpatrick, “and instead of just giving cash, each one has to buy portion of these pills.”

Ray says his company is “absolutely not” a pyramid scheme. Instead, Ray says, “its people selling the product through their friends and neighbors in the area where they live.” 

Ray told 6NEWS the Federal Trade Commission has authorized the manufacturer of the mpg cap gas pill to claim savings of seven to 14 percent. But an FTC spokeswoman says that's not accurate. She says the FTC does not pre-test, authorize or pre-approve any products.