Warning Scam on Water Filters

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DUBAI/SHARJAH — Senior officials of the Dubai and Sharjah municipalities have cautioned the public against the marketing gimmicks of certain firms selling water filters and purification systems.
Many such companies are coercing gullible residents into buying their products by misleading them about the quality of tap water or bottled water they consume by demonstrating a chemical experiment.

Khaleej Times has learnt that the modus operandi of such companies is uniform and is similar to the operations of firms involved in water filter scams prevalent in various countries.

Confirming this, the officials warned people from falling into the traps of such companies. “We are against the way they demonstrate that tap water has impurities using electrodes that change the colour of the water. There is a scare being created by these companies to push people into buying their filters,” said Khalid Mohammed Sherif Al Awadhi, Director of the Dubai Municipality’s Food Control Department.

“We want to assure that our water supply is one of the safest in the world and caution the public and want them not to fall into the traps of these companies,” he said.

Salespersons from these companies insist on an in-house demonstration to show the “harmful and contaminated” water currently being used by their potential customers. They say that water has several chemicals and micro-organisms that we cannot see, but will be seen when they perform the experiment. They conduct electrolysis — a chemical procedure in which two electrodes are immersed in water and electric current is passed between them. This causes water to break down into oxygen and hydrogen and suddenly you start to see a change in the colour of the water.

The electrodes they use react with water to form a precipitate of yellow iron hydroxide, or what we commonly know as rust, explained the Dubai Municipality’s Senior Food Studies and Surveys Officer, Bobby Krishna.

“The rust comes from the iron rod and not from the water. If you use distilled water instead of tap water, the colour does not change because there are no salts or irons in the water to conduct electricity.

“Another way of preventing the colour change is by using an aluminium electrode instead of an iron electrode. Most of the people don’t know the trick behind the experiment and blindly believe that the water they consume is unsafe as the salesman claims,” said Krishna who says water filters are good only when used properly.

“They can be a disadvantage if they are not maintained well and if cartridges or filters are not replaced regularly. They can cause bio-film formation and bacterial growth and the result of the accumulation of bacteria will be much worse than what they claim normal unfiltered tap water can cause,” the official said.

Though many of these water purification companies display test results of the water they claim to have purified or filtered, they usually do not have any government certification to show the quality of their filtering products, usually sold for Dhs2,500 to Dhs3,500.

When Khaleej Times informed officials that certain companies based in Sharjah are using a lab report by Sharjah Municipality certifying the quality of water submitted by them, Head of Sharjah Municipality’s Food Control Section Jasim Mohammed Saleh Al Ali said it was not an endorsement for their products.

“Lab reports are given to all water samples submitted for testing by us. That doesn’t mean that we are certifying the filter they are using. We don’t want any company to misuse the name of the municipality for selling their products. We want the public to report such companies to us and the police,” he said