The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "false advertising" ...
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Company's Choice Made Cars Less Safe
General Motors removed the side airbags, at request of fleet customers, from the standard package Impalas to save money for these fleet customers. In doing so, they risked the safety of thousands of people. Enterprise Rent-A-Car was one of these fleet customers, who bought “65,000 vehicles” knowing that the airbags had been removed. Enterprise not only rented these out, but also sold them online using false advertising. After this was revealed, Enterprise and many car dealerships issued apologies and bought back these vehicles above book value.
Tags: automobiles; cars; Chevy; used cars; safety feature; consumers; transportation; restraint system; build sheet; auto safety
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Is it true?
"For several years a local car dealership ran advertisements on the radio, television and in newspapers offering deals on cars that it could not live up to". As a number of complaints mounted, the investigation into the dealership began. The investigation revealed the dealership used false advertising and "even increased the interest rate on finance documents after they were signed by the customer".
Tags: Mike Young Motors; bait-and-switch advertising; advertisements; ads; false; car dealership; dealer's claims; violations; automobiles
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What's on the Menu?
Eight stations in the E.W. Scripps Television station Group worked together to investigate claims by national restaurant chains about low-fat and low-calorie menu items. The group specifically gathered menus from restaurants who listed the fat and/or calorie content directly on their menus, and decided to have the food tested at Analytical Laboratories, Inc. in Boise, Idaho. They created an excel spreadsheet and assigned each station three foods listed on various low-fat/low-calorie menus on the same way. The stations each packed their food the exact same way and videotaped this procedure to verify protocol. The packages were then sent overnight to Analytical Laboratories, Inc. for testing. The test results showed that out of the 23 items tested, 78% were over the fat limit and almost 69% were over the calorie limit listed on the package. A producer from KNXV-TV then contacted all the restaurants involved in the test and asked for a response. No company would go on camera for the story, though the company that owns Chili's and Macaroni Grill apologized and said they would work to reinforce the menu standards.
Tags: food; nutrition; low-fat; low-calorie; Ohio; false advertising
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Donald T. Sterling's Skid Row Mirage
According to advertisements he distributed in the media, Los Angeles Clippers basketball owner Donald T. Sterling was building a new homeless center in downtown LA. But after L.A. Weekly did some investigating, they found he wasn't close to constructing anything. In fact, he was still looking for a homeless service provider to raise the $50 million needed to build the Donald T. Sterling Homeless Center.
Tags: homeless centers; celebrity; fundraising; construction; false advertising; wealthy; media scam; public relations
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Sour Grapes
This story exposes a Dallas wine retailer who uses false health and wine information to lure novice wine enthusiasts into buying large quantities of close-out and spoiled wines at highly inflated prices. False health information used to sell these wines may violate Texas law, which states that advertising for such products may not be false or misleading.
Tags: alcohol; alcoholic beverages; wine retailers; false advertising
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State Oversight Lax for Vocational Schools
Students who signed up for vocational schools seeking training in computers, health care and cosmetology among other fields of study, have filed 1,177 complaints to California's Bureau for Postsecondary and Vocational Education in the past two years. Bureau administrators admitted to being passive regarding student complaints which were most often about school fraud, false advertising and failure to make refunds. Schools failed, with impugnity, to report satisfactory graduation and job-placement records as required by law. And recently the SEC has opened an investigation of one company, ITT Educational Services, for possible falsified attendance records, grades and job-placement statistics, none of which was caught by California's bureau.
Tags: Vocational training; computer schools; medical care; lack of governmental oversight; cosmetology schools; class action lawsuits
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Free Rein for Drug Ads?
The Food and Drug Administration has been slow to stop an alarming number of inaccurate drug advertisements, leaving consumers and the doctors that actually prescribe the medicines vulnerable to false or misleading messages. The investigation found ads that minimized prescription drug risks, exaggerated efficacy, made false claims of superiority over competing products, promoted unapproved uses of an approved drug, or promoted use of a drug still in the experimental stage. Such drug ads may contribute to excessive or inappropriate prescribing and to soaring prescription drug spending.
Tags: FDA; Food and Drug Administration; drug advertisements; consumers; FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research; Freedom of Information Electronic Reading Room; FDA regulatory letters; prescription drug risks; Tamiflu; drugmakers; corrective ads; Department of Health and Human Services; General Accounting Office; Fosamax; Ambien; AARP; Prilosec
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Used Mattress Investigation
An Extra investigation of a New York retailer revealed that they "were buying used, urine-stained, semen-stained, and vermin-infested mattresses from indigents. These organized criminals were rewrapping the old mattresses, sewing new labels on them and selling them as new mattresses in New York retail stores." Extra found victims of skin rashes caused by covered used mattresses.
Tags: TAPE TRANSCRIPT Mattress USA fraud business product safety false advertising
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Consumer Alert: False Alarm?
NBC Dateline "alerts consumers to the misleading sales tactics often used by companies selling residential heat detectors. Despite repeated complaints and lawsuits filed over the years against various companies across the country, Dateline found many are still selling heat detectors at outrageous prices... We warn consumers that contrary to what heat detector companies will claim, heat detectors are not better than smoke detectors, are not endorsed by fire officials or even considered necessary, and furthermore, when used in place of smoke detectors, can be downright dangerous."
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Anatomy of a Spam
Wired reports that "It all started with a hot email pitch for a miraculous product...The message had all the hallmarks of a Net come-on, the text crawling down the screen like a snake....This spam intrigued me, because it concerned a device that will cause a sensation if it ever hits the market. Tracking devices using Global Positioning System satellites have been developed for luxury cars and boats, but no one has produced anything as advanced as what this spam described...For such a gizmo to work, several technological breakthroughs would be required..."
Tags: false advertising; business; GPS; fraud; investors