« Annoy Customers – Lesson From MBNA | Home | Make a 25,000 Charitable Donation Without Spending any Money! »
Gforce Chips Scam?
By Sean | April 11, 2011
I can’t tell if this company is a total scam or if they singled me out for bad treatment. What I can talk about is my experience with them and hope to warn anyone who tries to do business with them to be careful or just avoid them altogether.
1. I ordered the chip and it actually took longer than the two weeks they promised to have it ready.
2. Then another two weeks shipping by US mail from Southern to Northern California.
3. They claim the chip takes minutes to install and that anyone can do it. I say baloney. I had to disassemble the intake manifold just to get to the sensor I had to connect the wires to. The instructions did not look anything like my vehicle — even though they claim the reason it takes so long to get the product ready is due to having to “custom make it” for my vehicle. The instructions I got were not even remotely close to being customized to my vehicle.
4. I emailed tech support for help and he wrote back making a sarcastic comment. Not wanting to engage his combativeness I wrote back addressing the tech issue and simply said “regarding your other comment — what are you talking about”. He wrote back indicating that he was upset about how many complaints he gets about the company but can do nothing about so he unloaded on me. We got along OK after that.
5. After installing the chip I looked forward to seeing a change in performance and gas mileage — something they advertise. I did not get the slightest change in gas mileage or performance even though they advertise about 20 percent or more. The tech support guy thought the unit may be defective.
6. I called back on the telephone line to discuss my options. I mentioned that the original sales guy assured me that if I bought the unit and was unhappy and returned it within two weeks of receiving it I’d be credited back the price of the unit plus the postage to return it.
7. I returned the chip and got a refund.
8. As a conciliatory gesture — Gforce chips sent out another chip free of charge for me to install and test. Thanks guys that was appreciated.
9. I installed and tested it. I’m sure it was installed correctly and was certainly installed exactly to their second tier support guidance.
10. Still no difference in performance or mileage economy.
11. I recently did a web search on Gforce chips and found a lot of evidence from people that tested them and got no results. However almost all the sites were selling something so the reviews were possibly biased.
12. The result in inconclusive but I can say the chip did not work for me. However Gforce chips did give me a refund and a free chip to try and if it worked for me — that I’d have to pay for it.
Bottom line. Can anyone give me a reliable and unbiased source to check with that has independently tested these performance chips?
Thanks,
Sean
Topics: Good Products | 34 Comments »
sean, i bought 3 chips from these guys. no difference in performance or mileage. same story as you,calls to tech dept. blah blah blah, today, i took one of them apart, and found out why they don’t work, they are fake, the chip in the middle of the circuit board is doing nothing, the traces and solder joints on the board is all fake. the red and black wire go into the housing, solder to the board and the rest is all fake. it cannot do anything for your vehicle. i’ve called them. we’ll see if i get a refund.
Thanks for the update. I was tempted to take one apart too but I didn’t have just the right size Phillips and was not sure if the size I was using would show damage to the screws — which were in REALLY tight. I should have gotten the right size screwdriver and taken it apart and that probably would have saved me a ton of time.
What I don’t understand if if they are selling crap why haven’t they been outed by the FTC or attorney general?
Regardless I appreciate your posting and letting me know.
If you don’t mind me asking — how did you determine the circuit board and chip are fake? Did you test the circuits? If so what did you test for?
Some people have indicated that there is some resistance in the circuit which, when put in parallel with the air intake monitor — fools the intake monitor. However if it did that there would only be a performance increase or mileage improvement under certain climatic conditions.
I put one in my 2011 tundra and had an immediate (within 100miles ) increase in MPG. That didnt last longer than a month though and my MPG is up less than 1 MPG.
Oh Oh, I just received my gforce chip yesterday, after waiting two months, but I can’t blame that on the company, we had a mail strike here in Canada. I have read the directions and am a bit confused so I am going to let a mechanic install it. Sounds like it may not work up my to expectations! I got the website of a Cadillac forum website, thinking it must be legit. Will update after I install…
Please let me know how it works out for you. I did a lot more research on the product after posting this and found that there is only one chip in the little box with two wires attached. Apparently the chip is being used as a resistor — at best — if it does anything at all. We have noticed no difference after driving a couple thousand miles on it. As far as I can tell there is little reason why it should work but if it does it is more accidental than anything. Apparently there are instances when that resistor will lean the engine out — but if it does work it’s nothing sophisticated and certainly not as cool as the explanation on their sales site.
I HATE GETTING RIPED OF I,M A GOV REP. that checks this stuff.I,m About to put 1 of there chips in a 2010 Dodge Dakota 4.7 V8 Bighorn,Will tell yopu about it.HATE CROOKS. TK G.A.Bielik
Hey George, Sorry I took so long approving your comment. It slipped through the cracks.
Please let us know what results you got.
i installed the gforce chip on my 2005 cadillac cts and after 1 month still havent seen any changes in oerformance or fuel. This is a rip off and like others i hate being scammed. Calling gforce now to get refund.
Hi
Thank you for your reviews.
I was considering buying one of these chips, thinking it probably was more legit than the 5-15 $ chips that you can buy from ebay (that most of the times seems to only be a resistance). Now I’m sure, I won’t. Thank you.
Thanks for the reviews. was going to buy one for my 2000 tundra v8. after reading this I’m just going to spend the money on a programer. Thanks
I have a GS430 2004 and made the mistake of hooking up this GFORCE performance chip I got for christmas.
I asked them to send me a wire digram to make sure I connected the wire clips to the right two wires. They did so I did what they instructed. The moment I started the car I could tell it was running rough… I got the check engine light and VSC lights on also so I turned off the car and disconnected the chip.
I took the car into the shop and it ended up being the mother board after all. The G-Force chip fried it and it cost $1000 to get repaired… I did everything as they told me and my mechanic verified that I did tap into the two wires they tell you to… so just a warning this could happen to you also.
Another heads up to anyone considering that piece of junk GFORCE CHIP. They promise a full 100% refund if your not satisfied, but what you don’t know is that buried in the small fine print in the long terms and conditions ( if you were to bother reading them) They let you know that they charge a 25% restocking fee! So you pay 69.00 + shipping = $74.95. Then you have to pay to ship it back ($5.95 ) so your $80+ into this mess. This is after the damage to my car so add $990.00 to fix it. So now I’m at $1,070.90 and all they refunded me was $51.75 when I was expecting the $69.00 back. They just keep bending you over and filling their pockets at every turn. No wonder they offer 100% money back guarantee. They make $17.25 off every return as well.
WARNING, WARNING, WARNING — DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!
I purchased GForce chip thinking it would maybe it would increase mpg at least halve their advertised 4-7mpg. Today, I started to install the chip on my F150 and decided the installation process was BS and this chip is Junk. Damn, I wish I had read the above comments before ordering. Guess a “sucker” is born everyday. Anyone considering GForce Chip….don’t.
I purchased GForce chip thinking it would maybe it would increase mpg at least halve their advertised 4-7mpg. Today, I started to install the chip on my F150 and decided the installation process was BS and this chip is Junk. Damn, I wish I had read the above comments before ordering. Guess a “sucker” is born everyday. Anyone considering GForce Chip….don’t. By-the-way, GForce’ technical website “techsupport@gforcechips.com cannot be found….it don’t exist.
Greg thanks for that story. I was promised a full refund (including freight) if I was dissatisfied. I got the full refund but the freight was never refunded.
I think there is extremely good logic to the fact that automobile manufacturers are given government legislated incentives for higher fuel economy. I think it is reasonable to conclude that optimization schemes are not likely to be as good as advertised — if at all.
Also consider that Mythbusters tested a whole bunch of these and found little to no benefits from most of these devices. Often finding negative instead of improved results.
Frank thanks for your post. I had a hard time finding honest reviews when I was searching for feedback about his company. They must have lots of people (most likely affiliates) promoting for them doing all these glowing reviews because I could hardly find anything negative about them online and mostly found glowing reports.
It wasn’t until I visited the forums and blogs like mine (nobody paying to get them ranked on page 1) that I began to find real people with real stories.
Hopefully your comments and feedback are helping many others looking for honest experiences.
When I did find negative press about them I confronted GForce about it and they said it was from competitors.
If you are reading this and considering GEforce I can assure you that I am an owner of their product and that I have no affiliation with any of the other bogus products out there. The only product I’ve purchase is GEforces and it did not work. I’m not surprised to find others who have similar stories.
i have never been treated so bad as a customer over the phone who ever i talked to after complaining about the ship time the guy told me to f off when i called back to speak to a manager he said the funny thing is is im the boss!!!!! i ahve nothing more to say about these a holes but dont buy nothing from them
Thank you for all the comments i purchased a mass flow air sensor for my f150 and noticed improved performance but my mpg went down so i purchased one of these gforce chips to compensate for the loss and get some more horsepower when i finally get it i am sending it right back thanks again now i will not waste my time.
Poor instrutions. No tech support. Does not work. Hope to recover some of my money. If you are not very careful it could damage your car.
Hey Frank O sorry for your loss. Hope you got your money back at least. I was a sucker too.
i put one on a 99 miata mx5, lost almost 50 percent in gas mileage, ran rough, i had to disconnect the chip to bet back home (100 miles) i will be calling to get my money back, but it sounds like a lot of bs here also. add me to the disapointed list. i guess what they say nothing is free at least it did not make the car stop running with other repairs.
If it makes any of you feel any better – i got suckered into it too. Bought one for my ’99 Firebird and made absolutely no change. I’ve asked for a refund, but will be surprised if I get anything out of these people. I don’t understand how they can continue to stay in business.
Another fool. I too bought the GForce chip. This chip does not work and I have ask GForce for a refund. Lets see what happens now.
The do seem to process refunds. My guess is that the majority of people do not bother and that is what keeps these guys in business.
What really does surprise me is that GForce is clearly misrepresenting their product and what it does. How they get away with it so long without being shutdown for outright fraud is beyond me.
Another thing most people are not aware of is that if GForce does not process the refund you can do a chargeback on your credit card.
Your Credit Card company almost always gives you back the entire amount during the chargeback process. Most companies don’t fight chargebacks too hard because they easily lose their merchant account if there are too many.
So fight back if only in principle. These guys could be shut down if everyone did chargebacks through their Credit Card provider at the slightest difficulty getting GForce to refund.
Is this G-Force company part of the federal goverment? It feels like something our leadership would put together for us . I hope I can get a refund , I could use the 15 gallons of gas it would buy. Is everybody in America crooked? Scott
Hello. I happen to be a ase certified ford mechanic. I worked for Ford many years. I’d like to put a rest to this chip. It is fake. No resistance in that department will do anything. Mass air flow sensors are designed to read the air coming in and allow the engine to adjust rather to give the truck more fuel or less. The resistor you speak of does nothing on any scale.. The best way to get an increase in fuel mileage is spend the extra dollar, and get a customer tune from one of the many websites, or a dyno tune… That does require a programmer. There are over 1000 parameters build into the PCM that can be changed to increase power, and performance, including doing things such as modifying transmission shift points, locking the converter at different RPM. Other then this is a scam. It puts cuts in your stock wires going to your Mass Air Flow, which can become corroded and cost you 100-200 dollars when it shorts out the mass air flow sensor. Many other ways to increase your fuel mileage is to actually go to your local parts store and buy CRC “Mass Air Flow” cleaner. Take your breather off, look up inside and find the little diode and coat it with the cleaner. This does improvement mileage that was lost, and needs to be done often because it gets dirty.
Scott you crack me up LOL.
Sad to say but regardless of how many of those scammy little chips they sell it’s too small of potatoes for the Federal Gov.
Get your refund and move on. Don’t forget if they don’t refund you and you applied within the refund period your credit card company will honor the chargeback.
CAC — Thanks for your detailed report and for giving a solid technical debunk on this scammy product. I’d long suspected that the cuts on those wires could potentially be detrimental. I asked GForce about it and they indicated it was not a problem scoring those wires. In fact they claimed their clamps don’t actually score the wires. That was my first clue they did not know their business. It is virtually impossible to slice into any soft conductor like copper and not score the wires — not to mention the cuts through the insulation that expose the wires to both oxygen and moisture — a corrosive combination on metal such as copper and any of the alloys typical to automotive wire.
Also thanks for the suggestions of how to get the most from your air flow sensors.
Holy crap, I just bought two of them. I should have done a bit more research,if I had come across this forum I would not have bought them at all. I took a look at the pc board inside and it is all connected. Not sure if I want to put them on my cars now, maybe I will just return them.
I put one of these in my ’02 F150 to see about increasing HP for offroad and pulling a toy trailer. Pretty excited when I got it. Put it in as per the instructions. Immediate loss of HP from the start. Truck ran rough, but kept it in for the “break in” period giving them the benefit of the doubt. After 2 weeks, nothing improved, and one of the trips I went on with my family up the canyon, I had to remove the chip just to make it up the hill. Bad product, and I’m just going to eat the loss rather than be treated like crap like everyone else that has posted. Wish I would have read these reviews first. Lesson learned.
[...] [...]
After reading the link posted in #30 my recommendation is to do a chargeback with your credit card company.
Why do a chargeback?
1) First you’ll get all your money back and not just a portion of it. The money will be immediately credited to your account during the review process.
I also recommend getting a letter from your dealership or from any licensed mechanic. The best way to do that without paying for it is to talk to the dealer or mechanic on the phone or in person and record or write down what he/she says. Turn it into a letter and just get them to sign it. It is harder to get them to write the letter themselves.
include that with your letter to your credit card.
2) Another reason to do a chargeback is because it causes trouble between Gforce and their credit provider.
When you tell your story to the credit card company please feel free to use this link in your brief letter to your credit card provider.
Be sure to use any other links like the one above posted by one of our visitors.
If enough people do chargebacks because the product itself is a fraud, does not do what they say it will do, and was never built or designed to do what they say it does, they may lose their ability to even use visa for payments. Chargebacks are the biggest red flag to credit card providers that a company is selling bogus stuff.
When I had trouble with these guys at one point they promised to absorb the cost of shipping the chip back. When I tried to make a claim to that effect they told me they never make those kind of promises. I knew I should have recorded the conversation but that ship had sailed but after some argument he told me just to keep the chip and he’d refund the money. He did.
[...] time for an update on G-Force Chips. Since I made the original post here at this link I’ve received many comments and surprise “None of them were [...]
I just received my G-Force Chip in the mail today and after reading so many bad reviews I do not even want atempt to install it on my vehicle. What do I have to go through to send this item back. Any help would be appreciated!!!!
Probably too late by now but for future reference just contact Gforce chips and let them know that you want a refund. Just tell them you didn’t know the chip could actually cause damage — including the damage done to the wires by clipping into the insulation. They claim their wire contacts don’t nick the wire. I checked and they do nick the wire which weakens it.
If that fails just do a chargeback through your credit card company. In fact it may not be too late for that.