It sounds like you bought compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. Yes, they really do use less wattage than regular (incandescent) bulbs, because they don't waste so much electricity as heat (like incandescent bulbs do).

You may be perceiving two key differences in the bulbs. First is "color temperature", which will make the light appear yellowish or bluish. That can alter how you perceive the quality of the light.

Second is that some CFLs take a couple of minute to warm up to full brightness. If you're just switching the bulbs on for a few minutes to check how much light there is, you may not be letting the CFLs get as bright as they would a few minutes after that.

CFLs should last way longer than incandescent lights. And even if you end up replacing a 75-watt incandescent with a 100-watt-equivalent CFL (23 watts), you're still using only one-third of the energy.

It's not a scam. And, yes, they're safe. In fact, I use CFLs in some fixtures because I can get more light out of them. Why limit myself to 40 incandescent watts when I can get 100 fluorescent watts out of a fixture if I need them at only half the incandescent wattage? :-)

so if I have a beroom lamp rated for a max of 40W, I can stick a 23W flourcent energy save in there....no chance of fire, or melting the shade etc....is this documented somewhere?

You could try using a google search on "CFL" and that should give you tons of info. I'm attaching a link to a website that might answer some of your questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: energystar CFL info

Thanks for the info. I am now putting 26W bulbs in lamps that had a 60W bulb before and it is brighter. The only area where there are problems is where I had a thicker shade. Incadecent lighting escapes better in those locatoions then the flourecent. (Maybe I'll change the shades!) Also, regardless of what the package sayss it seams these bulbs are always 15 - 20 pecercent less bright than their counterparts. I wonder if they make a 150W counter-part....have not seen any. Thanks again!