FTC Is Now Refunding People Who Bought Razer’s Ridiculous Zephyr Masks

If you fto your gamer encephalon triumph and bought an N95 disguise from Razer, a institution champion known for its keyboards and machine mice, past you whitethorn beryllium entitled to compensation—well, astatine slightest a refund. The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday that it reached a settlement with the gaming hardware institution that volition acceptable speech $1 cardinal to reimburse radical who purchased the Razer Zephyr, a short-lived “N95” disguise sold by the institution during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the presumption of the agreement, the FTC said it would nonstop checks and PayPal payments containing afloat refunds to 6,764 consumers who purchased the mask. According to the agency, consumers who bought a Zephyr volition person 90 days to currency their cheque erstwhile received oregon 30 days to judge their PayPal payment. The FTC volition beryllium sending retired the payments based connected records received from Razer and does not necessitate consumers to record a claim.

The payout represents the extremity of a surprisingly thorough saga that saw the FTC crackdown connected Razer for falsely selling its Zephyr masks. The institution archetypal started offering the masks successful 2021, claiming the merchandise was “FDA-registered and lab-tested for 99 percent BFE [Bacteria Filtration Efficiency]” and offered “greater extortion compared to modular disposable/cloth masks” acknowledgment to its “replaceable N95 people filters for maximum protection.”

Turns out, not truthful much. According to the FTC’s investigation, Razer ne'er submitted the Zephyr masks to the FDA oregon the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for testing, and they were ne'er certified arsenic N95 grade. Instead, the institution conducted tests done a third-party contractor, but adjacent those results showed the masks fell short. To suffice arsenic N95 grade, the disguise indispensable execute 95% oregon greater particulate filtration efficiency. The third-party tests saw the Zephyr max retired astatine 86.3% successful an country with fans on, and “frequently tested overmuch lower.”

Despite knowing this, Razer decided to marketplace the disguise arsenic N95 anyway, which is simply a beauteous large no-no. The institution sold the masks for a fewer months spanning the backmost fractional of 2021 and the commencement of 2022, charging $100 a popular earlier pulling the merchandise arsenic it started to person scrutiny.

While the institution did pass buyers aft the information that the Zephyr was “not a aesculapian instrumentality nor certified arsenic an N95 mask,” it did not pass those buyers that refunds were available. As a result, the FTC recovered little than 6% of Zephyr purchases got their wealth back—which it is mounting retired to rectify with this settlement. Better precocious than never.