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Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

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31–40 of 65 posts

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not a recommendation, I mentioned the Razer gaming laptop to a co-worker. He bought one, it started to de-laminate and bend itself into a potato chip. I had never seen anything like it. They would not take a return, he had to do a credit card charge back, and blamed me forever. Their laptops had a 50% failure rate at Linus Media Group, according to Luke during a WAN Show. Linus kept pushing them on his viewers…

I had a Razer laptop. The metal on the back split open at one point and became really sharp. Due to this and its bulky-ness, I got an Asus Rog Zephyrus and never looked back. I always used to like Asus as a company when I built computers back in the 90s. Still great quality.

> The metal on the back split open at one point and became really sharp.

I am not sure why you are upset at this outcome, given the company name.

/s

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#32

After they tried slipping a bitcoin miner in their mouse software that paid you in Razer Points, I was done with Razer. This seems on brand.

Hardware wasn't great either.

Both me and my wife had issues with right mouse button switches failing and registering two clicks instead of one. This was 5 mice across 2 models (2 we bought, 3 we got as warranty replacements) in just a year.

It's been over a decade and it's still a razer-free household.

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#33
I had a pair of $100 Anker ANC headphones physically break on me but didn't have the box to return them in, and the Ankers were out of stock. For some reason Walmart's returns department's solution was for me to find a different headset with the exact same price to swap. The only matching set was a Razer Barracuda X, and oh boy were they terrible. I have never hated a consumer product so much in my entire life.

These ANC headphones didn't support Bluetooth at all, while other models with the same name did. In 2024, for $100, a wireless headset that only functions with the included dongle?! I made peace with it and got used to swapping the dongle to each device I use. Because of the poor dongle design it couldn't fit in my phone without removing the phone's case, so I listened to podcasts with my case off. Within the first two days the dongle just completely stopped working. Complete garbage. Not only that but the audio quality was horrible, the microphone sounded like a rotary phone, they were huge and bulky and hot to wear. When I contacted support asking for a new dongle they emailed me back the same template six times from three different representatives as if I hadn't answered all of their questions each time, and they wanted me to send the entire headset back to get a replacement.

I left the experience thinking "Wow, this garbage company must hate their customers." Even after all that, I didn't realize they hated their customers enough to install bitcoin miners on their mouse drivers or to sell them fake N95 masks. The punishment here doesn't even come close to justice, if anyone got sick the executives in charge of bringing those masks to market should be held criminally liable.

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#34
post #14

What I want to know: if they had submitted the mask for testing, would it have passed? I agree there should be a fine given that "N95" refers to masks that have actually passed NIOSH testing, but I think it interesting to know if the mask worked. If the masks worked, there was never a risk to public health.

Reading the article, I was sorely missing this as well. For me, this story erodes confidence in the FTC, not Razer.

How does this erode your confidence in the FTC? Maybe you missed the FTC report where they stated the maximum filtration they were able to reach was 86% and that was the maximum, with most tests hitting much lower.

Even calling the mask "N95 Grade", which is an obvious statement that it didn't pass actual testing, is a major problem. It's vague enough that most will believe that it is equivalent to one that has actually passed testing. When it's supposed to catch 95% and catches 10% less, that's _triple_ the amount of crap passing through.

If you read through the FTC documents, you can see that they (Razer) knew it would not pass and so went with the strategy of getting people to believe that it was the same, without any proof.

The FTC could not prevent them from releasing the product or immediately cause them to remove it from market as Razer did not claim that it was N95 certified. Razer knew exactly what they were doing in getting around this and now they're paying the price for doing so, while the FTC sets an example for others that "if you even imply that your product is equivalent to being certified, we'll pin you for it."

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#35

I mean it was probably at least as effective against covid as the Etsy masks people were selling that were made from regular fabric and whatever other nonsense. Probably shouldn't have used "N95" though. Doubt they would've even needed to at the time.

"Probably shouldn't have used N95 though"... gee, ya think? :P I would like to think that it's clear to everybody that they absolutely should not have claimed that it's even "N95 Grade", which clearly indicates that it's an approved as N95, but is roughly similar.

The actual stats are that it reached, at maximum, with the fan running, 86.3% filtration. That's almost 3x the amount of crap getting through than an actual N95 certified mask (without needing a fan).

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#36
post #3

What I want to know: if they had submitted the mask for testing, would it have passed? I agree there should be a fine given that "N95" refers to masks that have actually passed NIOSH testing, but I think it interesting to know if the mask worked. If the masks worked, there was never a risk to public health.

I want to know how much they made selling them? If they made $30m, and they get fined $1.2, that isn't really much deterrent...

Well also, IIUC about 3% of americans died from covid so assuming each Zypher mask cost $100 then out of the ~10,000 customers 30 of them died.

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#37

After they tried slipping a bitcoin miner in their mouse software that paid you in Razer Points, I was done with Razer. This seems on brand.

While not a recommendation, I mentioned the Razer gaming laptop to a co-worker. He bought one, it started to de-laminate and bend itself into a potato chip. I had never seen anything like it. They would not take a return, he had to do a credit card charge back, and blamed me forever. Their laptops had a 50% failure rate at Linus Media Group, according to Luke during a WAN Show. Linus kept pushing them on his viewers…

I guess that's what rainbow LEDs, sweet logos, and edgy branding will get you.

And with streaming becoming popular, "functional" didn't really cut it anymore. Having a black MX Master/MX Keys combo doesn't really "pop" on screen. It's gotta have lights, match the aesthetic, etc. It working is almost immaterial.

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#38

After they tried slipping a bitcoin miner in their mouse software that paid you in Razer Points, I was done with Razer. This seems on brand.

I wouldn't be surprised if all these bloated javascripts and GDPR popups also included some bitcoin mining in the browser.

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#39
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to know how much they made selling them? If they made $30m, and they get fined $1.2, that isn't really much deterrent...

Well also, IIUC about 3% of americans died from covid so assuming each Zypher mask cost $100 then out of the ~10,000 customers 30 of them died.

This is assuming that there's zero correlation between mask usage and dying from covid. That hasn't been established.

Re: Razer made to pay $1.2M over 'N95' face mask that wasn't

#40

What I want to know: if they had submitted the mask for testing, would it have passed? I agree there should be a fine given that "N95" refers to masks that have actually passed NIOSH testing, but I think it interesting to know if the mask worked. If the masks worked, there was never a risk to public health.

No, they did have them tested and knew they wouldn't pass NIOSH testing. Page 17: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Razer-PACER-No1... . I encourage everyone to read the complaint, there is no grey area here and no accidents. This was explicit fraudulent behavior by executives (including the CEO) who knew their mask didn't work very well, knew what "N95" means and that their mask couldn't qualify, and made…

Jeez. It's one thing to not do the testing, call it N95, and then say "oopsie, we didn't realize". It's another to actually do the testing, discover it doesn't pass, and sell it as N95 anyway.

That is a pretty good "willfully fraudulent" argument rather than "accidently overstating performance".

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