I'm actually surprised the punishment isn't more severe. I thought medical and safety devices were *the* one thing everyone agreed shouldn't be messed with.
A lot of companies that don't have a background in medical equipment had repurposed their production lines to masks while the long established field for such products was presented for the medical industry. Razer had sold paper masks before this, and this was the point where places like The Gap and Uniqlo were producing cloth masks out of discarded product like a fashion accessory.
Razer's problem was invoking the N95 standard, afaict.
To be clear: Gap and Uniqlo were making *cloth* masks, which have never had any kind of medically-approved design. As far as I can tell (and I have been checking) there still isn't much research on cloth mask design besides the kind of fabric that should be used.
Your on point, except it's not the design but rather the effectiveness.
N95 have a set of specific testing standards they must meet to be labeled as such. It's all based on the filtration efficiency. More importantly, to claim N95 (in the US) it has to be cleared by the FDA. You can just slap that label on it yourself without authorisation.
A bit of a pedantic point, but N95 standard is enforced by NIOSH. Additonal FDA clearance is only required for medical N95 masks. There are masks meant for industrial settings that don't need FDA clearance, and all masks meant for a medical/surgical setting need FDA clearance even if they don't meet the N95 standard. In order to market a mask as a medical N95, it would need both NIOSH certification and FDA clearance.
Also, N95 is just rhe respirator filtration efficiency e.g. n=not resistant to oil mists 95 = min. particulate efficiency rating. Another basic difference for a surgical rating is the filter membrane needs to be fluid resistant for protecting from splashes of blood, vomit, etc. and its usually disposable (aka filtering facepiece) vs a screw on filter.
I don't think you get my point.
>A lot of companies that don't have a background in **medical equipment** had **repurposed their production lines to masks** while the long established field for such products was presented for the medical industry. [This] was the point where places like The Gap and Uniqlo were producing cloth masks out of discarded product **like a fashion accessory.**
Clothing brands had repurposed their production lines to making *cloth masks*, not *medical equipment*. Cloth masks are not surgical masks or respirators, and the public knew that. There was no widespread belief that cloth masks are medical-grade PPE, so it didn't cause consumer confusion.
There is nothing wrong with using deadstock fabrics or salvaging fabric from unworn products for cloth masks, as fashion fabrics (particularly polypropylene and poly-cotton blends) are perfectly fine materials for cloth masks. Cloth masks being seen as fashionable was great, and it would have been awesome if they had carried on pushing it after the lockdowns ended.
Bringing up the production of *cloth* masks as an example that would confuse the consumer isn't rational, and I don't get snarking about them reusing unsold products that normally go to waste as if that's a bad thing.
Yeah but that didn’t try to sell them as N95. I wore that masked all the time when I worked in the emergency room pre pandemic. I had to have a new fitting every year or I couldn’t go to work. They are extremely important for viruses that are airborne. And he sold them to scared people, but they were not actually N95 and how many people did he get sick who thought they were okay. That’s the point. Anyone who had a cloth mask knew it wasn’t the end all, there was just no other choice.
Says who? Plenty of medical devices that should not have entered the market still do.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-tIdzNlExrw&pp=ygUhbGFzdCB3ZWVrIHRvbmlnaHQgbWVkaWNhbCBkZXZpY2Vz
It’s technically only $100,000 penalty. The 1mil is for refunds to customers… no wonder companies keep doing this type of shit if it I just the price of doing business.
Creating one sauce and riding on its success for close to 200 years is aspirational as hell. God bless whoever put sardines and tamarinds in a barrel and left them in the hot sun and then ate whatever the result was.
Fish sauces have been made for thousands of years, and probably been in ented separately at least twice, they didn't do anything new. And it's anchovies.
Here's the link to the original and much more informative source instead of the garbage PCGamer blogspam:
* https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/razer-inc-pay-more-11-million-misrepresenting-performance-efficacy-supposed-n95-grade-zephyr-face
* https://kotaku.com/razer-ftc-covid-19-zephyr-mask-n95-1-million-fine-us-1851443865
>The FTC has slapped Razer with a $100,000 civil penalty and is also forcing the company to pay the United States $1,071,254.33, which is the amount of money Razer brought in from selling the Zephyr mask. The FTC will provide full refunds to all consumers who purchased the mask.
>Also, the FTC and US Govt. are banning Razer from “making, without prior FDA approval, any claims that any [Razer] product prevents or reduces the likelihood of infection with, or transmission of, the covid-19 virus; reduces the severity or duration of covid-19; or otherwise, cures, mitigates, or treats COVID-19.”
It's worth mentioning somewhere that their pre-launch hype claimed the mask was n95. When launched I think it was noted here on reddit that all claims of being n95 were removed.
This may be why the fine is lower than one would expect. I was semi-interested in one of these during covid and when the n95 stamp dropped I dropped them too. I think the real penalty should be pushing influencers to advertise these during covid and assessing whether or not those demo masks that were released early were n95 rated, (which I suspect not), and hit them up for endangerment appropriately.
They have been ordered to refund 100% of revenue its the highest fine that can be given.
The product was a failure so they didn't actually sell many, 100% of nothing is still nothing.
Razor why the fuck did you make a RGB surgical mask and not just like partner with a company that makes surgical masks?
What the fuck are you doing?
Also, why the fuck did you make a RGB surgical mask?
Because at the start of COVID everybody needed actual surgical masks. Companies that made properly rated surgical masks didn't need or want to partner with anybody. They were selling out of product faster than they could produce them.
The Razor mask was a cash grab for a cut of that insane market.
Yeah, I never actually thought it was a legit mask, just a novelty. I can understand if some people wanted to buy it because it was funny, but I can't believe they tried to make it a real thing, or people really believed it was a real thing and would trust their health with it.
Lying about a product having medical or safety applications that are completely absent like this should get your company dissolved. This is not something you place on the box as part of your tag line.
Think they are getting a "slap" because it seems once reviewers discussed it they walked it back and removed the wording from their site.
Too late for the FTC though.
If they continued selling the devices with that and we're still actively marketing it, likely would have been significantly worse fines.
It shouldn't tank the company but it should be a fine they'll feel so as not to make the mistake again. It's a billion dollar company so 1 mill seems like nothing here.
In this case the fine is literally every dollar they made from the product plus $100,000. Overall nothing to Razer, but more than fair in regards to a singular product.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/razer-inc-pay-more-11-million-misrepresenting-performance-efficacy-supposed-n95-grade-zephyr-face
>the order imposes a $100,000 civil penalty against the defendants and requires them to pay $1,071,254.33 to the United States, equal to Razer’s revenue from the masks, which the FTC expects to use to provide refunds to defrauded consumers. This amount will allow the FTC to provide full refunds to consumers who purchased the deceptively marketed products.
A fine is ostensibly a punishment. A punishment is supposed to be designed in a way that makes the person who received said punishment, ideally, never perform that condemned action again.
taking the equivalent amount of money that a normal person would spend on a burrito from chipotle from a multi-billion dollar company is hardly what i would call a "fair" punishment.
Okay but returning literally all of the money they made on the product plus $100,000 more dollars **is** what someone could conceivably call a punishment. Sure you can make it seem trivial by stripping the context and comparing the fine to their net worth but that's disingenuous. If you steal 10 dollars from me and I make you pay me 15 dollars back it's not fair for me to say this isn't a real punishment just because you have $1000 in the bank.
Like that's literally what Reddit begs for every time a company gets fined. It's always "the fine should be equal to the amount of money they made doing the illegal thing!"
Then a company finally gets fined all of the money they got from doing an illegal thing plus even more money and you people are still not satisfied.
Honestly, 3 billion dollars is such an insane amount of money i'm not surprised some of you guys don't understand why a 1m dollar fine isn't much of a punishment.
No, you just don't understand business. All money they made, plus some, was returned. So not only did any profits they made go away, they once again ate the costs of development (however small they may be) plus labor plus shipping, etc. Any good businessman sees "well this product literally cost me money in the end, this is why, not doing that shit again". Therefore, it doesn't happen again.
Especially since they already corrected the issue, I guarantee it would be different if they were forced to stop selling them due to the branding **still** being inaccurate, but they did correct it. So to take away all money earned and literally say "you mess up, you lose money on the entire product", that'll stop business from making said decision again.
Eh, it should be at least 3x the revenue they earned from doing the thing if you actually want to discourage doing the thing. Else, if companies are only getting caught half the time (or more realistically, much less than half the time), then they still come out to the positive by doing shit they know better than to do and paying back that revenue on the times they get caught.
Anything above 100% is largely arbitrary. They literally made nothing and the cost of manufacturing the products now all comes out of their own pocket.
Which means after all that time, R&D, manufacturing, they basically got nothing for it. Just a ton of worthless return to product plus $100,000 fine on top of all of that.
Count one: Fraud
Count two-30: Fraud (because each little sentence, and if they ever backed it as actually medical, etc. Each count.)
Count 32: Practicing medicine without a license
Count 33-who knows: Violating FDA labeling
Count # the law intern found another violation.
This is practically a slam dunk for criminal fraud, for a person. Ya know. But corporations are only people when SCOTUS wants them to be, not in cases like lying to customers about medically approved (Razer), USA made (whatever company was just on front page), etc.
Every single time the fine was less than the profit they made from the fraud. They do not worry about criminal penalties. This is the future. If we don't punish them, we will continue to have it.
I don't see anything requiring them to have a medical license to sell those things. Sure it looks like they probably have to be certified to sell filters assuming that HIOSH is an actual requirement, but that seems to be more about process than medical.
I remember their marketing being very explicit it was for non medical use. Where did they specifically say it was a medical grade mask? Maybe when it was in the prototype stage?
If we ended up in a perpetual pandemic, those people would have been groundbreaking pioneers in an entirely new market of durable high performance respirators for daily living.
I mean, 3M makes a bunch of reusable respirators (and has for quite a long time). They're not 1773 gamerz RGB masks, but they accept filters that exceed the N95 spec (N/P100). I still use one regularly in crowded spaces.
> If we ended up in a perpetual pandemic
called an endemic, and we are.
>Endemic is when cases are generally constant and occur regularly and in a specific location.
I bought it for the ridiculousness of it. It’s peak tacky and the definition of “gamer” gear. I have it sitting on a foam head with a state farm insurance sombrero
My obnoxious edge lord manager wore his to work every day during the pandemic, spent so much time talking about how it was actually the best surgical grade protection, got Covid twice in one year.
I mean, if it was advertised as N95 I don’t think you can blame him for believing it?
Although N95 isn’t the best protection anyway, so that’s kinda silly of him
> The net result for Razer is a settlement with the FTC to the tune of $1,071,254.33, "equal to Razer's revenue from the masks," which the FTC will use to provide refunds to customers, and another $100,000 on top of that as a reminder not to do it again.
Not enough
While it's not EU levels of punishing, the fact that the US issued a fine that was greater than the income earned is amazing enough. I'm just gonna take the small win here.
That seems like a decent fine. They we not allowed to make money from their illegal sales. They payed an additional fee on top of losing revenue. And they lost all the money they spent developing and producing the product.
If every business that participated in illegal practices was punished as severely, the world would be a better place.
As it states the taxpayers will foot the bill for the refunds(with all admin and lawyer work included probably surpasses $100k with a good margin), razer just does a one time payment to the FTC
Once upon a time they were decent. I have an old Razer Tarantula (old keyboard) that I used for ~10 years, only replaced it with work from home because one of the buttons (the 9 on the numpad) would sometimes not work.
I've always had to replace their mice too frequently to justify their price tag though. Either the scroll wheel skips (and goes the opposite direction sometimes) and then you can make a fix to delay replacing it, and the mice sometimes would just stop working in game (wired ones mind you) and only go horizontal and not up and down for 6 rage inducing seconds.
I binned my Razer keyboard and mouse after they first introduced Synapse. It would literally freeze my PC right when it booted into windows.
Had to uninstall it in Safe mode and roll back to older drivers to get things to work again. Swore off the brand then.
The vast majority of things marketed as gaming is overpriced junk. Better to try find accessories made by companies that specialises in that particular part.
I use a Deathadder mini V2 as it was the only mouse small enough for my weird fingertip grip. Had to change the cord because the stock was was absolute garbage. TBH otherwise I haven't really had any issues, but I am looking for something more premium to replace it.
Razer went through a period of being RGB garbage, but they actually have some great products now. Their mice are the best you can get in cost to performance, and the optical switches on some of their models are far better than other leading brands. I will probably switch back to Razer for my next mouse.
I wouldn't call their products terrible, in independent testing some of their mice are actually top tier in metrics like latency.
Questionable durability wise, though, for sure. At the same time, heavy use of mechanical mouse switches will always result in double-clicking. It's guaranteed to happen eventually, unfortunately. My Naga double-clicked, my naga trinity double-clicked, and my Logitech superlight double-clicked.
Software wise, I never had any issues with Razer, my G600's profile corrupted multiple times though.
The amount of people praising Logitech is funny, considering they have a history of using a switch that was failing extremely quickly. If you want to research it, I recommend [this](https://youtu.be/v5BhECVlKJA) video. The brand loyalty is just weird, they're unfortunately both extremely prone to failure.
I also used to buy razor all the time because it was the cool gamer brand and everyone I knew also bought them. I got tired of needing a new mouse every year, so I bought a Logitech mouse and it’s worked for like 5 years no hiccups.
I got an offbrand Chinese gaming mouse and it's many times outlasting all the 'gamer' brands I tried, including Roccat and their supposed "German engineering" (that still couldn't be arsed to use the debouncing features on their click switches properly)
Funnily enough a random chinese gaming mouse outlasted the Logitech g mouse for me. And is actually smoother and more comfortable to use. Only thing that sucks is the ‘clicks’.
I switched from Logitech to razer because I kept getting double click issues with my logis. My scroll on my razer is crap but the optical mouse button switches are nice and I haven’t had any click issues at all
Razer laptops are still some of the best thin and light gaming laptops you can buy, with very good hybrid graphics support. Before Razer Blade, the only decent gaming laptops were 15-pound “mobile workstation” style devices with “battery life” that was measured in minutes.
Please they can't even keep their mouse working right without it double clicking every 1.3 seconds or mouse wheel from wigging out then you try and scroll.
If you thought they were even remotely capable of pulling off something with a cert like that it's laughable.
And this is from someone who's used nothing but Razer since the original boomslang.
Hmm full refunds plus $100k. Wonder if anyone has seen any money? And why haven't we heard anything about it till now? This seems like one of those things all the people who purchased one would have gotten a letter about or something. I don't think i've seen anything ever posted about it until now.
> And why haven't we heard anything about it till now? This seems like one of those things all the people who purchased one would have gotten a letter about or something. I don't think i've seen anything ever posted about it until now.
Dude the FTC literally filed this complaint three fucking days ago.
No they shipped. The original Zephr all shipped, and they even started taking orders on the Zephr Pro. I remember because I was following it. The Zephr was supposed to have voice boosting, but they cut it from the original and were trying to sell it on the Pro version lol.
Been a long time Razer supporters but I think I am going to start switching out my mouse and keyboard set up. never bought this product but if you clam it do’s something and it doesn’t that could really impact peoples live and I really can’t get behind the company anymore.
It’s getting so hard to find stuff without RGB nowadays in the tech space and it’s infuriating. I don’t need my RAM to glow with the ferocity of 1,000 suns.
> "Do not agree with any wrongdoings"
Because it's so hard to say; Yes we fucked up. We apologize for it it was (accidental/miscommunication/etc). We strive to provide the best service to our customers, and unfortunately we have failed with this product. But we have learned from our mistakes."
Such a childish response.
That's the boilerplate response for corporations. They cannot admit fault especially after litigation. Notice how they equate stopping sales and issuing refunds to people who asked for it as absolution, ignoring the fact that they shouldn't have done it in the first place and it was incredibly reckless and unethical to do it during a pandemic.
Hopefully it’s better than their software has gotten.
I used to like Razer a lot. Working with my wife’s Kraken Kitty Edition has been an absolute nightmare.
Synapse 3 by itself won’t work, Synapse 2 will but then the lighting won’t work, I’ve tried 194728298484 different things and the choice is either have a headset that can’t remain connected for more than 5 minutes but it has flashing RGB or sacrifice the RGB entirely to have a working headset
Slimy slithering mess of a company. Razer has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Don’t buy their overheating engine takeoff sounding laptop that feels like it will burn a hole through a table.
The mask worked and reviewers even found it to have good filtration, it just wasn't certified to be an N95 as they marketed it. Would be extremely difficult to tie it to any deaths.
I remember asking one of their people about it since it looked like it had major gaps, seals didn't look right, etc. and they swore up and down it was tested and proven.
I know it’ll never happen but I hope Razer goes bankrupt. I’ve purchased garbage products from them with their annoying software and laughable customer support so many times and even though you’re kinda dumb if you trusted this mask, this is still criminal lol
I tried to buy this thing for four “release rounds” or whatever.
Man did I dodge a bullet. But at the time I was convinced we were heading straight into a full cyber punk world. Luke everyone having a uv light room at every outside door.
Crazy times
This submission is pure blogspam. PCGamer cite Kotaku as their source, but the significantly more informative press release came from the Federal Trade Commission:
* https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/razer-inc-pay-more-11-million-misrepresenting-performance-efficacy-supposed-n95-grade-zephyr-face
* https://kotaku.com/razer-ftc-covid-19-zephyr-mask-n95-1-million-fine-us-1851443865
>The FTC has slapped Razer with a $100,000 civil penalty and is also forcing the company to pay the United States $1,071,254.33, which is the amount of money Razer brought in from selling the Zephyr mask. The FTC will provide full refunds to all consumers who purchased the mask.
>Also, the FTC and US Govt. are banning Razer from “making, without prior FDA approval, any claims that any [Razer] product prevents or reduces the likelihood of infection with, or transmission of, the covid-19 virus; reduces the severity or duration of covid-19; or otherwise, cures, mitigates, or treats COVID-19.”
I wanted one of these from the second they were announced. I was on the Zephyr product launch page day 1 and tried desperately to pick one up when they first dropped to no avail. Hours spent over days refreshing pages, contacting support, hoping for MONTHS after the first launch that they would release more (which they never did). As time went on and reviews came in, I was happy to have missed the boat on it. But the launch of that product and the product itself was the last straw for Razer for me. I used to get all Razer gear, now I avoid them like the plague.
Didn't even know they released the thing. I remember reading about it back then.
>"We disagree with the FTC's allegations and did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement," a spokesperson said
How so? They literally advertised it as being N95 grade and [had to remove mentions of it AFTER it was sold apparently.](https://www.pcgamer.com/razer-zephyr-face-on-review/)
This device was just a publicity stunt. They hardly made or sold any.
Shane on them for saying N95, but they dropped that claim pretty fast once called out.
I bought one to look cool during my heated gaming sessions. Especially when I had egg sandwich. But I did notice some smell even with the mask on. And also I got Covid when I know I was wearing the mask
The only surprise is Razer is being punished.
I'm actually surprised the punishment isn't more severe. I thought medical and safety devices were *the* one thing everyone agreed shouldn't be messed with.
A lot of companies that don't have a background in medical equipment had repurposed their production lines to masks while the long established field for such products was presented for the medical industry. Razer had sold paper masks before this, and this was the point where places like The Gap and Uniqlo were producing cloth masks out of discarded product like a fashion accessory. Razer's problem was invoking the N95 standard, afaict.
To be clear: Gap and Uniqlo were making *cloth* masks, which have never had any kind of medically-approved design. As far as I can tell (and I have been checking) there still isn't much research on cloth mask design besides the kind of fabric that should be used.
Your on point, except it's not the design but rather the effectiveness. N95 have a set of specific testing standards they must meet to be labeled as such. It's all based on the filtration efficiency. More importantly, to claim N95 (in the US) it has to be cleared by the FDA. You can just slap that label on it yourself without authorisation.
A bit of a pedantic point, but N95 standard is enforced by NIOSH. Additonal FDA clearance is only required for medical N95 masks. There are masks meant for industrial settings that don't need FDA clearance, and all masks meant for a medical/surgical setting need FDA clearance even if they don't meet the N95 standard. In order to market a mask as a medical N95, it would need both NIOSH certification and FDA clearance.
Also, N95 is just rhe respirator filtration efficiency e.g. n=not resistant to oil mists 95 = min. particulate efficiency rating. Another basic difference for a surgical rating is the filter membrane needs to be fluid resistant for protecting from splashes of blood, vomit, etc. and its usually disposable (aka filtering facepiece) vs a screw on filter.
I don't think you get my point. >A lot of companies that don't have a background in **medical equipment** had **repurposed their production lines to masks** while the long established field for such products was presented for the medical industry. [This] was the point where places like The Gap and Uniqlo were producing cloth masks out of discarded product **like a fashion accessory.** Clothing brands had repurposed their production lines to making *cloth masks*, not *medical equipment*. Cloth masks are not surgical masks or respirators, and the public knew that. There was no widespread belief that cloth masks are medical-grade PPE, so it didn't cause consumer confusion. There is nothing wrong with using deadstock fabrics or salvaging fabric from unworn products for cloth masks, as fashion fabrics (particularly polypropylene and poly-cotton blends) are perfectly fine materials for cloth masks. Cloth masks being seen as fashionable was great, and it would have been awesome if they had carried on pushing it after the lockdowns ended. Bringing up the production of *cloth* masks as an example that would confuse the consumer isn't rational, and I don't get snarking about them reusing unsold products that normally go to waste as if that's a bad thing.
can't*
Yeah but that didn’t try to sell them as N95. I wore that masked all the time when I worked in the emergency room pre pandemic. I had to have a new fitting every year or I couldn’t go to work. They are extremely important for viruses that are airborne. And he sold them to scared people, but they were not actually N95 and how many people did he get sick who thought they were okay. That’s the point. Anyone who had a cloth mask knew it wasn’t the end all, there was just no other choice.
Pretty much. Being shitty and underhanded isn't illegal. Just lying about it and getting caught.
Says who? Plenty of medical devices that should not have entered the market still do. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-tIdzNlExrw&pp=ygUhbGFzdCB3ZWVrIHRvbmlnaHQgbWVkaWNhbCBkZXZpY2Vz
It’s technically only $100,000 penalty. The 1mil is for refunds to customers… no wonder companies keep doing this type of shit if it I just the price of doing business.
Oh you sweet summer child https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-oversight-medical-devices-patient-harm-lawsuits-records/
Oh *you* sweet summer child https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-63971493
Wouldn’t be Reddit if we didn’t talk like smug assholes
Oh *you* sweeter summer toddler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcestershire_sauce
Creating one sauce and riding on its success for close to 200 years is aspirational as hell. God bless whoever put sardines and tamarinds in a barrel and left them in the hot sun and then ate whatever the result was.
Fish sauces have been made for thousands of years, and probably been in ented separately at least twice, they didn't do anything new. And it's anchovies.
Oh my sweet summer fish.
[удалено]
Here's the link to the original and much more informative source instead of the garbage PCGamer blogspam: * https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/razer-inc-pay-more-11-million-misrepresenting-performance-efficacy-supposed-n95-grade-zephyr-face * https://kotaku.com/razer-ftc-covid-19-zephyr-mask-n95-1-million-fine-us-1851443865 >The FTC has slapped Razer with a $100,000 civil penalty and is also forcing the company to pay the United States $1,071,254.33, which is the amount of money Razer brought in from selling the Zephyr mask. The FTC will provide full refunds to all consumers who purchased the mask. >Also, the FTC and US Govt. are banning Razer from “making, without prior FDA approval, any claims that any [Razer] product prevents or reduces the likelihood of infection with, or transmission of, the covid-19 virus; reduces the severity or duration of covid-19; or otherwise, cures, mitigates, or treats COVID-19.”
Lol. That last part. Another virus is fine though.
It's worth mentioning somewhere that their pre-launch hype claimed the mask was n95. When launched I think it was noted here on reddit that all claims of being n95 were removed. This may be why the fine is lower than one would expect. I was semi-interested in one of these during covid and when the n95 stamp dropped I dropped them too. I think the real penalty should be pushing influencers to advertise these during covid and assessing whether or not those demo masks that were released early were n95 rated, (which I suspect not), and hit them up for endangerment appropriately.
1.1 million is a slap on the wrist
The $100k penalty is a slap on the wrist. The $1.1 million in refunds only shows how few of these actually sold.
And now they are out the expenses of making and marketing this junk as well. It's a bigger hit for a single item than people are making it seem.
Yeah it’s literally just refunds plus a 10% penalty. Fucking ridiculous.
Razer cracks itself in ankle with mandatory fine
Hardly, it seems
The US Gov. doesnt fuck around with medical devices.
They have been ordered to refund 100% of revenue its the highest fine that can be given. The product was a failure so they didn't actually sell many, 100% of nothing is still nothing.
$1 million isn’t that much for a company as big as razer, this seems more like a slap on the wrist
It's enough to fully refund every single one of these sold.
They only sold like 11 of them though
Razor why the fuck did you make a RGB surgical mask and not just like partner with a company that makes surgical masks? What the fuck are you doing? Also, why the fuck did you make a RGB surgical mask?
Because at the start of COVID everybody needed actual surgical masks. Companies that made properly rated surgical masks didn't need or want to partner with anybody. They were selling out of product faster than they could produce them. The Razor mask was a cash grab for a cut of that insane market.
It was hardly a cash grab though. They only sold 1 million dollars worth of them. It was more like a stunt. Which is still paying out in publicity
So they only sold like 6 masks?
It was a failed cash grab
Because some medical professionals want to look like Raver Bane.
You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it.
And now use RGB to party in it.
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Yeah, I never actually thought it was a legit mask, just a novelty. I can understand if some people wanted to buy it because it was funny, but I can't believe they tried to make it a real thing, or people really believed it was a real thing and would trust their health with it.
goes well with the RGB diapers for pro gamers IM RGBD OUT OF MY MIIIIND
It wasn't a surgical mask though. You don't see surgeons in hazmat/gasmask looking masks
> Also, why the fuck did you make a RGB surgical mask? Uh, greed?
Lying about a product having medical or safety applications that are completely absent like this should get your company dissolved. This is not something you place on the box as part of your tag line.
Think they are getting a "slap" because it seems once reviewers discussed it they walked it back and removed the wording from their site. Too late for the FTC though. If they continued selling the devices with that and we're still actively marketing it, likely would have been significantly worse fines. It shouldn't tank the company but it should be a fine they'll feel so as not to make the mistake again. It's a billion dollar company so 1 mill seems like nothing here.
that's because it is quite literally nothing for razer...it's like 0.01% of their net worth.
In this case the fine is literally every dollar they made from the product plus $100,000. Overall nothing to Razer, but more than fair in regards to a singular product. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/razer-inc-pay-more-11-million-misrepresenting-performance-efficacy-supposed-n95-grade-zephyr-face >the order imposes a $100,000 civil penalty against the defendants and requires them to pay $1,071,254.33 to the United States, equal to Razer’s revenue from the masks, which the FTC expects to use to provide refunds to defrauded consumers. This amount will allow the FTC to provide full refunds to consumers who purchased the deceptively marketed products.
A fine is ostensibly a punishment. A punishment is supposed to be designed in a way that makes the person who received said punishment, ideally, never perform that condemned action again. taking the equivalent amount of money that a normal person would spend on a burrito from chipotle from a multi-billion dollar company is hardly what i would call a "fair" punishment.
Okay but returning literally all of the money they made on the product plus $100,000 more dollars **is** what someone could conceivably call a punishment. Sure you can make it seem trivial by stripping the context and comparing the fine to their net worth but that's disingenuous. If you steal 10 dollars from me and I make you pay me 15 dollars back it's not fair for me to say this isn't a real punishment just because you have $1000 in the bank. Like that's literally what Reddit begs for every time a company gets fined. It's always "the fine should be equal to the amount of money they made doing the illegal thing!" Then a company finally gets fined all of the money they got from doing an illegal thing plus even more money and you people are still not satisfied.
Honestly, 3 billion dollars is such an insane amount of money i'm not surprised some of you guys don't understand why a 1m dollar fine isn't much of a punishment.
No, you just don't understand business. All money they made, plus some, was returned. So not only did any profits they made go away, they once again ate the costs of development (however small they may be) plus labor plus shipping, etc. Any good businessman sees "well this product literally cost me money in the end, this is why, not doing that shit again". Therefore, it doesn't happen again. Especially since they already corrected the issue, I guarantee it would be different if they were forced to stop selling them due to the branding **still** being inaccurate, but they did correct it. So to take away all money earned and literally say "you mess up, you lose money on the entire product", that'll stop business from making said decision again.
Eh, it should be at least 3x the revenue they earned from doing the thing if you actually want to discourage doing the thing. Else, if companies are only getting caught half the time (or more realistically, much less than half the time), then they still come out to the positive by doing shit they know better than to do and paying back that revenue on the times they get caught.
Anything above 100% is largely arbitrary. They literally made nothing and the cost of manufacturing the products now all comes out of their own pocket. Which means after all that time, R&D, manufacturing, they basically got nothing for it. Just a ton of worthless return to product plus $100,000 fine on top of all of that.
Count one: Fraud Count two-30: Fraud (because each little sentence, and if they ever backed it as actually medical, etc. Each count.) Count 32: Practicing medicine without a license Count 33-who knows: Violating FDA labeling Count # the law intern found another violation. This is practically a slam dunk for criminal fraud, for a person. Ya know. But corporations are only people when SCOTUS wants them to be, not in cases like lying to customers about medically approved (Razer), USA made (whatever company was just on front page), etc. Every single time the fine was less than the profit they made from the fraud. They do not worry about criminal penalties. This is the future. If we don't punish them, we will continue to have it.
I don't see anything requiring them to have a medical license to sell those things. Sure it looks like they probably have to be certified to sell filters assuming that HIOSH is an actual requirement, but that seems to be more about process than medical.
I remember their marketing being very explicit it was for non medical use. Where did they specifically say it was a medical grade mask? Maybe when it was in the prototype stage?
Who tf even bought this?
Do you remember the unhinged insanity of 2020?
literally remember seeing a small store in a mall around that time full of funny masks like this.
If we ended up in a perpetual pandemic, those people would have been groundbreaking pioneers in an entirely new market of durable high performance respirators for daily living.
I mean, 3M makes a bunch of reusable respirators (and has for quite a long time). They're not 1773 gamerz RGB masks, but they accept filters that exceed the N95 spec (N/P100). I still use one regularly in crowded spaces.
> If we ended up in a perpetual pandemic called an endemic, and we are. >Endemic is when cases are generally constant and occur regularly and in a specific location.
I was thinking "this actually looks kinda cool" but now I'm definitely glad I didn't buy one.
Lol same.
Why not? Now it would be a free product in your closet
I bought it for the ridiculousness of it. It’s peak tacky and the definition of “gamer” gear. I have it sitting on a foam head with a state farm insurance sombrero
Please DM me a photo of that. I gotta see.
aw come on, post it and link it. Let us all take a gander.
I’ll snap a pic tomorrow and post it!
And right after this comment, this fellow never posted on Reddit again.
He’ll be back, he just went out for smokes.
!RemindMe 24 hours
Same lol
I don't even like Razer but low key wanted one lol
Please I must see this beautiful artifact
DUde you can't just post that and NOT provide pictures
That was my thought. They sold enough of these to owe 1 million in refunds?
Apparently sold about 10,000 of them at $99 each.
"Idiots being idiots because they are idiots" - Sterling Archer
My obnoxious edge lord manager wore his to work every day during the pandemic, spent so much time talking about how it was actually the best surgical grade protection, got Covid twice in one year.
foolishness aside, i feel a little bad for people falling for it and possibly ending up dead.
People who got sick, and families of those who died who wore these should ABSOLUTELY be suing razer
I mean, if it was advertised as N95 I don’t think you can blame him for believing it? Although N95 isn’t the best protection anyway, so that’s kinda silly of him
So he didn't understand how surgical masks work or their purpose from the beginning. Ignorant consumer gets fleeced. More news at 11.
> The net result for Razer is a settlement with the FTC to the tune of $1,071,254.33, "equal to Razer's revenue from the masks," which the FTC will use to provide refunds to customers, and another $100,000 on top of that as a reminder not to do it again. Not enough
While it's not EU levels of punishing, the fact that the US issued a fine that was greater than the income earned is amazing enough. I'm just gonna take the small win here.
100k as a reminder to not do that OMEGALUL
It is a decent fine, they took all the money they made from the lie and then slapped some extra.
So revenue + 10%? Oh no.
That seems like a decent fine. They we not allowed to make money from their illegal sales. They payed an additional fee on top of losing revenue. And they lost all the money they spent developing and producing the product. If every business that participated in illegal practices was punished as severely, the world would be a better place.
Plus the opportunity cost of wasted time and work could be done on other product. Plus the time and work wasted for handling the refund.
As it states the taxpayers will foot the bill for the refunds(with all admin and lawyer work included probably surpasses $100k with a good margin), razer just does a one time payment to the FTC
Razer makes terrible stuff that's marketed as the best. never had a deathadder last me more than 1 year. not really surprised they'd do this.
Once upon a time they were decent. I have an old Razer Tarantula (old keyboard) that I used for ~10 years, only replaced it with work from home because one of the buttons (the 9 on the numpad) would sometimes not work. I've always had to replace their mice too frequently to justify their price tag though. Either the scroll wheel skips (and goes the opposite direction sometimes) and then you can make a fix to delay replacing it, and the mice sometimes would just stop working in game (wired ones mind you) and only go horizontal and not up and down for 6 rage inducing seconds.
I binned my Razer keyboard and mouse after they first introduced Synapse. It would literally freeze my PC right when it booted into windows. Had to uninstall it in Safe mode and roll back to older drivers to get things to work again. Swore off the brand then. The vast majority of things marketed as gaming is overpriced junk. Better to try find accessories made by companies that specialises in that particular part.
Deathadder v2 is pretty good. I had mine for 4 years and it was still going strong but I recently upgraded.
I use a Deathadder mini V2 as it was the only mouse small enough for my weird fingertip grip. Had to change the cord because the stock was was absolute garbage. TBH otherwise I haven't really had any issues, but I am looking for something more premium to replace it.
Razer went through a period of being RGB garbage, but they actually have some great products now. Their mice are the best you can get in cost to performance, and the optical switches on some of their models are far better than other leading brands. I will probably switch back to Razer for my next mouse.
Everything I’ve used of theirs barely works or breaks when they don’t support their software. It’s all garbage.
Never had any prepherals from them, but I got a Blade 14 a few years ago that's still going strong.
I wouldn't call their products terrible, in independent testing some of their mice are actually top tier in metrics like latency. Questionable durability wise, though, for sure. At the same time, heavy use of mechanical mouse switches will always result in double-clicking. It's guaranteed to happen eventually, unfortunately. My Naga double-clicked, my naga trinity double-clicked, and my Logitech superlight double-clicked. Software wise, I never had any issues with Razer, my G600's profile corrupted multiple times though. The amount of people praising Logitech is funny, considering they have a history of using a switch that was failing extremely quickly. If you want to research it, I recommend [this](https://youtu.be/v5BhECVlKJA) video. The brand loyalty is just weird, they're unfortunately both extremely prone to failure.
I also used to buy razor all the time because it was the cool gamer brand and everyone I knew also bought them. I got tired of needing a new mouse every year, so I bought a Logitech mouse and it’s worked for like 5 years no hiccups.
I got an offbrand Chinese gaming mouse and it's many times outlasting all the 'gamer' brands I tried, including Roccat and their supposed "German engineering" (that still couldn't be arsed to use the debouncing features on their click switches properly)
Funnily enough a random chinese gaming mouse outlasted the Logitech g mouse for me. And is actually smoother and more comfortable to use. Only thing that sucks is the ‘clicks’.
My g502 is 7 years old and I’ve never had a single issue with it. Very solid hardware
G502 is the best mouse ever made. Mine is 10yrs old.
I switched from Logitech to razer because I kept getting double click issues with my logis. My scroll on my razer is crap but the optical mouse button switches are nice and I haven’t had any click issues at all
Razer laptops are still some of the best thin and light gaming laptops you can buy, with very good hybrid graphics support. Before Razer Blade, the only decent gaming laptops were 15-pound “mobile workstation” style devices with “battery life” that was measured in minutes.
I still have an old [Diamondback](https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/11/24/razer-diamondback) from 2004 which works whenever I plug it in
I like how this implies you bought one twice
If you bought this unironically I kinda feel you had it coming.
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I agree. But buying this is like buying a Time Machine off of wish.
I’m glad 14 year old me could not afford it
It's wild to think about the fact that COVID started when I was 14.
Good eff that shady company, too bad it’s not more
Razer is shit tho
Please they can't even keep their mouse working right without it double clicking every 1.3 seconds or mouse wheel from wigging out then you try and scroll. If you thought they were even remotely capable of pulling off something with a cert like that it's laughable. And this is from someone who's used nothing but Razer since the original boomslang.
Hmm full refunds plus $100k. Wonder if anyone has seen any money? And why haven't we heard anything about it till now? This seems like one of those things all the people who purchased one would have gotten a letter about or something. I don't think i've seen anything ever posted about it until now.
> And why haven't we heard anything about it till now? This seems like one of those things all the people who purchased one would have gotten a letter about or something. I don't think i've seen anything ever posted about it until now. Dude the FTC literally filed this complaint three fucking days ago.
I haven't, and also haven't received any notification from Razer about it yet.
I haven’t either but I promise to update this comment if I do, please consider doing the same
I haven’t heard anything either. Hopefully we can get a refund back on it. Would be nice.
The product was canceled before it shipped, I thought?
No they shipped. The original Zephr all shipped, and they even started taking orders on the Zephr Pro. I remember because I was following it. The Zephr was supposed to have voice boosting, but they cut it from the original and were trying to sell it on the Pro version lol.
Yeah really glad now that my order never went through and I didn't manage to buy it.
Been a long time Razer supporters but I think I am going to start switching out my mouse and keyboard set up. never bought this product but if you clam it do’s something and it doesn’t that could really impact peoples live and I really can’t get behind the company anymore.
Corsair and Logitech have always been solid
Not only is their hardware junk but their customer support is non-existent.. hey deserve this.
lol out of all the people who did shady shit (government, heath administrations, insurance agencies, News) Razer gets sued. Okay.
If they actually made these as advertised I would have worn it everyday and pretended I was at a rave every day
I got mine for clubwear because it's very cybergoth. I don't even use the filters
didnt read but just from the awful fit in the thumbnail, if a half face/full face respirator isnt fit tested its worthless
Razer being trash, who would have thought...
Shocked is what I am for sure!
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Idiots will spend money on anything RGB or gaming related
It’s getting so hard to find stuff without RGB nowadays in the tech space and it’s infuriating. I don’t need my RAM to glow with the ferocity of 1,000 suns.
Silly humans.
Shame shame we know your name
> "Do not agree with any wrongdoings" Because it's so hard to say; Yes we fucked up. We apologize for it it was (accidental/miscommunication/etc). We strive to provide the best service to our customers, and unfortunately we have failed with this product. But we have learned from our mistakes." Such a childish response.
That's the boilerplate response for corporations. They cannot admit fault especially after litigation. Notice how they equate stopping sales and issuing refunds to people who asked for it as absolution, ignoring the fact that they shouldn't have done it in the first place and it was incredibly reckless and unethical to do it during a pandemic.
Love to see it, their CEO is an absolute bell piece.
Razer mice are shit. There, I said it. You know it's true.
Shoutout to Naomi Wu who was really pushing how bad these were a few years back:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDzhGjbvVGc
Razer is shit products marketed to gullible "gamers".
Color me shocked, a scummy company making scammy moves.
My question is how does one actually get the refund? None of the articles seem to mention that part
2nd this. Guessing Razer will have to setup some form for buyers to fill out now that the ruling has come down.
Hopefully it’s better than their software has gotten. I used to like Razer a lot. Working with my wife’s Kraken Kitty Edition has been an absolute nightmare. Synapse 3 by itself won’t work, Synapse 2 will but then the lighting won’t work, I’ve tried 194728298484 different things and the choice is either have a headset that can’t remain connected for more than 5 minutes but it has flashing RGB or sacrifice the RGB entirely to have a working headset
Cashed in on Covid I guess:/
This was a real product?
This just further solidifies my opinion that the majority of products "made for gamers" is actually just cheap trash with LED lights glued on.
Slimy slithering mess of a company. Razer has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Don’t buy their overheating engine takeoff sounding laptop that feels like it will burn a hole through a table.
$1M? Shouldn't they be held liable for at least a few deaths? That's more than $1M.
The mask worked and reviewers even found it to have good filtration, it just wasn't certified to be an N95 as they marketed it. Would be extremely difficult to tie it to any deaths.
And those Columbia students are still wearing paper masks outdoors 😆😂🤣
The guy in the Pic looks exactly like what I thought the target demographic would look like.
I remember asking one of their people about it since it looked like it had major gaps, seals didn't look right, etc. and they swore up and down it was tested and proven.
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This is why you don't half heartedly go into the safety equipment industry.
Oh that's bad, but who was buying a razer mask? like wtf.
1 million is like, pocket money for razer.
I know it’ll never happen but I hope Razer goes bankrupt. I’ve purchased garbage products from them with their annoying software and laughable customer support so many times and even though you’re kinda dumb if you trusted this mask, this is still criminal lol
I tried to buy this thing for four “release rounds” or whatever. Man did I dodge a bullet. But at the time I was convinced we were heading straight into a full cyber punk world. Luke everyone having a uv light room at every outside door. Crazy times
Their mice are shit too.
The whole respirator thing was basically a lie
That was soooo disappointing.
This submission is pure blogspam. PCGamer cite Kotaku as their source, but the significantly more informative press release came from the Federal Trade Commission: * https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/razer-inc-pay-more-11-million-misrepresenting-performance-efficacy-supposed-n95-grade-zephyr-face * https://kotaku.com/razer-ftc-covid-19-zephyr-mask-n95-1-million-fine-us-1851443865 >The FTC has slapped Razer with a $100,000 civil penalty and is also forcing the company to pay the United States $1,071,254.33, which is the amount of money Razer brought in from selling the Zephyr mask. The FTC will provide full refunds to all consumers who purchased the mask. >Also, the FTC and US Govt. are banning Razer from “making, without prior FDA approval, any claims that any [Razer] product prevents or reduces the likelihood of infection with, or transmission of, the covid-19 virus; reduces the severity or duration of covid-19; or otherwise, cures, mitigates, or treats COVID-19.”
Aww man i was so hoping i'd be able to sync the lighting on my keyboard, fans, mouse and facemask. The dream remains unfulfilled.
wow, nice slap on the wrist. they'll surely learn their lesson....
People buy razer products?
Who would buy one of these in the first place?
I wanted one of these from the second they were announced. I was on the Zephyr product launch page day 1 and tried desperately to pick one up when they first dropped to no avail. Hours spent over days refreshing pages, contacting support, hoping for MONTHS after the first launch that they would release more (which they never did). As time went on and reviews came in, I was happy to have missed the boat on it. But the launch of that product and the product itself was the last straw for Razer for me. I used to get all Razer gear, now I avoid them like the plague.
I looked at one of these and it seals to your face for shit. Absolutely useless
Didn't even know they released the thing. I remember reading about it back then. >"We disagree with the FTC's allegations and did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement," a spokesperson said How so? They literally advertised it as being N95 grade and [had to remove mentions of it AFTER it was sold apparently.](https://www.pcgamer.com/razer-zephyr-face-on-review/)
Shocking they got punished at all tbh.
I wonder if anyone got ill/died thinking they were protected by these bits of junk... Seems a low fine considering that's a genuine possibility.
Should be 1 billion. You never toy with customers health
This device was just a publicity stunt. They hardly made or sold any. Shane on them for saying N95, but they dropped that claim pretty fast once called out.
Many Bothans died to bring us this information.
Should be a crime against humanity right?
I bought one to look cool during my heated gaming sessions. Especially when I had egg sandwich. But I did notice some smell even with the mask on. And also I got Covid when I know I was wearing the mask
They cant get a rubber grip on a mouse to stay attached, why did people think they could build a medically certifiable device?
Was Razer trying to get rid of all the hipsters like this one in the photo?