If you let your gamer brain win and bought an N95 mask from Razer, a company best known for its keyboards and computer mice, then you may be entitled to compensation—well, at least a refund. The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday that it reached a settlement with the gaming hardware company that will set aside $1 million to reimburse people who purchased the Razer Zephyr, a short-lived “N95” mask sold by the company during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the terms of the agreement, the FTC said it would send checks and PayPal payments containing full refunds to 6,764 consumers who purchased the mask. According to the agency, consumers who bought a Zephyr will have 90 days to cash their check once received or 30 days to accept their PayPal payment. The FTC will be sending out the payments based on records received from Razer and does not require consumers to file a claim.
The payout represents the end of a surprisingly thorough saga that saw the FTC crackdown on Razer for falsely marketing its Zephyr masks. The company first started offering the masks in 2021, claiming the product was “FDA-registered and lab-tested for 99 percent BFE [Bacteria Filtration Efficiency]” and offered “greater protection compared to standard disposable/cloth masks” thanks to its “replaceable N95 grade filters for maximum protection.”
Turns out, not so much. According to the FTC’s investigation, Razer never submitted the Zephyr masks to the FDA or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for testing, and they were never certified as N95 grade. Instead, the company conducted tests through a third-party contractor, but even those results showed the masks fell short. To qualify as N95 grade, the mask must achieve 95% or greater particulate filtration efficiency. The third-party tests saw the Zephyr max out at 86.3% in an area with fans on, and “frequently tested much lower.”
Despite knowing this, Razer decided to market the mask as N95 anyway, which is a pretty major no-no. The company sold the masks for a few months spanning the back half of 2021 and the start of 2022, charging $100 a pop before pulling the product as it started to receive scrutiny.
While the company did inform buyers after the fact that the Zephyr was “not a medical device nor certified as an N95 mask,” it did not inform those buyers that refunds were available. As a result, the FTC found less than 6% of Zephyr purchases got their money back—which it is setting out to rectify with this settlement. Better late than never.