Vizio was accused of misleading marketing about their TVs’ refresh rates using terms like “effective refresh rate”, rather than clearly stating the actual native panel refresh rates. They have settled these accusations for $3 million.
The class-action lawsuit brought against the company alleged that Vizio made false and misleading statements about the refresh rates of its LCD TVs in its marketing materials and user manuals. Specifically:
- Vizio marketed 60Hz TVs as having a “120Hz Effective Refresh Rate” using backlight manipulation technology. However, this cannot actually increase a 60Hz panel’s effective refresh rate which is still 60Hz.
- Vizio marketed 120Hz TVs as having a “240Hz Effective Refresh Rate”. Again, backlight manipulation cannot increase a true 120Hz panel’s refresh rate which is still 120Hz.
- Refresh rate is tied to the native vertical frequency of the LCD panel itself. Backlight manipulation techniques cannot increase this. So Vizio providing “effective” refresh rates higher than the actual TV panel was misleading.
The plaintiffs alleged these refresh rate marketing tactics were to allow Vizio to charge higher prices than competing sets, or to realize sales it otherwise would not have made.
