NZXT class action lawsuit settlement includes $3 million in damages, and some buyers will get to keep their rented PCs

Filed in the district court for the Northern District of California last week, a proposed settlement to the class action lawsuit against NZXT for its Flex program has been preliminarily approved. If all goes through, it would grant approximately $3,450,000 to those affected by the scheme.

As pointed out by Ars Technica, part of this settlement includes over $1.2 million in 'PC-Retention relief', which is to say that eligible users will simply get to keep the rigs they rented from NZXT. In order to qualify for PC retention, they must have entered an agreement for the Flex program on or before December 31, 2023 and must not have received an upgraded PC. They also must have viewed ads that they believed implied they would own the rig after the rental period, and must attest that this knowledge was a significant factor in their decision to join the Flex program.

As well as this, some customers will be entitled to debt forgiveness for their costs, or they may seek cash from NZXT by submitting a claim. The settlement motion has gone unopposed and has been approved by both parties, which is a good sign that it will go through fine, but a hearing could be held between now and June 18, for any issues to arise.

NZXT's Flex program has been controversial since its inception. A scheme to rent a PC, Gamers Nexus released an expose soon after its launch, calling it a "predatory, evil rental computer scam" and arguing customers were locked into unfair contracts and given falsely advertised PCs.

Gamers Nexus' hour-long investigation shows that choosing to buy or rent the same rig on the NZXT site would actually get you two separate rigs. Despite one rig having an RTX 4070 Ti Super and another having an RTX 4070 Ti, NZXT claimed both would get the same performance. It also notes that some advertising deals with influencers claimed users would own rigs, or that they would have top-of-the-line tech, neither of which was true.

NZXT, at the time, addressed both of these complaints. The retailer says, "We’ve pulled all influencer-led Flex advertising and have instituted a more robust creative review process. It is not acceptable for our advertising to communicate things that are not true."

NZXT also explained that confusing PC names and inconsistent specs are related to component availability, and that "we only make changes with the customer being aware and accepting the changes."

Still, by this point, some damage was already done. The class action lawsuit was filed a year later, arguing "NZXT and Fragile [NZXT's business partner] conspired to defraud consumers through gross misrepresentations and illegal business practices."

Gamers Nexus, which is cited in the original lawsuit, argues "the bitter part is the fact that the program continues to exist."

At the time of writing, the Flex One plan offers an Intel Core i5 14400F and an RTX 3050 for $69 a month for the refurbished rig and $79 for the new rig. That same PC will cost you $1,000 to buy outright from the NZXT site. NZXT reports 'non-playable' average fps on Battlefield 6, with 30 fps average on Marvel Rivals and Fortnite, and 150 average fps on (the no longer playable) Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

The Flex Three, on the other hand, offers an Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF and an RTX 5080 in a new rig for $279 a month (though it's currently sold out). If you opt for a 'like-new' (refurbished) PC, you will pay $199 for an Intel Core i7 and an RTX 4070 Ti. Personally, I still find the Flex program website hard to navigate, and I'm surprised both of these rigs are considered in the Flex Three tier, given how wildly different their specs are. This is before mentioning that each tier also has a 'Prime' mode, which gives you a better rig for more money.

As of the time of writing, none of the 'New' rigs are actually available, outside of the marked-up 'Prime' models. If you're a little confused, so am I. Basically, with any of the tiers available right now, you will either pay a little less and get a worse rig than the one advertised, or a bit more to get something more powerful. None of the advertised PCs on the top of the Flex website are actually available.

It's easy to see why rental services could get more popular with the memory crisis in full swing, though. They're more expensive, long-term, but convenient with upgrade plans built in, and companies getting them back could mean being able to eat some of the costs of memory. That being said, the memory crisis does seem to have some effect on pricing, with the NZXT Flex Three being $169 at launch. Back in February, HP announced its own rental scheme, which I find to be too expensive to justify simply renting a device, but there is a certain luxury in being able to guarantee an upgrade in a few years.

One can only hope the settlement sets a precedent for those renting rigs to be extra clear about what they are offering, who gets to own the rig at the end, and how they work with influencers.