Class Action Lawsuit Claims Victor PestChaser Products Are ‘Worthless’

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Woodstream Corporation is on the receiving end of a proposed class action lawsuit in which a New York consumer claims the company’s ultrasonic mouse and rat repellers are effectively “worthless.”

Sold under the Victor and Victor PestChaser brand names, Woodstream’s rodent repellers, the case explains, are designed to emit an ultrasonic noise that the company says will humanely and “effectively drive[] away rodents” from a customer’s home without the use of toxic chemicals and traps. According to the lawsuit, however, studies have shown that the ultrasonic technology used in the defendant’s pest devices “simply does not work as a rodent repeller.”

According to the lawsuit, Woodstream’s efficacy statistics—such as that the Victor products repelled rodents in protected areas over 81 percent of the time—are based on the company’s own “internal and uncontrolled tests” and do not provide a “reliable scientific basis” for its claims, nor do they reflect the products’ performance in the real world.

The case says the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in light of “overwhelming scientific research,” went so far as to issue letters to more than 60 ultrasonic pest control device manufacturers in which the agency warned that their advertising claims “may be false and deceptive” if unsubstantiated by reliable scientific evidence. Woodstream, however, ignored the FTC’s warnings, the case alleges, and has continued to advertise and sell its Victor pest control products under the false representation that they effectively repel rodents.

“Defendant’s rodent repeller efficacy representations are false, misleading and deceptive,” the complaint reads, “and its Victor Repellers are worthless.”

The plaintiff claims he would never have purchased the defendant’s products had he known they would not work as intended. The man looks to represent a proposed class of consumers who purchased any of the defendant’s Victor repellers for personal use in New York between August 1, 2015 and the date the class notice is issued.