Kingston Technology

Multiple consumer reviews and tech benchmarks found Kingston USB 3.0 DataTraveler drives delivering sequential read speeds of approximately 30 MB/s, significantly below the advertised 130 MB/s. While Kingston's fine print noted speeds could vary, the gap between marketing claims and real-world performance drew widespread consumer criticism. No formal regulatory action was taken.

Kingston's V300 SSD shipped to reviewers with Toshiba 19nm Toggle-Mode 2.0 NAND (200 MB/s interface) but retail units were silently switched to Micron 20nm asynchronous NAND (~50 MB/s interface), resulting in up to 300 MB/s performance degradation. Kingston acknowledged the switch in March 2014, admitted not renaming to V305 was a bad decision, but defended the practice as maintaining 'flexibility to source NAND.' Community boycott ensued.

When Softbank acquired 80% of Kingston Technology in 1996 for $1.5 billion, co-founders John Tu and David Sun distributed $71.5 million in bonuses to their approximately 550 employees, averaging roughly $130,000 per person. Kingston was subsequently named Fortune's #2 Best Company to Work For in America in 1999 and appeared on the list for 5 consecutive years (1998-2002).