Pop Up Menu Box continually popping up on Vizio TV

If anyone can give helpful advice I know it will be this forum.

I have a 2010, 23 inch Vizio TV, model VM230XVT. The TV has been excellent up until about a month ago when a menu box on the lower left side of the screen will pop up without my intervention, remain for a few seconds, disappear, and then return, sometimes seconds later this will repeat itself. It is extremely annoying when watching television, especially sports games when they put information on the bottom of the screen and it is covered up by the pop up box.

I contacted Vizio and at first they had no idea what the pop up menu looked like. They requested photos of it which I sent to them. They told me to take it to ITI to get it repaired since the warranty has expired.

The TV is touch screen, there are no "literal" buttons on it. The power button is the area which activates the pop up menu. It is extremely light sensitive/movement sensitive. Simply placing your finger 2 inches from the power button will activate the pop up menu every time.

What I did is covered the on/off power area with black electrical tape stuck to a sticky post it note to cover the power on/off area. The remote control is still strong enough to turn on the set, sending the signal through the tape and the pop up menu does not appear as frequently but it still will show up from time to time without my doing anything.

I toyed with the settings, did a reset, but it did not help. There is nothing in the product manual about adjusting the touch screen settings.

Any thoughts? While my Vizio warranty has expired, I purchased it with my Visa card so they should reimburse me for repairs but not sure even if this specific repair will be honored by Visa.

Attached are some images of the menu box I am referring to.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Bad news for me. I hate having to ship out the set over this annoying pop up menu when otherwise it works great. I never heard of such an idiotic feature added to a TV that serves no purpose other than to irritate the viewer. Too bad there is no such thing as a pop up blocker like we have on computers. It's aggravating as hell.

Thanks for the feedback.

I asked Vizio about any information on adjusting the touch-screen but they told me they had nothing to provide. I don't think they know what they are doing at Vizio Tech help department, they seem clueless even about what I was referring to about the pop up menu and wanted to see photos of it.

I do know that I can activate the pop up menu without even touching the screen. Hand movement as close as 2 inches by the screen will activate it. The TV has no visible buttons or even markings as to where it reads hand movement or touch. It has a series of LED lights only. The touch screen area is on the far left bottom of the TV, outside the screen area, in the black border area. If you look at the pics I provided, it is the tiny white lights that appear on the menu that is the touch screen area. It is not on the top of the TV nor on the sides or the back.

Since I covered the touch-screen area with electrical tape, the pop up box is not popping up as frequently. I will see whether the problem worsens and if it does simply ship it out. I'm not inclined to mess with the TV mainly being I am very happy with this set and don't want to cause more harm than good.