note about cheap ebay laptop batteries

[linuxworks]

this kind of scared me a little. wanted to post here to let others know what the deal is with these things.

problem: I have an asus netbook that came with a 3cell battery. wanted 6cell one. found one that was listed on ebay as 'genuine asus battery'. figured that if I could find a 'real' one (and not a knockoff) for a good price, I'd go for it. it was $80 and not cheap but was advertised as 'genuine asus'.

after about a month it finally arrived. well packed and in a static bag but nothing saying asus on any paperwork and even the battery labelling was not the same as what came with my netbook. no asus serial # no similar barcodes, none of that. there was a plastic stick-on branding label that said asus on it but those can be fakes easily. looking at the plastic shell, it also does not match the one that came with my netbook (tiny little things in the plastic molding are give-aways that it was not the same part).

the real scare was when I connected it to my netbook and the power battery meter reads ZERO!

I went into linux to look at the acpi data and all the charging info (remaining time, etc) was all at zero! and win-xp would also say that 'battery length unknown'.

now, the saving grace was that the chip inside the battery MIGHT have needed a training period. maybe. it seems that after a full charge, most of a discharge and another full charge, the 'meter chip' seems to now say things (saying 4 hours of charge left). but in all my life, I've never seen a li-ion meter chip inside need 'training' before! they either report the current values or there is no chip inside!

I wonder if this is an encrypted chip and a knockoff that the chinese have produced? for example, panasonic has recently started keying/locking their camera batteries and it took about 6mos for the chinese to reverse engineer the locked batts (like sony and some nikon batts are).

anyway, be careful buying ebay batts that look 'affordable'. I'm still not sure if I got a real asus battery or not but I tend to think I was lied to and that it was some dangerous non-safety-chip battery inside the plastic skins.

I plan to ask the seller about this but I'm sure he'll just 'act dumb'. and in fact, I bet he's not acting..

buyer beware! chances are, your 'oem genuine' battery is a lie if it did not come IN the box with the netbook.

I'll snap some macro shots of this later on. just looking at them I'm sure you'll see that they are not off the same production line, not even close.

[In_Like_Tim]

Is your power adapter rated highly enough to charge a larger battery?

[linuxworks]

power adapter is not relevant. they all can charge just fine. they trickle charge and don't sink 'lots of current' to the battery. they can't, actually.

so that's not the problem. (thanks for the thought, though).

[linuxworks]

Is your power adapter rated highly enough to charge a larger battery?

oh, and again, it charged just fine overnight. I woke up to a reading of 100% on the meter. finally. but all day yesterday it would not show a reading.

you can cat:

% cat /proc/acpi/battery/*

and see ascii data come back that talks about charge parameters, current voltage level and so on. when I first did this, NOTHING came back but 'asus' and the model # for the battery. I did the same thing on the true oem battery and the data DID come back.

but now, after 'training' the /proc data is there for THIS battery, too!

I'll capture that ascii output and post it (don't have it right now).

so there definitely was a 'no good ... now good' thing going on here.

and I'm sure anyone who buys one of these fake batts WILL be as confused about this as I am/was ;)

[2cheap4retail]

the shock! the horror! someone on fleabay lied about selling a genuine oem battery! i am truly outraged!



(and not the least bit surprised)


if you want to ensure you get a genuine battery, you need to buy from a reputable source. while fleabay may have a few of those, the signal to noise ratio is pretty bad....

[In_Like_Tim]

Linux, post a link to the sellers product page. If they're selling them as genuine OEM and they're not, I'd like to know who the seller is.

[linuxworks]

the shock! the horror! someone on fleabay lied about selling a genuine oem battery! i am truly outraged!



no; you don't quite get it. this seller went out of his way, more than most, to make it CLEAR it was a real genuine battery.

ok, so here's exhibit 1: the files in linux '/proc' that I was talking about:

the first one is the real batt that came with the netbook (3cell):


present: yes
design capacity: 2500 mAh
last full capacity: 2514 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 10950 mV
design capacity warning: 0 mAh
design capacity low: 0 mAh
capacity granularity 1: 25 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 25 mAh
model number: 1005HA
serial number:
battery type: LION
OEM info: ASUS


note that this real one shows a blank serial#.

the next code dump is from the ebay batt. this NOW has 'numbers' in the columns and that only happens when the battery is connected (not interrupted; not removed and re-inserted) continuously for a large portion of its cycle (learning curve?):


present: yes
design capacity: 4400 mAh
last full capacity: 4475 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 11100 mV
design capacity warning: 256 mAh
design capacity low: 0 mAh
capacity granularity 1: 44 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 44 mAh
model number: 1005HA
serial number:
battery type: LION
OEM info: ASUS


it does show a larger capacity. that's good. and its running for several hours now (doing a 'make bzImage' loop as a load test). the battery feels much heavier (maybe 2x) compared to the oem. so I have no doubt there is more battery in there. but I question what chip they are using and also what plastic mold they are using, since it differs from my real asus battery. (I'll take macro photos of the 2 batts next chance I get. but one has +/- markings in plastic (oem) and the ebay one does not. stuff like this is what varies between them).

and what I'm saying about the numbers all being zero, next time I removed this pack and rebooted, I got a red battery icon in linux and this data:


present: yes
design capacity: 0 mAh
last full capacity: 0 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 0 mV
design capacity warning: 0 mAh
design capacity low: 0 mAh
capacity granularity 1: 0 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 0 mAh
model number: 1005HA
serial number:
battery type: LION
OEM info: ASUS


and yet the battery is still running (for hours) in this state. I'm thinking it will 'catch up' again once it measures its drain over time. at least that's my theory.

this winking-out of the values is the issue I'm bringing. the oem battery does not 'forget' its settings and also fits the laptop (physically) a lot better.

[linuxworks]

Linux, post a link to the sellers product page. If they're selling them as genuine OEM and they're not, I'd like to know who the seller is.

here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320438686646

read that ad and tell me you don't come away thinking its a REAL actual asus battery in every way shape and form.

read the others on fleabay and they are much more iffy. this one went out of its way to tell you its a 'genuine' asus battery.

also look at the photo they list. it shows at least 3 labels (white) on the edge. my asus 3cell (orig) battery does have those 3 white stickers. the ebay one does not! it has a very different single 'qa' sticker on it and that's all.

I intend to write to this seller but I suspect he won't care, he'll ask me to send it back (on my dime) and nothing will change. and the 10 or so others who also sell 'genuine' batts will continue to do so.

sigh.

[2cheap4retail]

h
read the others on fleabay and they are much more iffy. this one went out of its way to tell you its a 'genuine' asus battery.


the harder the pitch, the more bogus the deal.. isn't that the way sales works?


things that bother me in the listing are these tidbits:

# About us:
# We are a manufacturer representative and distributor of compatible batteries, especially of laptop batteries,battery chargers and other accessories.
# laptop batteries,battery chargers and other accessories.Our products are replacement brand new, they are equel or better than the original battery.


my first instinct says these are either counterfeit or rejects from a factory that does make the real thing.

[linuxworks]

2cheap, you found the fine print that I didn't quite notice when I bought this ;(

it seems to conflict, doesn't it? on one hand, they say 'Original Battery' and 'genuine'. those are pretty clear terms in english and hard to misinterpret.

seems like outright fraud to me. they say asus and they even have an asus label on the item (again, I'll provide some good macro shots of the 2 batts shortly).

could be good cells inside. could be a good or OK chip inside. but could be the opposite, as well.

there was no asus box, nothing in print - just the battery in a static bag in a box. and I'm used to that for oem drives and old floppy drives; you'd get the bare item and nothing else. but still, its missing key stickers on the back, imo.

I'm on the fence as to what to do. the battery may very well be worth the $80 (real asus ones are double that). the laptop costed me $199 (bf special) and no way I'm paying close to the lappie in value for a 2nd battery!

but otoh, I feel this seller has overstepped the 'language barrier' so to speak. and I'm being really kind in that last statement of mine..

[zodiac711]

If I were you, here's what I'd do.
1) Contact ASUS. Ask them how to confirm it's genuine.
If whatever they tell you leads you to believe it's indeed real, great. Otherwise, move on to the following steps...
2) Contact the eBay seller. Tell him exactly what you found out from ASUS and politely ask for either a real genuine battery or a refund... and that you also want to be refunded the shipping cost back to him.
3) If he is unwilling to budge (may/may not be the case), (a) leave negative feedback, (b) file a complaint with eBay/PayPal about the transaction, and (c) assuming the PayPal was funded by your credit card, file a complaint with them as well.

This of course all assumes you *want* some sort of corrective action.. based on your most recent post, sounds like you're on the fence. In this case, I'd still confirm with ASUS whether it's real or not. If it's not real, instead of asking for a refund, ask the seller for a partial refund OR a full refund with shipping credited back.

[linuxworks]

I'm still trying the unit out. its acting 'correctly' now both with linux and xp. its showing about 6hrs if various power saving features are on and about 3 or 4hours if you disable that stuff.

the plastic fitment is annoying but not a show stopper. I still need to take photos and it will be obvious when you see them. there is a huge gap on one side and a good fit on the other. very sloppy. asus would never have parts fit like that.

now, to buy an actual asus batt (6hr) would cost double this. I'm not willing to pay that much for it as a part. when you get it part of the laptop, its bundled and the cost isn't so huge but as a replacement part, its INSANE how much it costs.

I do plan to contact asus (in fact their fremont office is not too far from me) and since their label is actually used on this, they may want to pursue this more than me!

something is just very wrong that batteries cost as much as they do. laptop is $200 and battery is nearly $200. what gives? there's no reasonable explanation for the price of this other than gouging. your only hope of not being totally taken for a ride is to get the 6cell batt at purchase time, IN the box.

lesson learned, I guess. all aftermarkets will probably have fitment issues due to the cheap plastics and reverse engineered mold. and who knows what chip and cells they use inside.

I mostly wanted to warn folks here about this. that actually will do more good than any of the other things you listed. people who have any doubts about this, you may want to avoid buying chinese ebay batteries NO MATTER WHAT THEIR TEXT SAYS. this was one of the more convincing ones and I got 'burned' to some degree on it. I fully expected a 100% genuine oem asus battery and I'm 100% sure I did not get a real one.

[XReflection]

I generally avoid buying those kind of items from hong kong sellers. I stick with US based sellers if I want to get electronics or accesories for it. My first thought whenever I see a price that is low, is that it's from China. Then my second thought is that it's probably fake/counterfeit/not genuine. Hong Kong sellers tend to word their lots in such a way that makes it seem like its genuine, but in reality, it really isn't.

[In_Like_Tim]

OK OP, after looking at the seller's product page, I agree with you. If that battery isn't a true Asus product their advertising is fraudulent, which is probably the case.
Looks like everything in their store is listed as new, original, and genuine.

[linuxworks]

update:

links to fullsize photos of the batteries:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works/4209739077/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works/4210503318/sizes/o/

on the 2nd photo where you can see the rear white barcode labels, you can tell they are not even close to the same style of marking. look up at the top battery on that same photo and near the 'vents' in the middle you'll see an engraved + and - sign for the battery polarity. no such engraving on the lower (ebay) battery.

missing CE label on the printed asus ebay label.

is this outright fraud? kind of looks a bit like it, as I am not convinced its a real asus battery yet its marked as one. not marked as COMPATIBLE with asus but really an asus battery and model #.

comments?

[greenmeansgoooo]

When you buy cheap knock off batteries, like on 3bay, you are getting a battery with cheap electronic inside the cartridge. While the cells might be decent, the electronics are junk. Remember, you get what you pay for.

[vixlistBRO]

this kind of scared me a little. wanted to post here to let others know what the deal is with these things.

problem: I have an asus netbook that came with a 3cell battery. wanted 6cell one. found one that was listed on ebay as 'genuine asus battery'. figured that if I could find a 'real' one (and not a knockoff) for a good price, I'd go for it. it was $80 and not cheap but was advertised as 'genuine asus'.

after about a month it finally arrived. well packed and in a static bag but nothing saying asus on any paperwork and even the battery labelling was not the same as what came with my netbook. no asus serial # no similar barcodes, none of that. there was a plastic stick-on branding label that said asus on it but those can be fakes easily. looking at the plastic shell, it also does not match the one that came with my netbook (tiny little things in the plastic molding are give-aways that it was not the same part).

the real scare was when I connected it to my netbook and the power battery meter reads ZERO!

I went into linux to look at the acpi data and all the charging info (remaining time, etc) was all at zero! and win-xp would also say that 'battery length unknown'.

now, the saving grace was that the chip inside the battery MIGHT have needed a training period. maybe. it seems that after a full charge, most of a discharge and another full charge, the 'meter chip' seems to now say things (saying 4 hours of charge left). but in all my life, I've never seen a li-ion meter chip inside need 'training' before! they either report the current values or there is no chip inside!

I wonder if this is an encrypted chip and a knockoff that the chinese have produced? for example, panasonic has recently started keying/locking their camera batteries and it took about 6mos for the chinese to reverse engineer the locked batts (like sony and some nikon batts are).

anyway, be careful buying ebay batts that look 'affordable'. I'm still not sure if I got a real asus battery or not but I tend to think I was lied to and that it was some dangerous non-safety-chip battery inside the plastic skins.

I plan to ask the seller about this but I'm sure he'll just 'act dumb'. and in fact, I bet he's not acting..

buyer beware! chances are, your 'oem genuine' battery is a lie if it did not come IN the box with the netbook.

I'll snap some macro shots of this later on. just looking at them I'm sure you'll see that they are not off the same production line, not even close.


I was in the Kan Ton Fair (i think thats how it spelt) in November in SchenZen, China and I remember one of the factorys that had a booth was advertising that they can knockoff anything, they had dell computers, batterys, networks. They even had a "ASIS" netbook, all knock off. (hence the real one is ASUS)
The point is, I took home a sample of the ASIS netbook and the battery lasted 25 minutes and the keyboard fell apart...be careful what you buy unless its brand name

[linuxworks]

got email (ebay) reply from the seller:


Dear sir,
I'm so sorry hear to that. I am just a distributor, there has been such a problem, I am angry, my supplier went so far as to deceive me.
I'm going to asked my supplier. Please return the battery to us, I will replace a correct battery to you.


what do you folks think? this guy is just a middleman who was, himself, deceived?

I notice he did not offer to pay return shipping. why would I have to spend any money at all on return shipping on a fraudulent item?

and what if I send it back, don't get any further email and he keeps my money AND battery? I have not left ebay feedback yet but the clock ticks and soon time runs out.

comments/suggestions?

I may also want to bring this to asus attention. again, they are not even all that far away from me (driving distance to fremont, ca, where they have a west coast office). perhaps they can exert more muscle and get these problems 'fixed'.

I guess I'm angry at this kind of blatant fraud and profiteering. first of all, NO WAY is there $80 in material cost in this thing (even taking into account profit that needs to be made). it would be one thing if the guy said 'aftermarket battery but very very cheap!' and if it was maybe half of what this one costed (so the risk was worth it). then you KNOW what you are getting. with this deal, I fully expected an asus boxed battery that was graymarket but still GENUINE. so, I'm almost mad enough to get this guy cancelled entirely. just makes me mad!

[zodiac711]

got email (ebay) reply from the seller:


Dear sir,
I'm so sorry hear to that. I am just a distributor, there has been such a problem, I am angry, my supplier went so far as to deceive me.
I'm going to asked my supplier. Please return the battery to us, I will replace a correct battery to you.


what do you folks think? this guy is just a middleman who was, himself, deceived?

I notice he did not offer to pay return shipping. why would I have to spend any money at all on return shipping on a fraudulent item?

and what if I send it back, don't get any further email and he keeps my money AND battery? I have not left ebay feedback yet but the clock ticks and soon time runs out.

comments/suggestions?

I may also want to bring this to asus attention. again, they are not even all that far away from me (driving distance to fremont, ca, where they have a west coast office). perhaps they can exert more muscle and get these problems 'fixed'.

I guess I'm angry at this kind of blatant fraud and profiteering. first of all, NO WAY is there $80 in material cost in this thing (even taking into account profit that needs to be made). it would be one thing if the guy said 'aftermarket battery but very very cheap!' and if it was maybe half of what this one costed (so the risk was worth it). then you KNOW what you are getting. with this deal, I fully expected an asus boxed battery that was graymarket but still GENUINE. so, I'm almost mad enough to get this guy cancelled entirely. just makes me mad!


Regardless of whether he's "Just a middleman, himself deceived", or if he knowingly and intentionally deceived you is irrelevant.

That aside, you need to figure out what *you* want to do. Me personally? I would ask/demand to be refunded shipping charges back, and buy something truly genuine.

In your case -- excuse my bluntness -- WTF is the deal? You are really beating around the bush. WTF do you want as an outcome? Once you have this figured out, folks can help you out from there... Until then, I don't know what to say any longer.

[larrymoencurly]

If batteries from major manufacturers explode because of manufacturing mistakes (Sony), I sure won't trust anything from an unknown supplier or Chinese companies, especially lithium batteries. Notice that batteries of all types are still often made in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and other places where labor costs are sky high, meaning they're harder to manufacture than they appear on the surface.

[bloake]

If I'm in the market for large-ticket electronic items such as this, I won't even look at an eBay listing FROM CHINA.

[SDRebel]

I wouldn't buy on ebay anything that was shipped from overseas and I expected quality. For example, the SD card readers for 50 cents are fine, but not a 90 dollar battery.

I think that ebay seller is just lying to you. I am sure he has sold many of those. Tell him you want them to pay for shipping, be nice about it.
If they don'.t want to do it, file a claim stating the fraudulent transaction.

[linuxworks]

the seller is asking me to return the item and pay shipping and he'll pay the cost of my shipping and send me the 'correct/real' battery in return mail.

should I trust him?

my gut feeling is that he full well knows it was a fake and that I have slim chances of getting a true asus. I'll be out return shipping and maybe get reimbursed for it, but the time will go by and I won't be able to file any claim or feedback.

I'm coming to the realization that I have what I have and that will have to be that. unless he wants to refund the full price now and after that's done, then I send the battery back. but I'm not so keen on having sent him money and then having to return it without being credited, first. (do you think its reasonable for me to ask to be credited first, before return-mailing it?)

[bil]

When it comes to expensive items where you may need to RMA etc, never deal with out of US sellers, it is rarely worth it.
I am looking at the cracks/poor lining, could that be a refurbished Asus battery? Some of them are packaged in such a way that once you open them is almost impossible to close it back like it was.
If they just replaced the cells inside and never charged it, then I guess at first the chip wouldn't know anything about capacity etc, but that is just my thoughts and I am no battery expert...

[In_Like_Tim]

Kinda wondering where OP ended up on this. EBAY seller still has 100% positive feedback.

[linuxworks]

I was never able to leave negative feedback ;( he waited too long and waited me out.

never do business with this guy, though! very dishonest. he got my battery and said he didn't. everything about him says CROOK all over it.

I have not bought any large ticket items from ebay/china since and I don't think I ever will again.

[mmathis]

Wait - you sent the battery back to him?!

Did you ever open a dispute with ebay/PayPal and/or your credit card company?

[zodiac711]

here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320438686646

read that ad and tell me you don't come away thinking its a REAL actual asus battery in every way shape and form.


I generally avoid buying those kind of items from hong kong sellers. I stick with US based sellers if I want to get electronics or accesories for it. My first thought whenever I see a price that is low, is that it's from China. Then my second thought is that it's probably fake/counterfeit/not genuine. Hong Kong sellers tend to word their lots in such a way that makes it seem like its genuine, but in reality, it really isn't.

And that's it right there -- The seller is not in the US (or even Canada or Europe) but in Hong Kong. I would NEVER buy anything from a HK seller and expect it to be genuine... Other than that, I agree -- the listing looks like a genuine battery. I assume the battery itself matches the pic they show (with the ASUS logo on it)?

[linuxworks]

no, it did not match. I took before/after pics. the layout of the stickers are different and the fit was different. we all know what a proper plastic fit should be and this wasn't it. would be obvious to anyone, really.

anyway, its ancient history now. I won't ever buy high priced items from overseas. a few dollars, if I have to, maybe. but I'll never *expect* things to work out if there was a glitch.

[linuxworks]

Wait - you sent the battery back to him?!

Did you ever open a dispute with ebay/PayPal and/or your credit card company?

yes, it was requested by paypal. just the seller: no, I wouldn't do that. but I raised it as an official dispute and then I 'had to' send it back.

the only mistake is that I didn't take THE BEST shipping. only the best will do, it seems. it has to be fully fully FULLY (did I say it enough?) trackable. like, down to the signature of the thie^Wrecipient.

since I could not show his signature on receipt, ebay/paypal said 'tough luck. no 100% for you! but here's 50% as a parting gift. now don't go away too mad'. like that.

I think if I sent it back with full signature, the thie^Wseller would have had no choice but to refund me 100%. but the fact that it went beyond the max period for feedback meant that NOTHING anyone did would be reflected in the feedback history ;(

lesson learned: leave feedback even if the case is pending. you will NOT be able to leave feedback if the time is past the witching hour.

[KFisher]

If you have nothing better to do, buy this item from him for $10
http://cgi.ebay.com/Camera-Battery-SONY-NP-BG1-NP-FG1-DSC-W100-DSC-T20-T100-/220643168576?pt=Batteries_Chargers

As soon as he ships it, leave negative feedback for selling non genuine/Fake batteries. :D

[In_Like_Tim]

If you have nothing better to do, buy this item from him for $10
http://cgi.ebay.com/Camera-Battery-SONY-NP-BG1-NP-FG1-DSC-W100-DSC-T20-T100-/220643168576?pt=Batteries_Chargers

As soon as he ships it, leave negative feedback for selling non genuine/Fake batteries. :D
:muahaha: And link to this thread.

Thanks Linuxworks for the update. :wave:

[linuxworks]

you know, guys, I just might need a battery like that for one of my cameras.

let me think about it...