So, it's finally happened to me - Scammed on eBay/PayPal
Discussion
Mosman said:
The Moose said:
Sold as
"New Genuine Original Apple MacBook 13" A1280 MB466 MB771 Laptop Battery 10.8V"
When it arrived, it looked identical to the one I purchased from Apple previously.
Well, if it's genuine take it to your local Apple Store and they will replace it under the warranty."New Genuine Original Apple MacBook 13" A1280 MB466 MB771 Laptop Battery 10.8V"
When it arrived, it looked identical to the one I purchased from Apple previously.
But of course it isn't genuine is it? Were you scammed? well who can say - did you really think it was a genuine Apple battery?
marshalla said:
If it's a Lithium battery, that is mistreatment - they prefer to be kept topped up. Full discharges shorten the life of the battery.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_...
Odds on you have a cheap battery with poor quality cells which degrade quickly.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_...
Odds on you have a cheap battery with poor quality cells which degrade quickly.
Although that applies to the raw cells, not the pack / charger combination.
The basic problem is gassing of the electrolyte in the cell. It occurs all the time, but is made worse by high temperature and by high voltage. If you have both, you'll kill the cells quite quickly.
Its quite common for designers to terminate the charge of the pack early, to prevent the cell from "high voltage" damage. Thus what the user sees as 100% is closer to 80 to 90% of the cells real capacity. Designers trade off cell capacity against cell longevity.
In the battery pack will be a Texas Instruments BQ series gas gauge. Amongst other things, this gas gauge is capable of telling a charger chip in the lap top exactly how the pack would like to be charged at any given moment in time. This is the device that us designers tweak to make the laptop think the cell is at 100% when in reality it isn't.
It's quite possible that a shoddy battery manufacturer could go the other way with his cells. He could tweak the gas gauge to allow a small amount of charge beyond the maximum recommended levels for the cells in order to extract the maximum possible capacity. IF you did this your cells would die very quickly. You'd also struggle to get UN38.3 approval and risk a six figure fine and imprisonment, but hey, just use a fake address, right?
Can anyone guess what I've been designing this month?
Grumpy old git said:
It never ceases to surprise me how many people aren't aware of eBays terms and conditions, it's the sellers responsibility to use a trackable form of delivery. I'd never pay extra for recorded delivery or pay any optional insurance for an item, why would I pay to cover the seller in the event a parcel goes missing?
Having said that I'd never take advantage of someone who didn't post something by a trackable method, as long as it arrives that's all I care about.
That's UK law as far as I'm aware. If you buy goods + delivery, and the goods don't arrive, it's the sellers problem.Having said that I'd never take advantage of someone who didn't post something by a trackable method, as long as it arrives that's all I care about.
Edited by Grumpy old git on Friday 22 May 10:24
Once had a seller whose parcel arrived, but the contents had been stolen. He was very sorry, but his nephew posted it for him and didn't buy the relevant insurance. Of course I fully understood his position. Ebay found in my favour.
The Moose said:
Something I thought would never happen to me - I take care about what I purchase, don't often pay for anything outside of eBay, don't have an item for collection after taking payment through PayPal etc etc etc.
What happened to me was I purchased a new battery for my laptop. Sold as new with a 6 month warranty.
The seller was helpful pre-sale and promptly answered a question about compatibility for me. Purchase made.
The battery promptly arrived, was fitted in the laptop and worked fine.
For 3 months. After 3 months, I noticed the battery life started to fall dramatically - down to lasting no more than 45 minutes (in a laptop that with the previous battery would do nearly 3 hours).
I've not mistreated it. The laptop isn't constantly plugged into the power. It's allowed to discharge fully every once in a while. It doesn't get left anywhere where it'll get unduly hot etc etc etc.
Never mind all that - I bought a new battery with a warranty, so I'll make contact with the seller through eBay. Waited a week and tried again. Still no reply.
Never mind - I have their e-mail address. E-mail sent. No reply.
Oh well - at least I have a phone number. No answer - straight to voicemail.
Never mind - I bought through eBay and paid via PayPal so should have full buyer protection (which I do have). So, I open a dispute with them.
They've just found not in my favour. The reason being they don't help where warranties are concerned. Credit card company won't chargeback as over 3 months ago.
If I was to really pursue this, I could issue a MoneyClaimOnline, however the address they have registered with eBay is not a real address it turns out - PayPal acknowledge it's different, but won't give me the correct address tied to the seller.
So, I end up having spent £41 for what is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
For all this buyer protection/seller protection, it seems to me that the only people who win with eBay and PayPal are scamming
s.
Sounds like duff chinese knock off battery. You have to scrutinise quite well when buying things like this and Laptop power bricks. Mate of mine bought a dell power brick, and to be fair the ultra low price should have rang alarm bells. He bought it anyway and what arrived was so light I don't think it had anything in it other than a little circuit to make an LED come on. It certainly didn't charge the laptop. But it looked like a proper dell unit.What happened to me was I purchased a new battery for my laptop. Sold as new with a 6 month warranty.
The seller was helpful pre-sale and promptly answered a question about compatibility for me. Purchase made.
The battery promptly arrived, was fitted in the laptop and worked fine.
For 3 months. After 3 months, I noticed the battery life started to fall dramatically - down to lasting no more than 45 minutes (in a laptop that with the previous battery would do nearly 3 hours).
I've not mistreated it. The laptop isn't constantly plugged into the power. It's allowed to discharge fully every once in a while. It doesn't get left anywhere where it'll get unduly hot etc etc etc.
Never mind all that - I bought a new battery with a warranty, so I'll make contact with the seller through eBay. Waited a week and tried again. Still no reply.
Never mind - I have their e-mail address. E-mail sent. No reply.
Oh well - at least I have a phone number. No answer - straight to voicemail.
Never mind - I bought through eBay and paid via PayPal so should have full buyer protection (which I do have). So, I open a dispute with them.
They've just found not in my favour. The reason being they don't help where warranties are concerned. Credit card company won't chargeback as over 3 months ago.
If I was to really pursue this, I could issue a MoneyClaimOnline, however the address they have registered with eBay is not a real address it turns out - PayPal acknowledge it's different, but won't give me the correct address tied to the seller.
So, I end up having spent £41 for what is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.
For all this buyer protection/seller protection, it seems to me that the only people who win with eBay and PayPal are scamming
s.The Moose said:
marshalla said:
The Moose said:
I've not mistreated it. The laptop isn't constantly plugged into the power. It's allowed to discharge fully every once in a while. It doesn't get left anywhere where it'll get unduly hot etc etc etc.
If it's a Lithium battery, that is mistreatment - they prefer to be kept topped up. Full discharges shorten the life of the battery.http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_...
Odds on you have a cheap battery with poor quality cells which degrade quickly.
"For battery meter calibration, periodically do a full battery discharge, every 30 charges, to increase meter accuracy"
I don't regularly run it to empty, maybe twice in 3 months. Same as I always did previously.
Otispunkmeyer said:
Sounds like duff chinese knock off battery. You have to scrutinise quite well when buying things like this and Laptop power bricks. Mate of mine bought a dell power brick, and to be fair the ultra low price should have rang alarm bells. He bought it anyway and what arrived was so light I don't think it had anything in it other than a little circuit to make an LED come on. It certainly didn't charge the laptop. But it looked like a proper dell unit.
The previous battery (purchased from an Apple store) was the same weight (well, I didn't weigh them, but did have one in each hand and they felt similar) and identical in dimensions and the markings on the case.Otispunkmeyer said:
I think you are right... I have heard that you shouldn't repeatedly deplete the li-ion batteries, but that full depletion once every 30-40 cycles is advisable so that the electronics inside can recalibrate to the remaining capacity. Its interesting though because what does the above mean for electric cars? Why are they seemingly able to be depleted and rapidly charged nearly every use?
The impedance track gauges only need a 37% change of charge, not a full cycle.http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slua375/slua375.pdf
Time between recalibration is really dependent on battery usage. Cycling will wear your battery out, but so will storing it at a high temperature or storing it fully charged or fully discharged.
As for the electric cars, it's different cell chemistry. Or rather the same chemistry with very slightly different additives to improve cycle life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxP0Cu00sZs
Explains a lot of what is going on in the cells.
Once again, when the manufacturer tells you is a 100% cell discharge really isn't. They're only allowing you access to a fraction of real capacity of the cell. By staying away from the extremes you can make the cells last much longer.
There are much better scams on ebay. SD cards for one.
Sold as 64GB, put it in a machine it shows 64GB, reformat it and it reformats as 64GB, but its 8GB with its software knobbled. Works on the principle that people buy 64GB but often take ages to save more than 8GB of data. And its actually quite clever that if you try to save more than 8GB it rolls over so its not that obvious that you only have 8GB till you try to read it back.
If only the effect to forge them was put into just supply what was asked for.
There are thousands and thousands of these flying round at the moment.
Sold as 64GB, put it in a machine it shows 64GB, reformat it and it reformats as 64GB, but its 8GB with its software knobbled. Works on the principle that people buy 64GB but often take ages to save more than 8GB of data. And its actually quite clever that if you try to save more than 8GB it rolls over so its not that obvious that you only have 8GB till you try to read it back.
If only the effect to forge them was put into just supply what was asked for.
There are thousands and thousands of these flying round at the moment.
julian64 said:
There are much better scams on ebay. SD cards for one.
Sold as 64GB, put it in a machine it shows 64GB, reformat it and it reformats as 64GB, but its 8GB with its software knobbled. Works on the principle that people buy 64GB but often take ages to save more than 8GB of data. And its actually quite clever that if you try to save more than 8GB it rolls over so its not that obvious that you only have 8GB till you try to read it back.
If only the effect to forge them was put into just supply what was asked for.
There are thousands and thousands of these flying round at the moment.
I've been bitten with that one a few years ago, when 64GB drives were expensive. It was cheap, but not that cheap that you'd ring alarm bells. It wasn't from Ebay though, but from a 'one man' type computer shop in the high street, not a chain.Sold as 64GB, put it in a machine it shows 64GB, reformat it and it reformats as 64GB, but its 8GB with its software knobbled. Works on the principle that people buy 64GB but often take ages to save more than 8GB of data. And its actually quite clever that if you try to save more than 8GB it rolls over so its not that obvious that you only have 8GB till you try to read it back.
If only the effect to forge them was put into just supply what was asked for.
There are thousands and thousands of these flying round at the moment.
I nearly lost the notes and photo scans of documents for an entire type rating course
I've been properly wary of buying anything like that since. Especially having now been to the fake markets in China which are absolutely staggering in what they sell. That whole country is just one big seething knock off merry go round.
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