I purchased an Lii-500 Engineer charger and a LiitoKala Lii-50A 26650 during the recent Anniversary Sale at AliExpress, 3/28 thru 4/1.
I purchased from the “liitokala Official Store”, currently reachable through links here and here. The store claims an opening date of January, 2013 and has an AE store number of 217753. It has a rating of 98.7%, which though imperfect, is an acceptable rating for a store that’s been open for 6 years.
I received these items packaged together only 18 days after purchase to the United States, which is, by far, the fastest delivery I’ve experienced from AliExpress. The items appear to be packaged in factory boxes and the charger included all accessories and documentation.
The 26650 cell has been cycled and reported a capacity of 5436mAh. Though somewhat higher than HKJ’s “Black” test, it’s in line with many other owners when using the Lii-500 charger for testing. I cannot perform any high-current tests, but the charger reports an internal resistance averaging 27mOhm, which is also similar to other measurements of these cells with this charger.
I’ve also found that some of the “fake” stores linked in this thread have been shut down and the links now forward to store 217753. I have no insider information and am simply reporting my opinion from watching this store for the past few months and ordering a package of LiitoKala-branded items from them.
I would not purchase other brands of 18650’s from random “liitokala” stores and perhaps not even from this one - the risks outweigh the savings - but I do believe that this particular store is a genuine LiitoKala supplier, if not the factory store itself.