FAKE KLARUS FLASHLIGHTS WITHOUT WARRANTY

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Dear friends,

I have something to share which I think I can not withhold you.

Last September I bought a Klarus G20 flashlight from an Aliexpress seller.

From the beginning the flashlight couldn’t be used in Turbo mode for longer than 15 seconds.
Since it got very hot I thought this was normal behavior and flashlight stepped down output
volume automatically.
After 6 months of storage I wanted to use it again, but Turbo mode was not working anymore.
When putting on Turbo mode, flashlight flashes very short at Turbo mode and shuts itself off.

I contacted the seller on Aliexpress which claims it is a battery problem, I assured him my batteries
are of very high quality (i use Vappower IMR26650 5200mAh) and fully charged, and that all
5 pieces of them act the same. I claimed for warranty.

I got a message like this: “Dear friend, don’t worry, it is battery problem”

After reading this my face turned kind of Purplish and i asked him if he even had read my message.
Since I send him pictures of measuring my Vappower IMR26650 and showing him it was fully
charged to 4.22V, this couldn’t be the problem I encountered.

Since then no reaction from seller.

So I contacted Klarus service directly.
At first everything seemed ok since Klarus has a 5 year warranty on all their flashlights.
Jenifer from Klarus asked me to provide a picture of G20 with its serial number on it, she asked
for a short movie to show G20 not working, and she asked for the invoice.
I provided her with all, and got an answer within one day that my G20 indeed was defective and
she would search for a retailer near my home to send me a new flashlight, or a new head.

After a 5 days of radio silence I contacted Jenifer again, and i got the answer below:

“Hi Alex,
We are sorry to inform you that we didn’t find the sereis number of your flashlight on our company series no. systerm,
and after double checking, we find Shanghai Peral Trade Co., Ltd. is not our authorized distributor, we are not sure if
your flashlight is from our factory, as this flashlight price is much cheaper than our MAP price which violated our price policy,
so we cannot cover this warranty.
Please contact with the seller who you bought flashlight from for the replacement part.”

Reading this message I was not amused, Aliexpress seller not responding and Klarus rejecting warranty!!!

Today I wrote a message to Klarus servicedesk, see below:

“Hi Jenifer,

I can understand that this is Klarus policy.

On the other hand, a customer like me doesn’t know what Klarus MAP price policy is when buying a Klarus product.
Second, a customer like me isn’t aware if it’s an authorized Klarus distributor when buying a Klarus product. They all
have the Klarus Tag in advertisement in their store. AND there’s NO list of authorized dealers of Klarus on your website!!!

If this is Klarus policy, to reject warranty cases like mine, I think it ALSO should be Klarus policy to take action against
not authorized dealers and get them expelled from a selling platform like Aliexpress.

It ALSO should be Klarus policy to WARN customers for the existence of FAKE Klarus products, AND of NOT buying
so called Klarus products at unauthorized dealers!!! WARN customers that they have NO warranty when buying
from dealers OTHER than the ones on the LIST of authorized dealers on your website!!!
THIS SHOULD BE STATED AT YOUR WEBSITE!

Since customers like me are highly affected by Klarus policy, and cannot be sure if buying an original Klarus product,
it is VERY likely that I NEVER will buy ANY Klarus product again in the future.

In this case, I have a defective flashlight, bought it in CONFIDENCE from an as far as I know authorized Klarus dealer,
to have a good Klarus product with a 5 years warranty. That this warranty is not available because your findings is a
VERY sad thing and seems unacceptable for me.

Since Klarus does nothing to prevent buyers buying FAKE goods from unauthorized sellers, and only profit from
their advertisements, I have to conclude that this policy of Klarus requires me to warn other people for not buying
Klarus products, ever.

If Klarus is not going to accept by warranty case, I WILL TAKE ACTION so others won’t suffer from the same loss.

Alex Bartels
The Netherlands”

If I get an answer from Klarus I will update this post.

In the meantime I also contacted Aliexpress servicedesk to support me, they did send the seller an email to solve this problem.
I am very curious how this will end, maybe I will get my loss covered, maybe not.

IN SHORT:

Be aware of buying Klarus products. You can never be sure buying original Klarus products.
Further there’s no MAP price available from Klarus, so if buying you never will be sure you are buying for the right price,
so warranty could be worthless!!!

Further, to me it seems that serial number registration in Klarus serial number system seems eratic, or at least unreliable
since Klarus servicedsk states “we are not sure if your flashlight is from our factory”. This tells me they possibly could
reject ALL warranty cases!

Hope this helps deciding which flashlight to buy, and which ones NOT……

Cheers guys, and keep up the good work!

Alex Bartels

Edit: I got this from Jennifer while I was typing the message to Klarus posted above, it is an answer on an email I send with pictures of the original box with serial codes etc. on it.

“Hi Alex,
As we don’t find the series number of your flashlight on our series no. system, even you have the package, we cannot make sure if your flashlight is from our factory.
Also this flashlight in less about 30euro cheaper than our MAP price, according to our company policy, the flashlight bought with un-normal price cannot enjoy the warranty. Please buy Klarus flashlight from our authorized distributor (for examples the stores with the tag by Klarus)
Thanks for your understanding!
”

This message still keeps my face turning Purplish……

And, more frightning, again she is talking about “we cannot make sure if your flashlight is from our factory”.

And, even more frightning, “Also this flashlight in less about 30euro cheaper than our MAP price, according to our company policy, the flashlight bought with un-normal price cannot enjoy the warranty” , so, buying a Klarus from an authorized dealer, during sales, paying less, making a good deal, could avoid warranty.

===
U P D A T E:

As of today I got a message from Jenifer Liu from Klarus that they will send me a head replacement, so accepting warranty for my case!

Very happy with this final solution!

Quote from Jenifer Liu - Klarus:

“Hi Alex,
We well understand your situation, and we are sorry for any inconvenience, here we also thank you very much for your kindly suggestion, we will share it to our company and try to do best to improve it in future.

For your flashlight, after several checking, we still cannot find the series number on our system, so we cannot make sure if it is from our factory. Anyway, we will specially apply to our company to send you a head part as you are Klarus fans and we really understand your situation.

We will you keep you updated once the parcel has shipped out to your following address:”

*
*
U D A T E as of 17-08-218

Today I received a headpart replacement from Klarus.
Flashlight is working normal now.

It still is a little sad they send me a part with scratches on it, seems to be a refurbished part.

But, in the end I got my replacement and flashlight is working again.

I also got a 50% refund from Aliexpress, so in the end I am satisfied with the result of my actions.

2

seems u are stuck inbetween really sad :frowning: But i would never buy anything else then convoy lights on aliexpress etc…

They should atleast put themself in your situation, you bought the light in good faith thinking it would be legit, u had no reasons to asume it was fake before right? and how the hell shall we as customers know what their sell price to dealers etc is - impossible and they cant expect us to know this? So they should list those dealers and say a big warning that they dont have any authorized sellers on ali etc then…

I can understand you wont be buying anymore lights from this brand, i think i would do same they could show a little more interest in a customer thats been ripped, how fun is is to recived a fake flashlight?

3

@mortuus

Yes, you are right, and I probably will only buy Convoy and Olight from now on, or Xtar which I have very good experience with. I bought an Xtar-S1 and thought it was a diving light. I asked Xtar if I could dive with it, if it was the same flashlight as their newer D35 version, and got an answer that it wasn’t. BUT, they offered a HUGE discount for me at the nearest Xtar dealer near my home! That is how a manufacturer should act, very very much confident in Xtar! Also, their products are build like a tank, especially the S1 :slight_smile:

4

abartels, always bad news when you get fake items. I have had many times I bought on e bay in past and got fakes. Like CDR, DVR etc… So I understand your pain.

5

Personally I have bought things from other sellers than Convoy on AliExpress, and I would do so again. But when it comes to warranty, many brands hide (entrench) behind the “local dealer network”. Because shipping broken items to and from China is a financial nightmare. And IF your brand does have a local dealer, it is quite common that he checks the serialnumber to see if you have bought the item from him. They even go as far as refusing to repair the item if you did not buy it from him.
There is a slim chance that you get your pound of flesh: some sellers on AE also use PayPal. If you pay with PayPal you can explain your problems to them and you will get your money back if the seller refuses to help.

It can’t hurt to check for reviews before buying anything on the internet. And even then think of the old proverb: if it is too good to be true, it is probably not true. Don’t think the big sellers on internet are eager to comply in a warranty dispute, but most of them will do so (eventually).

6

Could still be yours is not a fake, especially since Klarus says you got it too cheap so you can't "enjoy their warranty"! I think I'll put Klarus along with Imalent and Haikelite on my no buy list.

7

@Henk4U2

Yeah, you probably are right, but I was very confident I did the right thing. I investigated on the G20 flashlight, and the brand Klarus seemed to be e very reliable one to me, according the reviews……

I paid €65 for this flashlight, while others sold it for about €80 Not thinking on their policy related to MAP pricing, which is not mentioned anywhere. Just checked, and G20 still sells for €65 to €95. For us as overseas customers, it always is a guess if a brand is reliable or not.

About Aliexpress, if sellers are reliable or not, I always read the reviews, and looking at how many items are sold. Until now I have very good experiences with Aliexpress. I think I bought for a few thousend euro’s in the past few years, and in a few cases I got different goods, bad quality, not as described, or not received, but in ALL cases I got compensated, sometimes by the sellers directly, and sometimes after intervention of Aliexpress itself. So no problems there at all.

This case is a little bit different because I ordered at September 2 2017 and received order at October 2 2017. So the time to open a dispute has ended by several months. This is the first warranty case I encounter on Aliexpress, very curious how they will handle this.

I will keep you guys posted on the outcome!

Cheers,
Alex

8

This is exactly why I won’t buy anything from Ali other than Convoy, Maxtoch, Sofirn, Thorfire, and a few others. But with those, you are purchasing direct from factory, and they will take care of you if problem arises.

Aliexpress is full of one man sellers, selling broken or fake items. This complaint board has hundreds of people who have gotten ripped off by Aliexpress sellers. Many just like your story. AliExpress: Reviews, Complaints, Customer Claims | ComplaintsBoard

9

I bought my Olight S1R in AliExpress and didn’t have any issue. However, some stores don’t seem to be very reliable on what they sell ! It’s really a matter of looking to several reviews of the different products and the store, before buying, to know if it is reliable or not!

BUT, it is not only in AliExpress, also in Gearbest or Bangood, or many other stores.

I hope you can solve that issue, though abartels!!

10

@klrman

Yes, I got the feeling too that it is not a fake product but an original one. And because of this I am writing this kind of report to avoid others getting same troubles as I am going thru.

I ordered a lot of small cheap flashlights, started with UltraFire low cost flashlights, and after investigation still don’t know for sure which website is the official one, hahaha. Since I am an audiophile and bought a lot of electronic components and devices in China the past 20 years or so, I am some sort of experienced buying in Asia, and know that there are a lot of manufacturers making and selling the same stuff under the same brand. Many brands are non existing and just used to sell goods under a name, not to provide for backup if something goes wrong.

For us, western orientated people, this is kind of strange. If we see a brand, we KNOW there is a company behind it, a company at which we can apply for warranty or help when something goes wrong, that doesn’t count for many Chinese products……
Not forgetting there are many diy people selling products made by themselves, badged with a brandname…. Sometimes a manufacturer is producing pcb’s, printed circuits, selling the boards in badges to whoever wants to buy them. This can result, or better saying, this RESULTS in completely different products, using different brands of components on pcb’s, using completely wrong values etc….
This makes it very difficult to buy those goods.

A very good example is a Chinese integrated amplifier I bought in Germany at a small company. The amplifier was a Korsun V8i, nowadays called Dussun V8i. It was a very heavy amplifier, weighing about 40kg, reviews were very good. A friend of mine bought one at the same time from another seller since my seller didn’t had any left at stock. My amp sounded horrible, uncontrolled bass, very harsh sounding mid and high. My friends one sounded very musical, good controlled bass etc. I never got mine sounding right and had to sell it with loss.
This amplifier btw was the one the Affirmation amplifier from the Red Rose (Mark Levinson) company was based on….

I am an electronics guy, I investigated the inside of this amp, and couldn’t find any differences between my friends one and mine.
A few years later I came to the conclusion that mine probably had FAKE Sanken power transistors in it, since I read an article about those used by many Chinese manufacturers, and that they sounded awful.

Back to flashlights, the UltraFire flashlights I own, they are all very cheap made, quality is not very high. But, I DO have one UltraFire
flashlight which is a real beauty, the UF-T50 which is an XML-T6 U2 flashlight, stepless dimmable, with a magnetic tailcap. This is one of the best quality flashlights I’ve encountered, ever, it’s a beauty. Probably all the other UltraFire flashlights were from different manufacturers, fake ones. The UF-T50 was rather expensive, paid €40 for it.

11

UPDATE FROM KLARUS:

Mail from Jenifer Liu from Klarus servicedesk:

“Hi Alex,
We well understand your situation, and we are sorry for any inconvenience, here we also thank you very much for your kindly suggestion, we will share it to our company and try to do best to improve it in future.

For your flashlight, after several checking, we still cannot find the series number on our system, so we cannot make sure if it is from our factory. Anyway, we will specially apply to our company to send you a head part as you are Klarus fans and we really understand your situation.

We will you keep you updated once the parcel has shipped out to your following address:”

GOOD NEWS, so I got warranty and getting a head replacement for my Klarus G20!

Also good news that Klarus probably will take notice of my suggestions and edit their website with the specified info.

12

I usually assume any product I get from China will be an as-is product with no warranty service.

As for the issue you’re having, how old are your cells? Just because they’re fully charged to 4.2 V doesn’t necessarily mean they’re healthy and can handle the high current draw on turbo. Are they protected cells?

13

Products from China, low cost products, yes, I agree, I wont apply for warranty and accept my loss.
But not for a rather expensive product. This flashlight was $75 which isn’t rather cheap or low cost, at least for me it isn’t.

The cells, 5 of them, are half a year old, 4 new ones, one in the Klarus. They are unprotected, and can deliver 20 amps or more

Vappower IMR26650 is one of the best cells available.

14

Well, they offered to send you the ram. Chances are high the rama lama ding-dong will function again.
(who says only Jay Z can write great lyrics)

15

“If you’re having flashlight problems I feel bad for you son
I got ninety nine problems but a light ain’t one.“

Classic.

16

Hahaha, yes :slight_smile:

Maybe you should apply for songwriter? :slight_smile:

17

Somebody beat me to it, that song is called: “Who put the bomp…”

18

What did she mean by this? I couldn’t find a list of ‘authorized distributors’ on their website.

And why don’t they allow us to check the flashlight serial code on their website.

19

And so it goes.

Service and support is worth paying for. If I can’t find it on amazon I buy direct from the manufacturer, or from a factory authorized vendor. Whatever I purchase is going to cost me more than rock-bottom, and I m fine with that. Every now and then (although it’s been years) I have a warranty (or whatever) issue, the resolution of which has never been a problem.

Paying a rock-bottom price and then complaining about lack of manufacturer support seems wrong. We’re all vigilant about the batteries we buy, why shouldn’t that same vigilance apply to everything else we buy?

For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry you got shafted.

Cheers

20

It’s no discussion anymore since I wil get a replacement part. But, I got it only because I posted my findings on this forum, which shouldn’t be necessary to do to claim warranty.

I always promote good reliable sellers, reading revieuws and so on. And no, I am not the person who buys at the most expensive store, only if there’s a substantial difference between them. I suppose if you want to buy a pair of Nikes, and you have the option to buy the same shoes for half the price, you buy the full monty?

Gor as far as I know, manufacturer warranty is worldwide, only thing is that you can’t claim at a local dealer if you bought abrought.

Until now I hadn’t troubles claiming warranty if needed in my 52 years. And yes, sometimes it takes a little more effort to claim, this case is an example of very bad aftersales. They could have avoid this since I wasn’t aware of their policies. Hope Klarus will clarify this soon on their website.

Cheers,
Alex