Beware!: DX Selling Fake Trustfire Flames

<edit> Confirmed. DealtimeExtreme is selling the fake TrustFire Flame 2400 mah. Do Not Buy! </edit>

I just got some 18650's 2400mAh in from DX. Ive heard they dont ship fakes. However..these ARE protected, but the letters are plain silver, not holographic at all. Just plain matte Silver TRUSTFIRE logo with plain silver matte Flame above the logo. I have no way of testing the Batteries aside from their voltage. one is at 3.87 the other is at 3.94 which is normal I would guess. But they wont fit into my DSD Charger. They are too big.

Heres Pics:

(notice in the second picture, the battery to the right has a misprint/smear on the "r" in fire.. very suspect. DOnt look real to me, but they are protected..

The Trustfire Flames l bought from MF have the hologram writing. The positive posts on yours appear to have dimples in them where mine are holes in the side of the raised section. I assume mine are genuine. Anyone else?

I've got a pair of 2400mAhs from DX, too. In the pictures there, they are sparkling, but in reality they look the same as yours.

yeah mine arent even wrapped very well, the wrapper is “crinkley” near the protection because its not tight enough.

Sometimes I dont really know where to buy. By now, I prefer manafont, but the site of DX is way better..

I have 4 fake TF flame form DX.(two fakes on the left)

Anyone ever tested those?

those to the right and the left, did you buy at once? Same order?


Right was ordered in october, four fakes in december

Look a lot like the fakes that were sold on Ebay last year.

The ones I bought were really bad. I have a hobby charger but it wasn't worth testing them with it. I put them in a flashlight that gives a warning when the battery is nearly depleted and they would last about 20 seconds! The torch only had a Q5 drawing a little over 1 amp.

Time for a refund I think.

After some research, I have confirmed that these are in fact fakes. Please dont let these snakey Chinese sellers get away with this crap. They know the difference and are trying to pass these fakes onto you! If you got some of these without the hologram, demand your money back!

Thats why I will never deal with these crap Chinese companies ever again, makes me sick. They are deliberately ripping you all off. And they dont care. Theres Billions more people to rip off, they could care less about your return business.

Out of 3 Chinese orders, I got 4, YES 4 Screw-ups.. Seems like Fuzzy Math.

I Have never placed an order within the US and gotten screwed like this.

So, what to write them? Any real chance on a refund?

If there's one thing I've learned in a year of serious flashalohicism, it's that you get what you pay for and can't trust most sources for 'cheap' or discounted batteries. Too easy to slap a shiny new plastic cover on a piece of crap battery. For what you get, I don't mind paying $8-15 bucks per and not having to worry about it. I would gladly trade my 6 or so UF 3000 for 2 Xtars.

I have read other threads of people being scammed on this forum. I have never seen so many people say "oh well, im ok with being scammed" or "oh well, I'm ok with losing $5.00" Seriously? This is exactly WHY they keep doing it.

The point here is that these Scandelous Chinese Companies Like Deal Extreme are selling fraudulent counterfeit Items. That is 100% Illegal. If I hadnt seen those TFF's on their site for fifty cents cheaper I would have bought from another Site who were selling REAL Batteries..Also, THEY KNOW they are doing it. They sent me and 100's of other people FAKE goods on purpose. And they have been selling counterfeit TFF's for over 3 months. They knew they were fake when they bought them, they knew they were fake when they sold them, they HOPED you didnt know. Lithium Ion Batteries are not something to play with. They are potentially dangerous (especially when you dont know what the hell they are) and these Chinese Dogs are doing it on purpose.

They are snakes. Gets my blood boiling. Ive already filed a complaint through DX and Paypal. Sorry for the rant.

This is what really happened :

There was a time when Dinodirect offered usd6.71 for a pair of protected TF Flames 2600, but they sent unprotected cells unknowingly, because their supplier screwed them. Many people were complaining that they were fakes because of some small misprints but still the letterings have that hologram effect. Some others and I ran them through the discharger and got about 2300-2400mAh, same as the protected ones, they are (1) matched in capacity (2) capable of very high currents, overcharged at 4.22-4.23V they are more than enough to burn your XM-L in direct-drive strobe mode EASILY.

Dinodirect did damage control and out of very good will gave out giftcards of about $8-11. They made good and ensured that the batteries are protected. So we ordered more and protected batteries came.

Of the 30+ TF Flames that I have here from Dinodirect, and a pair of protected TF Flames 2400 from DX (acquired quite long ago)...yeah they have hologram effect letterings for "Trustfire". Some of them do not have sticker though, coz some members do really want that piece of hologram sticker, however that does not means they give bad results in discharge tests.

But you really ought to test them out first. A discharge test on a hobby charger is the best, if not then at least do a runtime test in a 2 x 18650 regulated light with low-voltage cutoff (you'll be safe with a fan blowing at the light) as there will be a very noticeable difference between 2300mAh and 1500mAh.

This is really what happened :

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/trustfire-protected-18650-3-7v-true-2400mah-rechargeable-lithium-batteries-2-pack-20392

Look at the bottom. They themselves could have gotten from another bigger distributor.

Listed by Supplier: YangLight, added on 2/21/2009.

I have 10 batteries TrustFire "flame" of 2400 mAh. The last two are not coming with holographic writing. I tried one of these last two batteries.
loaded up to 4.16 volts. I put the battery on a Ultrafire C1 Drop-in XM-L.
It ran for 80 minutes@1.51 Ah always in HI. After flashed into low, final voltage 3.36 volts.
Certainly it would last at least for quite some time but I was interested in how long you stayed up. To cool I put in the freezer.

HEh heh...well if you over cool it, the capacity would drop a lot as well. Just a fan will do nicely. Best is to use 2 x 18650 regulated lights, but of course any info is better than no info.

guess it won't be long before the holograph wrapper is cloned....then what?

There's a good thread at DX about problems with the flames starting in December. There were some really bad ones that were probably fake, and the ones they are selling now are more like 2100 mAh instead of the 2400 mAh that the "true 2400" used to be. I think that's as good as it gets. The 3000's are more like 2500.

http://club.dealextreme.com/forums/Forums.dx/threadid.1042763