Something I just noticed on my unprotected Trustfire 18650's that I got were how much shorter they were vs the Xtar 18700 that they were standing up beside. So I decided to pull out 1of my good protected Trustfire flame 18650 battery and measure the difference between it and the unprotected one I got. The unprotected battery measured just hair over 2 and 9/16" and protected one measured exactly 2 and 11/16".
I have no dog in this fight BUT if i had purchased these ofr 6.71$ and i was offered 3$ abk i would take it and ask summer to make sure the next ones were protected for sure and reorder ..i understand people being mad but this is such a good deal.i'd be retrying them again ...and keeping unprotecteds for 1.50$ each that's dirty dirty cheap ..
i see 50% as an offer ..so they don't need to pay for shipping or the bother as being a very NICE offer ..sure it's only 3 bucks .. but i've been offered 3.00$ on a 50$ order before ..50% is 50%..to me that's taking care of business ///like I said I fully understand wanting what you ordered ...i'd just take it ..and reorder .
please don't bite my head off ..it's just a comment :)
I'm still not sure why these are considered "good" Flames. The ones I got from Manafont were over 2400mah @ 1.5A and almost 2400 @ 3A. These don't seem any better than a lot of other cheap cells.
What are your figures for DD flames?
I don’t have any.
If I receive "good" unproteceted cells I will complain and settle for a partial refund. If I get crap unprotected cells then I will do everything I can to get a full refund.
What you seem to forget is that people still got stuff they didn't want and didn't order. Being cheap, dirt cheap or free isn't gonna change anything about that. Can't you see from the comments that many people really didn't want to use these unprotected cells.
Even for free they are worthless to them, let alone they would have to pay 3 bucks for it and just be happy with that. To me that's scr*wing people over and thinking you can get away with it easily.
That's also just a comment. 
I plan to gift some lights with batteries and chargers to a few friends. They are non flasholics so I don't want them using unprotected cells. I want protected cells and I want DD to send me the protected cells that I paid for.
I have 1 set from MF and i also tested like 2300mAH or something like that. These are all 1st cycle results. I might have a picture somewhere.
The cheap cells that i have all are below 2000mAh in the 1300-1600mAh range. Old4570 has some which are in the 700-900mAh range ("Sony", GTL?). I have stuff like PAlight, UF, some white generic, some CGi brand cells which i overpaid for etc...none are > 2000mAh. I consider those bad cells.
Well seriously having over 50 cells now (am foraying into 26650 now), these are pretty good in the whole pack.
The XTARs 2600 that i have are also in the high 23xx range.
I don't think 1/1.5/3A vary THAT much and anyway probably does not make a difference in the real world between 2250mAh and 2400mAh (150mAh diff). That's like less than 2 mins of runtime in a nicely driven XM-L, or say 3 mins in a nicely regulated 2 x 18650 light out of 1.5hrs of burn. Seriously it does not make a difference to me as i don't dig the low-end of the discharge, but hey i know i know...we are FLASHAHOLICS. :)
Just putting it into perspective...
the way i see it some of you saved 5 bucks on these but have to go though the sorting out process of refunds and emails back and forward with the seller or the time for the PP claim, i would of payed the extra 5 bucks still making it in the budget range and not had to worry.
i see this happening alot with people trying to save more money, there is a proven cheap product out there but they try and buy a cheaper version that some times turnes out to be a fake or not what they where expecting and it turns into a hastle or disapointment.
is it worth saving 5 buck,s on some batteries or 10 bucks on a fake torch and creating all this hastle for your self,s, i dont think it is i spend alot more a day on coke a cola and cigarettes.
i guess to alot of people its worth it as they keep doing it and some times or most the times it works out ? and i also guess alot of people would not know the difference.
i to would take the partial refund and be done with it then go else where, but this is just me and my opinion
Are you saying flames aren't really good in general or just the DD flames?
I think 2100 answered my question.
Sure there are good Flames, not-so-good Flames, and bad (fake) Flames. I’m saying that solely based on 2100’s results I would classify them as good ones.
Heh heh....actually i am wonder if my charger is accurate or under-reads or over-reads. I know that the voltage reading is a bit under as compared to the Uni T UT-58E.. Let me do a test on the ubiquitous XTAR 2600 (the new purple ones) and compare with the BLF battery table. I have one which is also 1st cycle.
end voltage differences :
Good news, received PM from Summer that I just need to contact CS (not live chat) and open a case and they will resend a new protected pair. I figured that the unprotected pair you can keep.
I will let them send the 3 pairs and i'd believe they will be protected, as PMed by Summer previously. (they got the message i guess)
As for Li-ion dangers, that i leave it to you - some are extremely affected by that and treat them like grenades, some treat them as 1.4G fireworks. Some have DMM, some don't. For me no issue, just don't run any of them in a triple XM-L with regulated boost driver (you know, those Sky Rays)...... HECK I don't even run them protected ones in my DRY which is not boosted. LOL! I use XTARs for that. Seriously if you don't run your single XM-L for a period of > 20 minutes tailstanding at 30 deg C ambient, i don't think drivers' MOSFETs fail often.
Makes no sense why DD would "spend" so much on promotion previously/currently and undercut the market prices, and make a mess out of the battery issue which is not a lot of money for them anyway (they make more out of the GBs, volume etc). Undercutting is not easy to survive.
Like i said i myself received a pair which is protected and another pair which is unprotected. So i wonder if the DD supply warehousing dept even knows the difference if they just get it by the whole box from the main distributor.
Go to Customer Serivce, that green button on the top right, and choose After-Sales. There's a Replacement Requirement Link there. The link under My Account, Order, RMA request is not working.
Then i get a message under Inbox, Unresolved cases.
I wanted to place an order that includes these protected flames. I first pm'd Summer and got a reply today assuring me he will contact DD to send the right items. So I placed the order and paid just now. 
LOL! My new XTAR 2600 purple label.... 2288mAh @ 1A.
well then ill cancel that order
I will place some more. Seems like DD folks is taking care of their business. If they send unprotected one, then i will get some free battery. Yay.
Well, $6.71/pair, protected or not, is still a good deal to me. And i confident in Paypal protection. I don't think this is a risk to save $5 at all on these batteries (that's 40% lower than any where else). Try to get something at DX or MF see if you get this much discount.
My problem in a bombhell...
I have 3 sets coming (6 cells) and if all these appear to be UN-protected, thats like some wasted bucks for me.
I measured one battery with Imax B6 @1A. Had to abort at 2200mAh (was at 3,10V) for taking those pics for "customer care".