So with the recent clamp down of shipping of Li-ion batteries from China I decided I would try to purchase some on eBay from a US seller. I use Panasonic 3400mAh batteries in some of my more power hungry lights, but I wanted some for the less demanding lights so I figured I’d stick to a battery brand and model I was familiar with as having reasonable quality in the past. I ended up buying 4 x TrustFire protected 18650 2500mAh batteries.
When I receive them I immediately noticed the quality was not at all what I’d come to expect from these batteries and that 2 out of the 4 batteries were significantly over sized near the + end of the battery. These 2 batteries measured close to 19mm in diameter and wouldn’t fit in most of my flashlights. I’ve been back and forth with the seller and they initially offered me 30% refund, which was later up to 60%. I’m insisting on a complete refund because these batteries are basically going to have to be disposed of rather than put into service.
So I got curious as to why the cells were so much larger than spec and decided to investigate, and here is what I found hiding under the two layers of wrap.
That’s an interesting point regarding PayPal policy… thing is they don’t care about the return costs because they don’t cover them. I recently found myself in a situation where I purchased a $55 light using PayPal. The light arrived defective and the seller was not being terribly cooperative. PayPal ruled on my side, but the catch is they would require me to return the item to the seller at my expense using a track-able shipping method. Track-able shipping to the seller located in China would have been $67! So I’ve learned the hard way that PayPal buyer protection is really useless for items purchased from China.
Bummer! I wish I knew of a surefire way of getting paypal to work for you, but it does seem fairly random sometimes. Maybe escalating to the credit card company (if applicable) is the way to get things sorted out.
