Sony batteries from eBay
 

Hi Guys, anybody ever buy Batteries from eBay? There are many sellers out there from Hong Kong and such. All packaging is authentic Sony. But was just curious to see if anybody here has experience with purchases like that. Thanks again you guys.

Here is an example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Camcorder-Ba...item4aa2cfe170

If you didn't catch the CNBC program on counterfeit fraud (most of it from guess where!), catch a re-run of it - I don't remember the exact title, but it's worth a look, and a quick education.

If you think you're really getting a Sony (or any other name brand product for that matter) product, think again, they knock off things like batteries, memory sticks and cards, along with all manner of accessories down to cheap copies of mini tripods for a few $. This along with Shoes, purses, sunglasses, jewelry, rare coins, you name it... I've seen cheap knockoff cameras with the "Canon" nameplate on them, as well as some highly suspect "Sony" cameras that I know they didn't make... not to mention CD's and DVD's...

There is a "chance" (as in multiple zeros after the decimal point) that the item you're buying comes off the same "assembly line" as the real deal IF it's made in China/HK, but it may be a reject, a "back door special", or more likely it's a knockoff/counterfeit. It may or may not work as expected, and may or may not explode/damage your device/burn down your house - watch that show... counterfeit bolts have been implicated in at least one airplane crash from what I've heard... this is some serious stuff.

Counterfeiting is now a HUGE business, I can say from experience that 95-99% of memory sticks and cards you'll find on eBay are either these fake sellers selling direct, or someone drop shipping or bulk buying from these same sources in small quantities to avoid Customs inspections and fraud detection "at the border". I've only run across a couple batteries, and they seem to work, but... chargers too... but...

They buy a "sample", reverse engineer it (sometimes not too well, I've seen some cables that didn't work as expected... and memory cards are a guaranteed disaster), then pump out copies in quantity, hoping to sell them to unsuspecting "buyers" (suckers) who I don't think would buy a Rolex from some guy in a trenchcoat on the street, but for some reason think buying from some guy in HK/China is a safe bet...

I guess what I'm saying is that the risk vs. saving a few $ is probably not worth it, and besides, all the fake stuff drives the prices of the real stuff that does show up on eBay down to "reasonable" prices, if you know how to find the legit sellers of "returns" and lightly used stuff.

Buyer beware, and if it says HK/China in an eBay auction, just presume it's a counterfeit/fake/knockoff, you'll be right about 99.99% of the time.

Chris, how about making a "sticky" on this topic?? It comes up regularly, and it'd be a public service to put the word out there!

THANK YOU SO MUCH DAVE!!!! I am ashamed for trying to save a few bucks :-|

Dave is right of course .. same subject but a bit off topic.

I was in China recently and it's embarrassing for the legit locals too. So much so in a few cities they have 'counterfeit shops' they'll tell you outright that everything sold in there is counterfeit. We smiled saying 'really?'

So of course we went in out of curiosity and there was every clothing brand name you could think of, all at ridiculous prices. 8 floors of them.

How do they do that? with the Govt supposedly cracking down on counterfeit goods. I asked our guide and he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

Be careful everywhere .. I bought a remote controlled car for my grandson after seeing a demo in another shop, a great performer. But mine was tightly boxed and even if I'd tested it back at the hotel I probably couldn't have found the shop again. Back in Syd. it hardly ran at all. But a little spinning top with lights runs Ok with a Chinese song that probably sings 'ho ho sucker!'

But having said that the locals we met were just great, the trip and Expo 2010 was a real experience. 1.4 billion people can't all be wrong :)
Cheers.

Absolutely right. When I was a kid, Japan was where all the crap came from, and look how that's turned around. Now it's China's turn, so be aware that quality/genuine products from China from Ebay are few and far between.

There was a big lawsuit in Chinese courts a couple of years back - I think it was Nike but not really sure at this point.

Anyhow, they sued a Chinese factory that was making the real stuff for two shifts for them, and then running the factory another shift and making the same stuff to sell directly.

The court ruled that since the stuff was made in the same factory to the same design with the same material, it was not a counterfeit! and the factory was within their rights to make extra merchandise!!!

My clients in Japan manufacture stuff in China - and the quality is every bit as good as what we were making in Japan previously. The company we use is a very credible and straight outfit that we've worked with for 10 years with no problems.

Regardless, once or twice a year we send an audit team in and check every invoice and then go back to the companies that the material came from and check that there are corresponding sales orders and shipment receipts that match up and then go to the suppliers of the suppliers and do the same thing unitil we've tracked every scrap of material back to the original suppliers (whom we have approved) to be sure that the right stuff is being used at every step.

A few years back a Really Large Computer Company specified that only a specific virgin (ie not previously melted and recysled from scraps of the molding process) branded pastic resin could be used for their keyboards manufactured in China. One day the salesman for the resin company contacted them to ask why they had stopped using their resin. Of course the Really Large Computer Company was surprised to find out that the Chinese outfit had switched to sub-par suppliers to save money on the resin.

Just think how much more surprised they were when millions of keyboards had to be recalled due to warpage problems attributable to not using the right resin!

It's a jungle out there.

On the other hand, the early days of manufacturing in the US weren't that much different as we happily stole the intellectual property of European factories to get our manufacturing base established. It's been a jungle everywhere at one time or other!

There is another aspect to camcorder batteries and LiIon batteries in general. That is shelf life. The batteries you buy at eBay might have been sitting around a few years and have already lost some of their life when you get them.

A couple of years ago one of our MIVA (Mich Ind Videographers Association) members came to a meeting with a couple of boxes of brand new Sony F-series batteries and was selling them $25 each or five for $100. New at B & H Photo they run more than a hundred bucks each. I bought five. I only got about two years use out of them before they would only hold maybe fifteen minutes of life under load. $20/each was probably a fair price considering the life I got from them. Legitimate new batteries you get from B & H will only last five or so years even if you never use them.

I have bought Sony type batteries off of Ebay and from an online seller for my Sony V1U camcorders. They did not claim to be OEM Sony batteries.

The three or four I bought from ebay have all been great. I bought another three or four from an online source I had read about in a forum a few years ago. The first ones from this source were all good but the last time I ordered two at one time one of them did not work at all and felt lighter than the others so I think it was missing it's "guts".

For the big 4000-660 mAh batteries I have paid around $22-$25 each. They have been used in my camera, LCD4 7" monitor, Manhatten HD monitor, Sony camea light and Z96 LED light. All with no problems.

Some are over two years old now and still work fine. Charged these NP-F970 clones show anywhere from 450-680 minutes of run time when in my V1U camera.