Whether it was intentional or not, my fear is that the seller will simply re-list the item and try to sell it again to the next "victim". It should be reported, no matter how minute, so that more Ebay and sellers become aware of the problem. I'm so tired of seeing fake SD Cards, fake CPU, fake laptop battery, fake toys, etc. that I've lost trust on things being sold on Ebay.
its funny, but I remember someone giving me the tip that they try to buy from low volume sellers. It's sort of this weird inverse trust thing, the more volume a seller pushes the more untrustworthy they smell. I've found that with my low seller count my stuff has often sold pretty quick. Scary to think about fake batteries and any other obscure products that can't have its internals inspected.
There are some sellers who specialize in legitimate batteries sourced from the official supply chain but they are few and far between.
Anyone who wants an easy startup: it's literally impossible to find high-quality aftermarket laptop batteries, the market is swamped with shitty Chinese knockoffs that die in a couple months (or sooner). The battery cells themselves are usually the part that dies, it's pretty straightforward to refurbish the battery by replacing the cells. But right now there is just no place to buy decent-quality replacement packs, it's OEM direct from the supplier or cheap chinese junk, nothing in between.
I have no idea why SterlingTek or Wasabi Power or some of the other companies that fill this niche for camera batteries haven't jumped into these other markets, but they haven't, and the niche remains unfilled.
Ironically, it's pretty easy to find high quality aftermarket laptop batteries in China. I've had good experiences just searching for the battery part number or laptop model on taobao, sorting by sales volume, and buying from the first seller whose average feedback is >=4.8 across all three feedback dimensions.
The most recent was an extended battery for a 2012(?) Acer Chromebook, which cost about $12.
I would imagine part of the reason why large brands don't jump on this market is that there are so many models, so you might not be producing 10k+ of each model. Given everything apart from the plastic case is standard (or at least applies to a wide range of models) it's economical to produce these on a smaller scale than is usual for large brands.
Do you have any experience with Nickel–iron batteries from Chinese companies? They seem like the kind of tech where a "cheap knockoff" might be good enough because they're A) not that fancy and B) durable as heck.
