Laptop batteries from 3rd party seller (e.g. ebay) instead of from Dell? Anything to fear?

D

DaRuSsIaMaN

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 22, 2007
Messages
1,216
I want to get a replacement battery for my Dell laptop. I did a battery diagnostic using Win 10's built in tool, and it shows a noticeable degradation. I noticed that buying it from Dell is a lot more expensive than seemingly the same parts on ebay, for example. Can I trust one of these batteries from ebay? (I'm specifically talking about Dell-branded batteries, not some other brand that has the same specs.)
 
Do people make counterfeit Dell-branded batteries? Like, a counterfeit logo on it and all?
 
The sheer amount of counterfeit OEM batteries to actual OEM batteries is mind-boggling, especially on eBay. As for buying one from an eBay seller, I'd say make sure it says OEM Dell (or whatever brand) in the ad so you have ground to stand on if it's not legit and if it's defective in whatever respect for a potential return. Unfortunately there's no really good way to confirm if a battery is truly OEM without getting it in a machine so you can read the battery firmware to see what's going on - you can't trust the outer packaging or label stickers, ever.
 
Tiberian said:
The sheer amount of counterfeit OEM batteries to actual OEM batteries is mind-boggling, especially on eBay. As for buying one from an eBay seller, I'd say make sure it says OEM Dell (or whatever brand) in the ad so you have ground to stand on if it's not legit and if it's defective in whatever respect for a potential return. Unfortunately there's no really good way to confirm if a battery is truly OEM without getting it in a machine so you can read the battery firmware to see what's going on - you can't trust the outer packaging or label stickers, ever.
Click to expand...

I see, thanks!
 
I have dealt with buying batteries and parts for Lenovo ThinkPad X240 on eBay from a specific seller, batteries and parts appear to be legitimate Lenovo parts. If in doubt, you buy directly from manufacturer.
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
Do people make counterfeit Dell-branded batteries? Like, a counterfeit logo on it and all?
Click to expand...
HELL YES!!

And not just batteries either. It's almost a safe bet that anything shipping directly from China (or high volume bad english sellers in California) are fakes. I almost got burned by one of these selling fake Intel network cards, with real fake boxes, and real fake stickers on them. Intel themselves were able to debunk them as being fakes once I gave them information off the boxes, but otherwise you'd never know! (I finally went with used HP nics as they were oem from Intel and no one was faking them.)

Tiberian said:
The sheer amount of counterfeit OEM batteries to actual OEM batteries is mind-boggling, especially on eBay. As for buying one from an eBay seller, I'd say make sure it says OEM Dell (or whatever brand) in the ad so you have ground to stand on if it's not legit and if it's defective in whatever respect for a potential return. Unfortunately there's no really good way to confirm if a battery is truly OEM without getting it in a machine so you can read the battery firmware to see what's going on - you can't trust the outer packaging or label stickers, ever.
Click to expand...
And with all this, it's sometimes not worth the chance.

There's a lot of great legit places that sell on ebay that also are real companies outside of ebay--there will most likely be the real deal. One of them off the top of my head is itxchange.com.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top