[warning]counterfeit goods on eBay from newmp3technology.com

I had the misfortune of purchasing a counterfeit AC adapter from the merchant newmp3technology.com, which also operates under the name newmp3technology.

The sample was submitted to HP for authentication and it was confirmed counterfeit.

The seller's feedback profile on eBay magically turned to "private". recently.

AC adapters and batteries are a special concern as faulty products can cause fire and injuries.

Savvy eBay shoppers are becoming aware of existence of counterfeit goods on eBay and many are avoiding fashion brands that are well known to be counterfeited. As far as electronics accessory in general, my practice was to avoid purchasing from newly registered sellers,review their feedback comments and buy from sellers who ship from the U.S. I believe these are intuitions and common sense that develop from experience.

I took these measures and I hate to admit that I just got burned. The merchant in question has been a member on eBay for almost 11 years and a "top rated seller" with excellent feedback history. I believe this can be attributed to likelihood that most consumer buyers do not realize what they're getting is counterfeit.

The adapter looks adequately authentic at first glance and it is functional. eBay feedback exchange takes place soon after the purchase is complete, therefore it does not reflect subsequent discovery problems, if discovered at all.

When you look at this seller's items, you'll see that it uses the claim "Genuine" as a marketing leverage.

The counterfeit is not hard to identify, however to prove beyond reasonable doubt is hard and perhaps the only way is to have it analyzed by HP R&D.

1.)
I immediately became suspicious, because the cord was only 4 ft and the original cord that came with the computer has a 6 ft cord. The suspected fake comes with a choke(small cylindrical thing around the cord near the laptop plug-in end)

2.)
Next is the weighing method which was mentioned on some YouTube videos. I weighed both OEM while holding the cord with my hand with a bit of slack to subtract the weight of cord while minimizing the effect of pulling on the cord on weighing. This had to be done, because 4' cord and 6' cord won't weigh the same. OEM is ~180g. The suspect is ~160g

3.)
Grammar and spelling. SA *EE* TY Mark. No, it is not misspelled on the OEM version, however, as you know, spelling errors can happen to textbooks and real stuff too, so even this isn't absolutely positive.

4.)
Electrical testing. When loaded with a resistor bank to approximately 60W with resistors, it was found that the OEM drew 70W, the knock off drew 73W. The knock off is labeled "efficiency IV" which indicates >85% efficiency, but remember that my OEM cord is from ~2004-05 when efficiency regulations were slightly less stringent.


^ link to photo for non-members who can't see attachments.


Four months later.... label starts blistering. I decided to tear it down. Quality indicates its definitely not OEM.

After a few month of use, the label started to blister like crazy. I peeled it off, then put it back on, but it blistered again.


Typically a power supply will have an inductor right where the jumpers are to minimize conducted EMF emissions in order to satisfy FCC requirements as well as reduce interference.


Does this look like HP OEM product quality soldering job? One of the SMD was actually not seated all the way with way too much solder as well as being crooked. Not what you'd expect from quality automated manufacturing. The artifacts from manual trimming with diagonal cutters are obvious on larger components.



This looks like a practice circuit board from an electronics 101 class.


Discoloration was obvious along the capacitors on the output stage.

 

Yep, looks like an almost decent fake, I would be quite suspicious of it.

Have you tried to short it out to trip the safety in it to see if that even works?

 

I'm interested in seeing how this plays out. Did you contact the seller or file a paypal claim?

 

I don't know what I will do yet. I posted this to keep others posted on shady things that take place on eBay even with sellers with stellar feedbacks.

When you check the seller's website, I'm not surprised I got a counterfeit. It offers all kinds of items you'd expect from sellers in China and his website looks like one with the title being a keyword spam.

I've got a counterfeit camera battery before and the seller acted apologetic and promptly refunded, but my feeling was that he was the kind of a seller who'd promptly refund if and when caught, but thrive on those who don't catch it.

 

I'm sure you meant well, but I think you did it the wrong way. It is best to check whether it is really intentional. Your feeling isn't the best way to tell whether you're right or wrong. What if the seller is legit, and that his supplier is the one who ship the wrong item a.k.a. the newegg core i7 fiasco a few days ago?

What if you have a legit business and because of a small mistake, someone ruin your business, you wouldn't like it either now, would you?

 

Couldn't all this be explained by a redesigned power supply that differs from the original? The OP didn't state how much time has gone by between purchasing the computer new, and when he bought the adapter from ebay.

The cord length, power draw, and spelling error could certainly be due to a newly designed (or even second sourced) power adapter. Manufacturers (like HP and Dell) have multiple sources for parts like adapters, and certainly have new and old revisions. Could this adapter (rev A07) be a newer model?

I would be hesitant to accuse the seller of selling counterfeit goods based just on this info.

I guess the big question is this--does it work? Did the OP buy from an ebay seller instead of HP direct in order to save significant money? Probably. I figure, if it works, just go with it. I'm sure it came with a warranty from the seller, and if the seller has an 11 year history, I'm sure they'll be around to honor any warranty issues.

 

I was thinking this too. I bought a blackberry charger a while back off ebay and it looked identical to the oem that came with the phone except it didn't have the blackberry options key logo on the part that plugs into the blackberry. Fast forward a few months and I get my bold 9700 and the plug is identical to the one I got on ebay; no options key logo. The ebay charger works great.

 

I still have the said adapter in question. The SAEETY label started to blister and is peeling off from heat and I can smell the odor of capacitor electrolyte.

This didn't happen with the original one that came with the computer(that I lost) or the second adapter that I acquired with a salvage Pavilion I picked up.

I split it open and upon opening, I found that its missing EMI suppression coil(It works fine w/o it, but may not pass FCC), soldering is messy, crooked SMD parts.

I'm fairly sure the adapter I got from newmp3technology.com is a counterfeit. I can't see HP Genuine adapter having construction of this poor of quality. It looks like it was put together by a student in community college technology class.

 

thanks for the update. I have been seeing alot of bad knockoff bricks lately

 

I've been using two cheap power bricks from eBay for months now. Never had a problem with either one of them, and paid significantly less for both. I had no delusions that they'd be "genuine" when I bought them; I just wanted something cheap that would work.

 

It seems to me that you should contact HP.

 

moved contents to first post.

 

Yep, I keep a brick in my laptop pack that is ready for travel, for which I paid about one quarter of the price of an original equipment HP brick --- if I remember correctly. As was the case in your instance, the seller never represented it to be original equipment. The brick doesn't say HP on it. It has been working fine for four years now.

 

Do you know why I bought this?

Because the $12 generic I bought on eBay has a cord that's too short and inconvenient, so I decided to drop $20 and get a "OEM"... only to realize the wire is equally short.

I think the generic one I have and the counterfeit are the same thing, with the only difference being the label. The generic one, I'm not going to take apart, because I need it.

I searched newmp3technology.com and counterfeit on Google and sure enough, other people complaining about cord shorter than original not just with HP brand.

Amazon.com: OEM Laptop Ac Adapter Charger for Dell Inspiron 6000 6400 9200 9300 9400 E1405…

This one is about Dell. Not an isolated incident, I'd say

 

I have a genuine HP charger that has the bubbling on the foil. Their chargers suck, mine gets very hot in summer.

 

I bought some Sony earphones off Ebay last year and found out that they were counterfeit. There are articles written on how to tell the difference between the real ones and the fakes. Certain items on Ebay have a problem with this. When I approached the seller about it he claimed that he did not know and had bought them in bulk from someone else.

 

From past experience unless it says trusted seller and genuine on the item you are planning to buy, assume the worst. I purchased two PSP 8GB memory cards on ebay and yup both turned out to be fake but both worked as described and two years later they still work, so go figure, LOL.

 

Yep, me too. I have bought several at ridiculously low prices, about $2 shipped.

 

I just bought a PSP adaptor because my mom lost mine doing the house cleaning. 0.99$. I'll check on it once I get it.

 

This seller's been around since 1999 on eBay. At the time of my purchase, they had trusted seller status and it was listed as Genuine HP adapter.

A lot of good feedbacks, been around in business for a long time, trusted status and I still got conned.

People buy it, receive it promptly, use it and it works and 5 star feedback gets left and its usually too late if/when they discover it.

I just emailed HP. I'll see if they even respond.

 

don't always trust the "trusted seller" labels.

go back a few months (or several) and contact some of the people that bought from those sellers. often times, people leave good feedback for prompt shipping or service, only to find out the product they bought was a knockoff after it's too late to get their money back. and with feedback already left, they have no recourse of any kind other than to send the seller nasty messages.

contact people who bought from them some months ago (you can do that) and ask them about their experience. more specifically, contact people that bought items similar to what you're interested in buying.

 

This is not neccessarily true. You can contact eBay to reverse the positive feedback left and/or lodge a complaint against the seller.

 

eBay rules are constantly changing, but 90 days is the longest time frame allowed for any action. You can't undo feedbacks whenever you feel like it and you have only a limited time frame to complain.

 

I think there's a way to 'reply' to your old feedback. But I think it's fairly new (a couple of years maybe).

 

What kind of fault exactly would cause such a problem? that and or serious damage to a laptop?
Or more practically, what non OEM brands are at a reasonable height of quality?
I recently bought a universal (12-24v) 120w power supply. Actually took it apart. the soldering looks better than that.
i have a dell 130w slim psu that i got from with an m4400, it is definitely genuine. the wire casing around the LED plug is coming separated from the cable, and it just started making strange noises.
what can really be said for OEM vs non OEM quality?

not that i dont find the rest of your post interesting...
having received a laptop with an incredibly scratched heatsink and the seller responding "Good morning, I looked at the pictures, and I didn't think that should be a problem", I haven't been worried about people actually *scamming* on ebay so much as I've realized that a lot of people, while making a profit as a reseller, are already thinking about it as stealing.
I mean, one must come to the realization that all they are doing is making a purchase more readily available and convenient.

Like its already as dirty as it can be so why waste time trying to actually have quality service or something? everyone else has side account selling 1000+ fake 16gb flash drives

I actually prefer sellers with less feedback, I love it when someones willing to have at least a little conversation, not to mention knows more than the model number of the thing theyre selling.

 

i think the problem is with hp , wonder why?? , because i got a power brick a few month ago , when new i felt its too hot when charging, and smelt weird , so i decided to contact HP to check if the brick is authentic , after contacting them they told me they don't have product information about HP products imported from other countries , in other words , they only have US serial numbers to check for authentic HP stuff .

HP is an international company , is it to hard for them to gather their data in one database ??

 

Well it looks like I just got scammed on eBay but not for counterfeit goods LOL. I bought NCAA Football 11 from a seller with zero feedback. I paid via PayPal and for some reason I went back to the listing. When I did he now had a -1 feedback. The only comment was "SCAM...I want my money back".

I immediately contacted eBay for fraud as well as PayPal to see if they can void out the transaction. I'll see how that goes. eBay says it'll begin investigation which takes 72 hours and PayPal, I don't know how they work.

What drew me to the transaction was the eBay Buyer Protection Logo

Oh well live and learn.

 

any one got any refunds from buyers protection program ?? , is it easy , or it takes alot of time to get ur money back??

 

I will find out in about 7 days. Fortunately I opened a case 5 minutes after I paid. I received an email from eBay stating the removed the sellers listing and encouraged me to open a case of fraud which I did.

They told me by 7-21 I should find out the resolution as they are in the process of contacting the seller. According to eBay the chances are good if you inform them ASAP and let them handle it but we'll see. If I get burned and don't get a refund I will never buy on eBay again.

 

Just an update for the person who asked if ebay refunds your money. I'm happy to say ebay does and I got my refund back in 7 days. It was posted to my PayPal account.

Now I'm in the process of contacting another seller who sold me a PC game that requires internet activation. It was sold as brand new/factory sealed/unopened. Well I went to check the serial number on Star-Force website and it shows it was already activated on 4/29/10 and I received the game on 7/22/10. You think there could be a problem? Me says it's not brand new, factory sealed.

So if this seller decides to do nothing then i'll request a refund from ebay.

 

i am the one who was asking , but here is a new question , do u have to return the faulty item to get a refund?? , some times shipping is more expensive than the item's price ( especially international ) , or u can just provide details/proof of ur situation ( like your issue with the activated laptop )

 

Activated game !

Ebay, always wants you to try and work things out with the seller. If the seller and you agree that the part must be returned then yes you need to return it to the seller.

OTOH if you file a claim with Ebay and claim fraud or counterfeit goods then it would be Ebay's call at that point. Again ebay will always ask you to try and work things out with the seller.

And it's very important to do as they say. If the item you purchased has the Ebay Buyer's Protection logo then you should have no problems. But you need to act within the alloted time to file a claim if you feel the seller is not cooperating.

I would inform Ebay you received what you and HP have determined to be counterfeit goods and it will cost more to ship it. Inform them you will provide them with pictures if they so require. I'm sure either Ebay might say no need to send it back or the seller must pay for his return items.

 

thanks for giving me detailed information , i though ebay buyer protections is just a big scam , now i know it actually works XD

 

So, I physically sent it in for authentication and it is confirmed counterfeit. This computer's getting old and I'm not going to spend 2/3 of what its worth on a new adapter, but I'm not risking having my house burned down using some sketchy adapter so I'm just going to live with one adapter. (I had two OEM, but lost one of them)

Lack of care for quality, and cutting corners to bare necessity for product to function. Battery packs usually contain safety circuits that detect abnormality and disable the pack and a secondary safety to vent the battery so they don't explode. They are transparent in normal operation, just like car airbags or safety relief valve on propane tanks. You could replace the airbag with a dummy load and it doesn't affect the use of vehicle at all, until you encounter a situation where it becomes a necessary.

Probably something like APC, Belkin, Duracell and well known established brands that can't just wash their hands of product liability issues.

The brand holder have control over OEM quality. With well known brand name(that aren't counterfeit) aftermarket incorporated in the states, perfect compatibility isn't guaranteed, but safety considerations are likely covered.

If you get a *counterfeit*, it probably doesn't have a proper UL listing, so will likely experience declined insurance payment if it burns down your house.

Counterfeit fashion goods are usually a matter of intellectual property infringement fights(unless it is made using toxic chemicals not permitted here) but hack job batteries and power adapters are truly dangerous.

Battery is an energy storage tank. Adapter is connected to utility line and often left unattended. For practical purpose, the utility line is an infinite source of energy.

 

got it moved to hardware section