Need Help, Which One looks Fake?

[madmonkey]

Ok guys,

Here's my problem. I am well versed in battery safety and how they work...but how they look is another story. I know there has been countless threads and post about "how to spot a fake VTC battery. I bought my VTC 5's long before there was a shortage and they all look the same or I've got really coincidental fakes because I bought them all from different places and they all look the same. But my VTC 3's and 4's are a different story.

If you ever met me in real life you would know I am far sighted and have to wear reading glasses. On top of that I have a semi rare form of lazy eye called "ocular displasia." or at least that's what the doc said. Basically, on top of one eye being lazy and having astigmatism and having to wear a contact just for that eye on top of the reading glasses, my brain doesn't put the two pictures together in my head so I can't see 3D and have double vision all the time...you get used to it when it's all you know....anyways here is my point. I bought 2 different pairs of VTC4's from reputable vendors ( I don't wanna say which till I am sure that one of these is fake or their both real.) and their colors and their appearance look right (even the QR codes are dots and no lines on the edges,) but the writing on them is two different sizes. Also, the backwards "LR" on one of the pairs also sits higher than the text and is a different size than the other pair. The other pair's "LR" sits below the text like my VTC 5's. I was wondering if y'all could look at these pictures and tell me if the one's with the hologram on it are fake or if the one's without the hologram are or if they both look real since I mostly buy Samsung's I am not that savy.

I also bought some VTC 3's from a third vendor and they seem to work great but 2 or the 3 batteries I bought have a crooket "LR" on them like in the third picture below and I am wondering if anyone elses is like that. If the consensus is that my batteries do seem to be fake I will tell y'all where I got them so people will know to be leary of them. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this and help. I greatly appreciate it! Happy Vaping guys and thanks again!

 

[MKPM]

Ink is too dark for those to be legit VTC4's, nor does Sony put any sort of shiny mylar stickers on their batteries. That is also a crap VTC3. That being said...I would peel them to see what is underneath.....you can always get them rewrapped. Mike at 510 Vapers got a case of supposedly legit Sony VTC series batteries once....I was there when they came in...the supplier did not even bother to remove the ICR labels!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Zamazam]

^^^^^This^^^^^

 

[madmonkey]

@franciscan / @Zamazam ....Thank you

I've got wraps on order so I can cut them open to be sure...Just wondering opinions in the meantime... I thought one of them was fake for sure and the VTC3 logo had me thinkin the same as well.

..in regards to the print being "too dark." how light should it be? I had to use the flash on my phone to get it to show up and without a bright bright light I can't read it.

 

[madmonkey]

Alright, even though I don't have wraps yet, they're in transit...this is bugging me. So I cut one open that I thought was fake for sure and this is what I saw under the wrapper...

That looks like legit Sony printing to me....now I am pissed because the little black ring that sits on top has disappeared into the ether and I can't find it anywhere...I've been doing the "find my contact with a flashlight on the floor" search and everything.

So my next question is...I know where to get the wraps but what should I make a replacement top ring out of to make sure that I don't short the top out? I was thinking of just thin plastic but is there something better?

 

[madmonkey]

Here's the VTC3....if they're fakes they're going the distance...and that's scary

 

[18650battery]

i find to google , hope help you identify Sony VTC battery not fake

 

[madmonkey]

i find to google , hope help you identify Sony VTC battery not fake

Thanks...but the picture didn't post...just a little picture Icon did...I am waiting for a couple email responses from vendors but if I am right then we will have new dectection methods...no promases yet. any help would be greatly appreciated and thank you

 

[18650battery]

Good luck for you, you buy sony battery for youself?

 

[madmonkey]

Good luck for you, you buy sony battery for youself?

Yeah, I was looking for some Authentic VTC 4's to supplement my aging VTC 5's. I have many 20R's and 25R's but I only bought 5 VTC5's when they were new before everywhere you turned you got a fake one and I use them heavily and would like some VTC 4's to take some of the work load off of them. So far, out of the 6 VTC 4's I've bought the last couple weeks, only 2 of them I am certain are authentic. It's kind of discouraging since I don't have a lot of money to dump on bad batteries or go threw the hassle of trying to exchange them.

 

[18650battery]

i am sorry to heart that , There are many fake batteries on the market today。

 

[dr_rox]

So my next question is...I know where to get the wraps but what should I make a replacement top ring out of to make sure that I don't short the top out? I was thinking of just thin plastic but is there something better?

I would look at the cap liners to some pill/vitamin/spice bottles I had empty around the house. Some of them have a teflon liner to seal the lid to container. This stuff is tough and slippy.

Use a hole puncher and/or exacto knife blade to trim. Do it on a piece of wood or cardboard.

Easiest solution - recycle a ring from a dead battery.

 

[battery bro]

Here's the VTC3....if they're fakes they're going the distance...and that's scary

It's actually easy for them to go the distance from a manufacturing perspective. But it's harder for them to do it legally.

The steel 18650 tubes are available for purchase on the open market. The machine used to print on them is relatively inexpensive. The larger problem for these companies in China is trademark. Sony is a huge corporation and has more "guanxi" in China then the smaller counterfeiters.

If a company is found counterfeiting under a brand like Sony, in a developed zone like Shenzhen they will face jail time, their company raided etc.

That is why it is more uncommon for them to fake the steel tubes, than it is the PVC wrapping.

Having said that, there are raids where counterfeit batteries, the kind that violate trademark, are destroyed regularly I've heard. Also there are many less developed places in China, where in theory someone with connections could pull it off without worrying.

The challenge of identifying counterfeits solely on visual inspection, is that there will always be uncertainty... but I think it's safe to say 1. the PVC is most likely to be faked. 2. Steel tube faking happens but is far less common.

 

[madmonkey]

It's actually easy for them to go the distance from a manufacturing perspective. But it's harder for them to do it legally.

The steel 18650 tubes are available for purchase on the open market. The machine used to print on them is relatively inexpensive. The larger problem for these companies in China is trademark. Sony is a huge corporation and has more "guanxi" in China then the smaller counterfeiters.

If a company is found counterfeiting under a brand like Sony, in a developed zone like Shenzhen they will face jail time, their company raided etc.

That is why it is more uncommon for them to fake the steel tubes, than it is the PVC wrapping.

Having said that, there are raids where counterfeit batteries, the kind that violate trademark, are destroyed regularly I've heard. Also there are many less developed places in China, where in theory someone with connections could pull it off without worrying.

The challenge of identifying counterfeits solely on visual inspection, is that there will always be uncertainty... but I think it's safe to say 1. the PVC is most likely to be faked. 2. Steel tube faking happens but is far less common.

Thank you...here's the thing that is making this so hard...a reputable vendor that I have never gotten bad batteries from sent me a pair of VTC 4's that looked more like the printing on that VTC 3 I put the picture of on so I wrote them and asked them about the differences....I never once said the word fake in the letter, just that it looked simular to a battery I believed to be counterfeit because of it's odd sized and displaced printing and poor performance compared to my other VTC's. They wrote me back stating that they don't buy "fakes" period and that there is only two distributors of VTC batteries and they buy from them both and because of the new factory the printing was different. The ones I got in question had the markings lined up in the right places unlike the one's I pictured here but still had the 12 digit serial number in the second line instead of the 10 digits like the older VTC batteries as well as the smaller print. I think I am just going to give up on them completely because if the authentics don't look authentic and there is no credible press or print put out by the manufacturer or the distributor how can we be sure?

 

[battery bro]

You are right to use your BS meter. If you have an objective measure of performance then you can be certain. Perhaps they meant only two 'authorized distributors' and forgot to mention the location. Certainly there are more than 2 in the entire world, each country will have one at the least. It's very hard to test all battery shipments, so I wouldn't hold it against your supplier. Just realize stopping counterfeiters is not an easy task and most stores simply don't have resources to verify their batteries.