goodbattery.co.uk, beware if buying a laptop battery

milesoneill

Long story so best make a cuppa!


The series of events are as follows:

1. I purchased a Toshiba replacement laptop battery from www.goodbattery.co.uk for £45 plus £6 P&P. I used Paypal to complete the transaction on my credit card.
2. The battery was dispatched (from China!) but I did not use it until Christmas, as it was a gift for someone else.
3. On Christmas Day the battery was found to be faulty, failing to take a charge and not recognised by the laptop. I contacted the company via email who told me to return the item to their warehouse in China (!) for testing.
4. I did this in line with their returns policy, costing me £6.50
5. They confirmed receipt of battery and agreed that it was faulty. I requested a full refund of the purchase price.
6. They sent a partial refund of £43 to my Paypal account, instead of my credit card, so I incurred £1.88 Paypal fees!
7. I requested the final £2 payment from them but they are now insisting that the £2 was not returned as this is their restocking charge. This is in complete contravention of their returns policy for defective products.


I cannot raise a dispute with Paypal as they only allow disputes to be raised within 45 daysof purchase.
Repeated emails to the Goodbattery company give the same response that this charge is their policy. I have tried to contact them directly, which was when I discovered that the company are not quite who they say they are.

Further research on my part has revealed the company to be operating from bogus UK addresses. I have discovered that:

• The company address on their website is non-existent. It is given as:

Deliton battery INC.
Unit 12,
96 Leicester Road,
East Finchley,
London N2 9EA

which is not recognised by Royal Mail as a valid address and confirmed using Google Streetview. I have also found the websites www.mylaptopbattery.co.uk and www.batteriesshop.co.uk operate from this address, so I can only assume they are the same people.

• The company phone number (+44 20 8816 8080) is unusable as the automated message “The number you have dialled has not been recognised…” came through.

• The address used to register the www.goodbattery.co.uk website also appears to be false, again not recognised by Royal Mail.

deliton technology co.ltd
99 Leicester Square
London
WC2H 7LA
United Kingdom

[FONT=&quot]Neither Goodbattery nor Deliton are recognised names in the Companies House database.

So, I'm down £12.50 for P&P, £2 illegal charge, and £1.88 Paypal fees and no battery to show for my efforts. They insist (via email) on a daily basis that it's their policy to charge a fee, and that they are unable to update their website to reflect this (strange, no?!)

So, if looking for a laptop battery, beware of all of these companies.

Miles.

Oh, I've reported them to Trading Standards and my credit card company.
[/FONT]

KeithP

So what is their real address then? Somewhere in China?

Don't think Trading Standards can help without a UK address.

Companies House is also only about UK companies.

And here's two more websites mentioning the same fake address...
http://www.superbattery.co.uk
http://www.dailybattery.co.uk

milesoneill

Yes, their real address is in China somewhere. Trading Standards sent me a letter template, but you're right, not much more they can do.
I mentioned Companies House as the company were using a UK address (so they should have be registered there, or am I wrong?)
My message is more a warning for others, but I'll keep you up to date if I get anywhere.

KeithP

milesoneill wrote: »

I mentioned Companies House as the company were using a UK address (so they should have be registered there, or am I wrong?)

But they are not trading from a UK address.

You may know this already, but to warn others... a website address ending in .co.uk does not necessarily mean the company is UK based.

OneADay

The post codes look genuine enough, but the street number/name are false. Giveaway sign too on the site they put the address as an image rather than text.

The real china address might be this

c202 xinmao garden minzhi road bao'an District
shenzhen
518131
China

One of the domains is registered to what looks like a proper address

39 ALBION CRECENT LONG LEYS ROAD
LINCOLN
Lincolnshire
LN1 1EB
United Kingdom

Its down to Trading Standards in my opinion to act.

milesoneill

KeithP - I see what you're getting at, but they pretend to trade from a UK address. Lack of registration at Companies House means this is clearly not the case. None of the websites have a China address, and all use the same fake London number. Hmm...

That's some good research BTW on the other two websites, nice work!

milesoneill

For info, the address I returned the battery to, and also the one registered to the Paypal account they used to send me my partial refund is:

Zhangyanxia
Bishuilongting 7-1-9D
Longhua town
Shenzhen
China

milesoneill

Another one to add to the list
http://www.batterystores.co.uk/

Darksun

Might be worth reporting to paypal, they can shut down the account if it's being used fraudulently (or just for any reason paypal don't like, seemingly)

HoofeHearted

Here are the details of all the domains mentioned. Very suspicious!

http://www.batterystores.co.uk
Cai Zhengwen
UK Individual
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.
Registered on: 13-Oct-2009


http://www.goodbattery.co.uk
deliton technology co.ltd
99 Leicester Square
London
NA
WC2H 7LA
United Kingdom
Registered on: 05-Jul-2008


http://www.mylaptopbattery.co.uk
yancai zhang
c202,xinmao garden
minzhi road
bao'an District
shenzhen
518131
China
Registered on: 16-Apr-2008


http://www.batteriesshop.co.uk
yancai zhang
batteriesshop.co.uk inc
39 ALBION CRECENT
LONG LEYS ROAD
LINCOLN
Lincolnshire
LN1 1EB
United Kingdom
Registered on: 16-Apr-2008


http://www.superbattery.co.uk & http://www.dailybattery.co.uk
Xia Shaocheng
Utowns.org
UK Individual
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.
Registered on: 04-Jul-2009

buglawton

You did well to get most of the cost refunded.This shows that even the dodgiest of co's are sensitive when Paypal is involved.