Bought from Chinese website masquerading as UK company, Do I have any rights?

didier

I foolishly bought a laptop battery from UK-Batterys.co.uk without checking it was a UK based company. Alarm bells rang when the paypal receipt was from a Chinese name. In retrospect there where several warning signs, no company address, paypal only. Having briefly read the DSR regulations I think I am not covered as the business is outside the EU. Do I have any rights to cancel the order and payment?

bloss0m

Contact paypal otherwise I think you stand no chance, even if the battery came I wouldnt touch it with a bargepole too many cheap unsafe imitations around which could destroy your laptop due to defective cheap unsafe components or worse fire

Oliver14

bloss0m wrote: »

Contact paypal

not much point as Paypal wont reverse a payment just because the buyer doesn't want it.

Remember you only have 45 days from payment to claim non receipt. Items from China can take a while so keep an eye on timescales. The DSRs do not apply to non uk companies (how would they enforce them). I'd contact the company and tell them you wish to cancel.

didier wrote: »

I In retrospect there where several warning signs, no company address, paypal only.

Why would you think that Paypal only is a warning sign. For buyers Paypal is very good as it is easy to claim for items that do not arrive or are misdescribed. Also you dont risk your card details to an unknown company. The only problem you may get is misdescribed items for non uk companies as you have to pay for tracked returns.

bloss0m

No but if it doesnt come they have come back with paypal 28 days is usually the rule for receiving goods ordered not sure if that also applied to rest of the work

Even if it did come I wouldn't use it

Oliver14 wrote: »

not much point as Paypal wont reverse a payment just because the buyer doesn't want it.

2sides2everystory

I wouldn't be particularly bothered about the fact the items come from China - almost everything does nowadays, hadn't you all noticed? :rotfl:

However, that website you mentioned doesn't seem to exist so is that the first clue you are on a loser?

Perhaps you mean uk-batteryshop.co.uk. If so, their website doesn't look too shabby to me. If the price was right and they had a battery I needed, then I think I could be tempted but I suggest that rather than worry overly about the merchant you need to check out the specifications and satisfy yourself that you are getting the kind of deal you want.

I recently bought a replacement battery for my old laptop from http://www.kingbattery.co.uk/ and it eventually arrived from Singapore but is a good battery.

A friend recently found a Dell XPS1530 9 cell replacement on a visit to China for 220 RNB, the equivalent of about £22 ! He regularly gets 3.5 hours out of it and wishes he'd bought a lorry load! The general level of mark-up between China and elsewhere in the Far-East where almost all these things are made and western markets where most of us are fool enough to buy them is absolutely astonishing. For many of us it is well worth the risk of a mistake once in a while for something like a laptop battery.

Original laptop batteries deteriorate quite fast. That's why there is such an active aftermarket. The chances of damaging your two year old laptop with an non-original battery are actually quite small I think. I think it is just as likely your old laptop has become a fire risk because it is clogged with two years of fluff and you've done nothing about it than it is by fitting a non original replacement battery. Although if you do both and regularly leave the laptop switched on laying it on the sofa or on a bed then maybe you are asking for it to overheat in every way imaginable!

Fingers crossed your battery will arrive in two or three weeks and will be good.

unholyangel

2sides2everystory wrote: »

I wouldn't be particularly bothered about the fact the items come from China - almost everything does nowadays, hadn't you all noticed? :rotfl:

However, that website you mentioned doesn't seem to exist so is that the first clue you are on a loser?

Perhaps you mean uk-batteryshop.co.uk. If so, their website doesn't look too shabby to me. If the price was right and they had a battery I needed, then I think I could be tempted but I suggest that rather than worry overly about the merchant you need to check out the specifications and satisfy yourself that you are getting the kind of deal you want.

I recently bought a replacement battery for my old laptop from http://www.kingbattery.co.uk/ and it eventually arrived from Singapore but is a good battery.

A friend recently found a Dell XPS1530 9 cell replacement on a visit to China for 220 RNB, the equivalent of about £22 ! He regularly gets 3.5 hours out of it and wishes he'd bought a lorry load! The general level of mark-up between China and elsewhere in the Far-East where almost all these things are made and western markets where most of us are fool enough to buy them is absolutely astonishing. For many of us it is well worth the risk of a mistake once in a while for something like a laptop battery.

Original laptop batteries deteriorate quite fast. That's why there is such an active aftermarket. The chances of damaging your two year old laptop with an non-original battery are actually quite small I think. I think it is just as likely your old laptop has become a fire risk because it is clogged with two years of fluff and you've done nothing about it than it is by fitting a non original replacement battery. Although if you do both and regularly leave the laptop switched on laying it on the sofa or on a bed then maybe you are asking for it to overheat in every way imaginable!

Fingers crossed your battery will arrive in two or three weeks and will be good.

I think the point is that batteries in the UK should conform to safety standards and have to have additional safety features which are not required in other countries (ie china). Which is often why they're so cheap from china.....because they dont have that additional cost.

If i need to pay over the odds for peace of mind, i would. Always remember one story of a woman who bought a replacement charger for her son - supposedly a genuine nintendo one. It came from china, wasnt a genuine one and cost her son his life. But it had all the markings of a official nintendo one.

All fine and well saying "its only a battery" but when dealing with electricity, always better to be safe than sorry.

2sides2everystory

There is becoming less and less reason for anyone in China or anywhere else deliberately making a global product that doesn't work or is dangerous anymore than anyone in the UK doing the same. In fact if the Chinese authorities caught anyone doing the latter and thereby affecting their international reputation for being the world's preferred manufacturing hub for everything other than late model Audis then I think they might suffer a whole lot more than they would at the hands of local Trading Standards in the UK

I think the supposed existence of the safety standards you refer to may be deluding you. The world has changed. China now has a significant reputation for technological excellence - they launched their own space station last week and you can bet it had Chinese batteries in it which were marked with no Euro standards!

I can't find any report of the loss of a life due to counterfeit a Nintendo charger. I don't doubt it but have you a link?

Even the mighty Sony Corporation had to replace millions of batteries in its original Vaios due to safety concerns after they had already reached millions of homes.

I would have far more concern now about a cheap laptop battery that said made in UK than I would one that said Made in China on it.

Afterall, the Chinese are the experts in making laptop batteries, not UK and not anyone else in Europe to my knowledge.

unholyangel

2sides2everystory wrote: »

There is becoming less and less reason for anyone in China or anywhere else deliberately making a global product that doesn't work or is dangerous anymore than anyone in the UK doing the same. In fact if the Chinese authorities caught anyone doing the latter and thereby affecting their international reputation for being the world's preferred manufacturing hub for everything other than late model Audis then I think they might suffer a whole lot more than they would at the hands of local Trading Standards in the UK

I think the supposed existence of the safety standards you refer to may be deluding you. The world has changed. China now has a significant reputation for technological excellence - they launched their own space station last week and you can bet it had Chinese batteries in it which were marked with no Euro standards!

I can't find any report of the loss of a life due to counterfeit a Nintendo charger. I don't doubt it but have you a link?

Even the mighty Sony Corporation had to replace millions of batteries in its original Vaios due to safety concerns after they had already reached millions of homes.

I would have far more concern now about a cheap laptop battery that said made in UK than I would one that said Made in China on it.

Afterall, the Chinese are the experts in making laptop batteries, not UK and not anyone else in Europe to my knowledge.

Not the same case I initially mentioned (the one i mentioned was featured on watchdog btw, was a interview with the boys mother and he was slightly older than the one in this story) but.....
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2641861.ece

I draw your attention to the particular:
After Connor’s death, the device was sent to LGA, a German electrical laboratory, where it was found to be far below European safety standards.


As i said, they have different safety standards to ours. According to several sites, 90% of counterfeit goods that enter the UK come from China. I dont doubt there are good genuine products in China. I'm just saying its not worth the risk.

You buy something from a store in the UK and that product is faulty or causes injury in some way, you have legal recourse. You buy from China? You have none.

While officials in china may be concerned about the reputation, i doubt crooks are. Have you ever watched the program that deals with customs and excise? containers full of fake stuff and guess where it all comes from? China.

2sides2everystory

I'm just saying its not worth the risk.

You think. But we haven't identified the risk properly yet have we?

containers full of fake stuff and guess where it all comes from? China.

Of that I have no doubt, because no-one else makes anything

Guess where most of the fake financial services advice comes from?

unholyangel

2sides2everystory wrote: »

You think. But we haven't identified the risk properly yet have we?

You might still be assessing it. I'm not.

You purchase something from overseas and it turns out to be counterfeit/inferior quality, then best case scenario you've saved yourself a few quid and have a product that works. Worst case scenario? Either you or someone you love is killed/seriously injured by it and theres nothing you can do about it.

Or are you saying that risking lives is worth saving a few pounds? Bearing in mind that often counterfeit goods are so hard to tell apart from the real deal, that testing by professionals is required.

People pay for peace of mind. If they didnt, insurance policies/warranties wouldnt exist.

You might think its worth the risk, I dont.

2sides2everystory

I think you may be tending to melodrama on this.

We are talking about a laptop battery here but you have used an electrocution risk as an example of your assessment.

Do you know how much a branded Dell 9 cell battery for an XPS1530 costs? No, nor do I now, but in 2008 it cost around £100 MORE than a 6 cell battery for the same unit. And three years later my friend buys a good replacement from China for £22. Is that wrong?

Where is the known risk in that? Is his new one more prone to bursting into flames than one costing 5 times as much? Maybe but how many do we actually hear about that do that? (I mentioned Sony genuine batteries earlier - a few of those did!).

Is it electrocution risk - ehm no, not at 11.1 volts DC I think Is it the risk that it might not perform as well as the original? Maybe, but for a saving like that, is it significant?

Thousands of aftermarket laptop batteries from China are sitting in aircraft holds as we debate this here. Do you not think that if they were not generally quite safe that they would be filtered out by cargo scanning machines and all sent in sealed containers by sea with a health warning?