Are my batteries from Liion Wholesale authentic?
This is a common question among people who are afraid to get a fake battery and for good reason. We want you to be confident in your batteries. Very soon we'll have some awesome blog posts on how to tell fake batteries with pictures and detailed writeups, but for now this page is just to help those who have purchased batteries from our site and for whatever reason are questioning their authenticity.
I want to emphasize that every batch of batteries we get, we test a bunch of samples from. We test them in all kinds of ways, from continuous discharge to pulsing. We unwrap them and verify the inner cells. We have batteries that we buy from other reputable sellers to use as comparison points. This all makes sure that every batch we have is both genuine as well as a good batch of batteries.
On top of that we only buy manufacturer direct in any instance where that's possible to eliminate any possible middle men that might switch out batteries for fakes. For example eFest is only bought direct from eFest.
Here are some common complaints we've seen in a FAQ format:
My battery doesn't have any of the manufacturer markings on it, just a generic sticker that says the model name. Does that mean it's a fake battery?
This is a common question, with a simple answer. You simply need to take off that sticker. Sometimes we have to put that sticker on for various reasons, usually to meet shipping regulations that require battery specifications on the battery. We treat it as part of the packaging for the consumer to remove like most online sellers do. All the markings you're looking for are probably just covered by the sticker.
I ordered Sony VTC3 batteries from you and then checked online and I think they're fake?
Many people have seen an excellent writeup on the internet written by Sun Vapers about how to tell if a VTC5 is fake. What they aren't very clear about is that this information is only valid for the VTC5! The VTC4 looks very close to the VTC5 and you can probably use it for that as well, but the VTC3 is a very different looking battery. Yes it's green and has a similar QR code but one of the most obvious differences is that the VTC3 has a raised negative! I will say it again, the VTC3 has a raised negative side, not the flat negative that the VTC4 and VTC5 have. Sony has different companies manufacture each of its batteries and I guess the VTC3 is manufactured from a different supplier than the others.
You can check online for more evidence:
Google image search for VTC3: Note that all of them have the raised negative
You can see here where the top comment on reddit notes the difference
Here's a youtube video where they comment about it in the comments
And another brief discussion about it on e-cigarette-forum
From our end, we've tested the VTC3 in all kinds of tests and it outperforms every other battery out there in high current performance (of course other batteries may have more mAh capacity since the VTC3 is only 1600mAh). We've tested it to stupidly high current levels that I won't even post here for liability reasons and I can tell you they handled current much higher than the specs say without a complaint (please don't try this outside of a controlled testing environment!). We're 100% sure the ones we carry are authentic.
These batteries just have a generic white box, not a box that says Samsung, Sony, etc....are they fake?
You have to keep in mind that these batteries are not intended for consumer usage. The only batteries we currently sell that have a manufacturer supplied box are eFest. All other batteries come packaged bulk without boxes, so we put them into a generic box so that they don't have any trouble shipping to you without damage. This does not mean they are fake.
How can I tell if my efest batteries are genuine?
eFest batteries are great because they have an anti-counterfeit code. You can enter it here and it will tell you if it's genuine eFest.
Also you can check their page here on how to differentiate fake efest vs genuine efest.
If somehow you got a battery from us without the anti-counterfeit code just let us know, it may be old stock as they just started putting in the anti-counterfeit code. I believe all of our stock has the code now though.
We have also heard it is possible to sometimes get a bad code, even in an authentic battery. If this happens just let us know and we'll replace any batteries with bad codes.