Dear all,

This is just a follow up to Irresponsible Seller - Clareen Thread regarding the battery dispute issue as the thread has been locked. Well, if the mods feel that this thread should be merged with the earlier thread, please feel free to do so but please do not delete this thread as I'm putting this thread here for the affected parties to view it.

I have emailed the pictures of BST-33 battery (Midland) to Sony Ericsson Malaysia and I have received an email from them this morning (picture as attached below).




Mr Jaswant from the Sony Ericsson Malaysia call centre called me on my mobile around 4:30 pm, he has told me that this is not the original battery distributed by Sony Ericsson Malaysia and they have notified Midland about it. I have scanned the warranty card as requested by him with Clareen Gallery's business chop on it to him as he wanted to know where I bought my phone. I've told him that I'm not the only affected party but he said that's alright, he wanted the info so that they can launch an investigation on this matter.

He has asked us to bring our phone, our battery, our warranty card, our box (if you still have it with you) to any Sony Ericsson service centre. I have told him about the attitude problem of the people in the service centre that they have a habit of passing judgement by looking at the Midland sticker. He said that we should insist to see someone qualified to check our battery, tell them that the Sony Ericsson call centre mentioned that the battery is not officially distributed by them and you want the person to check whether it is a genuine battery. Please remember this. If you just go and ask a leng lui sitting in the frontdesk to check for you then I guess you're better off not going to the service centre in the first place because you're there to check the battery and not to make friends with her. Please don't get carried away. It might take a while to check the battery if you guys or girls are planning to go there during lunch time, better inform your boss that you might be coming back late after lunch. Just an advice.

If the battery is a fake, you may summon Clareen to settle the dispute but if they mentioned that the battery is genuine, please PM me, I'll reply back and tell Mr Jaswant about this. He was puzzled why our Midland battery is totally different from the rest as that's not the official battery distributed here in Malaysia. Of course, please refrain from flaming Clareen, let Sony Ericsson Malaysia handle their investigation first because if it's 100% original and not an official battery in Malaysia, that means someone might have changed it with an AP battery without Sony Ericsson Malaysia's knowledge as Midland or any official distributors are not supposed to do that according to Mr Jaswant.

So, affected parties, please update me via PM. I guess it's better for one person to liase with Sony Ericsson Malaysia regarding this issue. Of course, if you wanna contact them directly, you may do so. I'm not stopping ya.

Okay, as an advice to all of you, please don't look at the ori hologram sticker, whether it's from Zitron, Avaxx, Midland, Thorus, etc ........ because fake batteries now come with such stickers, some handphone stalls in Prangin Mall, Penang are selling fake batteries with ori hologram sticker to deceive the buyer. That means a fake battery originally worth RM5 can be sold at RM50 by telling the customer that this battery is an AP ori battery but the actual fact, it's a fake battery. For those buying handphone batteries in LYN, please take note of this, don't just take the seller's word for it and if the battery is so cheap and too good to be true, you should be extra careful. Don't be ignorant but if the seller frankly told you that the battery is a fake, then I guess you shouldn't complain if the price is reasonable.

For example, a fake Nokia battery with an ori lookalike hologram sticker,
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/401729 (Thread is merely used as an example, hope that the seller is not offended )

Mr. Jaswant agreed with me that there are fake SE batteries with the distributor's hologram sticker especially those rated as Grade A fakes. High quality fake goods are hard to differentiate with our naked eye.

As for Viking's remarks in this thread, http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/396662/+200 regarding the battery status not 100% when we use a fake battery is totally incorrect. I'll illustrate this with my K610i, fully charged with a Grade A BST-37 fake battery and the battery status shown is 100%. Please refer to the pictures below.







So, convinced now? You'll get the same results whether it's for K508i, K800i, W850i, M900i, P990i, etc because my friend sells these Grade A fake batteries so he should know better about this. So Viking, please take note. The rest, please do not PM me where to buy these fake batteries, I'm not promoting them here, it's just for your reference just in case you guys think that if your battery status is 100%, then your battery is original. Some people do reach to such a conclusion this way.

I'll be locking this thread, I don't want any debates, arguments or off topic discussions to start from this thread. I just wanna keep this thread clean, if there are any updates, I'll update it here once I have received feedback from affected parties. If you have anything to voice out, I guess you should continue from the previous thread created here, http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/396662/+200, please kindly PM our mods to reopen that thread.

This post has been edited by sunauto: Jan 22 2007, 07:36 PM

Just to clarify something, im not saying that all Fake batteries cant charge 100%, i mentioned that the fake batteries which i bought myself cant fully charge and i didn't make conclusion that Fake battery = cant charge 100%. That's why i put that in the last paragraph which refers to my personal experience.



The reason why i brought up my personal experience is because, I myself got a few of fake BST-37 batteries for my w800 last time and they are working like charm. However it's different case for my k800 where the fake batteries can only charge up to 20% or sometimes lower than that. That's the reason i raise up this matter. I was like you too assuming that it'll work just like BST-37 batteries.

Anybody has tested the BST-33 Fake Batteries for k800? perhaps you can PM me to share your experience.

This post has been edited by vikingw2k: Jan 22 2007, 08:02 PM

Please don't misunderstand Viking, I just thought of telling the rest of the forumers here just in case they have mistaken your statement that all fake bateries can't charge until 100% for the battery status. That's all.

K800i with fake BST-33? Still the same results, 100% too. My colleagues are using fake BST-33 batteries, they bought it from my friend so it's the same type of fake batteries for all models, we haven't tried other fake batteries but I guess it's silly to do that. It's not that we're running a fake handphone battery review here.

This post has been edited by sunauto: Jan 22 2007, 08:26 PM

Don't worry no hard feelings, just don't want them to misunderstood that i jumped to the conclusion that Fake batteries cant fully charge 100%, just voicing out my personal experience.

by the way, sunauto, if you don't mind, can i have the full screenshot of the email including the header and footer.

also can you list down / PM me the details of the SE's personnel that you've spoken to.
- contact details
- email
- full name
- staff ID




This post has been edited by vikingw2k: Jan 22 2007, 09:40 PM

Well, Viking, I don't think that I wish to go further with this discussion anymore as I've already lodged this complaint with Sony Ericsson Malaysia and as this matter doesn't involve you, just us, Clareen / her supplier, Midland and Sony Ericsson Malaysia, I guess you shouldn't worry about this as I believe you have other important matters to attend to in LYN. I had a very tiring day today, doing this and that, I'm still stucked in the office trying to finish up my work.

If there's anything, I'll update you guys here and as for affected members, please PM me once you have visited the service centre. As for me, not so soon I guess (need to work mah) but I'll try to ask my mother or gf to help me to pay the service centre a visit if they're free.

Okay, I gtg.

I've edited the topic title to properly reflect the issues being discussed here. As far as I can see, Clareen is not involved in this (as per your post) and she has repeatedly stated that she has little control of the type of batteries that go into the phones.

If you have any issues regarding this, feel free to PM me directly.

Just an update on the SE battery dispute issue, I have already went to their service centre before driving off to Kedah for a meeting this morning. Went to talk to the technical supervisor regarding my problem. He asked me to take a seat and took my phone and battery to check. He got back to me to say that the serial number of the battery and my phone's IMEI match the ones in their database but they're not the official ones to be distributed in Malaysia. He said firstly, my hp's firmware cannot be updated via 3G/GPRS, I told him yeah, you're right. The battery one no need to say lah, he already said it's genuine but just that, it's not an official battery. Seeing that I've told him that I have a report case ID from them, he made a call to the SE call centre, updated them about this, then he said Mr. Jaswant wanted to speak to me. He said the upper management of Sony was informed of this problem, he said apparently Midland imported a batch of W850i, K610i, K618i and K800i from elsewhere to meet the high demand during the festive season whereby SE Malaysia gave freebies like the PV-705 bluetooth headset, Guess watch, etc which was from last month till end of this month. We're looking at a few thousand units of such phones being imported into the country and I'm afraid that I'm one of them owning it. So, the culprit doing the hanky panky stuff is clearly Midland people. That was why some forums members couldn't update their firmware via the phone, the solution is simple, just download the Update Service software from SE website and update your phone via the provided USB cable or of course, via the service centre.

Mr. Jaswant assured me that Sony Ericsson Malaysia has taken note of this and will extend their warranty to cover the odd batch of phones imported into Malaysia. Actually I have no complains as long as the battery is a genuine one and even though I couldn't update my phone's firmware via the phone, I guess it's not a big issue here.

Anyway, I did get Midland's reply as shown below but after forwarding that Sony Ericsson email to him, that bloke didn't have the guts to get back to me. I guess he couldn't explain it so he chose to ignore me.



Based on this, I can say Clareen is not involved but the problem lies with Midland people because they probably imported phones without Sony Ericsson Malaysia's knowledge. Of course, I never did accuse Clareen of anything and I hope if she's reading this, you're not offended or anything because a few of us were a little upset when you told us to check with the SESC, not that we're lazy to go there or what but just that everyone of us need to work and secondly, we thought you'll be able to check it much faster for us seeing that you always liase with your suppliers. Maybe because we assume that sellers will always go an extra mile to take care of their customers. I mean we're your customers, we have bought the phone from you so it's pretty normal for us to get back to you if we're doubtful, it can be anything, not only the handphone battery.

The rest can still go to the SESC to verify your phone and battery but I seriously doubt that there's anything to be alarmed about but if it will give you a peace of mind or you want a second opinion, please feel free to go there.

As for Clareen I can see you're a bit angry from the way you have replied under this thread, http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/402890/+960 and I was like OMG ...... what did I say? I was merely replying to the two forumers and I was not making a personal attack at you or accusing you of anything. Please don't misunderstand.

Okay, as for myself, I have nothing else to doubt about this matter so case close but I'll leave this thread open so that if the affected parties wanna post anything or updates, please do so here but if you guys and gals think, you don't have anything to add. I'll close this thread by this Sunday. As for the rest, please kindly refrain from posting off topic discussions here, only for affected parties. Thanks!

To Clareen, lets settle this peacefully like adults, if I've hurt your feelings indirectly because of my tone, I'm sorry about this. Secondly, I never doubted you, that is true but I do admit that I was angry (to be honest) when you said you trusted your suppliers and asked us to go to the SESC by ourselves, sorta of like telling us it's not my fault, don't find me. Maybe it was a misunderstand from both parties. So Clareen, whatever the misunderstanding is, lets forget about the whole issue, okay? Peace?

P/S: I think Clareen owes Vikingw2k a dinner and a Starbucks, he has been answering all the questions here and even took the trouble to take pictures of the batteries, answered tons of questions from Shezzar. Honestly, Vikingw2k can answer questions much better than those people from Midland. I guess if you give them a battery quiz, they will fail the test, just stick the Midland sticker on three fake batteries and ask them which one is the real thing.

sigh..

SE not bother to reply me. wait for another day before writing to them again.

what you mean by official, I suppose you are refering the phone & its battery arent meant for distribution in Malaysia but somewhere else. correct me if wrong

cheers

FYI..clareen had been to SE office and had this clarified also yesterday evening.. i guess she'll update u guys on this too

I thought that they will reply immediately, you contacted them via their website's support section? This is the second time I'm complaining to them, the first time was about the Java games, they charged me for games that couldn't be downloaded (with broken links) so I've complaint to them and yes, they have settled the issue quickly.


The phone and the battery are both genuine based on the serial numbers, they're not recond sets, totally brand new, just that they're from another region, minor problem lah, just cannot update the phone's firmware via the phone. I can live with that so not a problem I guess. I just want the battery to be genuine that's all. I'm not pointing fingers at Clareen actually, just worry the distributors might change the original package with Grade 'AAA' stuff than pass it to the sellers without their knowledge. The possibility is there because even for NDS and PSP, they have the guts to change the accessories with the fake one but it's too late to complain once you have stepped out of the shop because nobody is gonna admit. I consider this case close.


Hahaha ..... aiyah ...... if she have went there earlier, I didn't have to rush like mad yesterday, I nearly missed my meeting. Had to drive like Ricky Bobby to reach my destination. Luckily, the SESC got not a single customer there so I was the first one there. By the way, do you know that the SESC is selling the BST-33 ori battery at RM238??? Crazy ..... SESC more expensive than authorised SE dealers. Outside are selling around RM168 but got some discount lah. You'll be surprised to know the warranty for the battery is actually 3 months and not 1 year, if it's 1 year, better check if the warranty comes with the distributor or personal warranty from the seller. They told me it's for 3 months only. Why like that also I dunno because compatible batteries have at least 1 year warranty.

Okay lah .......... this is issue is considered close already for me so if the rest wanna post the outcome after going to the SESC, please post it here but if no replies from you guys and gals, I'll close this thread this coming Sunday since there's no dispute already, no point leaving this thread open here.

I'm just doing my part here by pointing out the hidden facts that might save one innocent soul from being framed

This post has been edited by vikingw2k: Jan 25 2007, 03:32 PM

I'm ok with the solution now. Have a good explanation from SE PIC that the battery is genuine and can claim warranty as always. Guess I no need to elaborate so much since sunauto and viking already beat me to it

Thanks for clarifying suiteng, AFAIK she has visited quite a number of Sony Ericsson Service Centres to verify the phone and battery

This post has been edited by vikingw2k: Jan 25 2007, 04:22 PM

Ya... 4 places to be exact
SESC - Cheras, Berjaya, KLCC
Midland - Menara Genesis

Whoah, Sui Teng, you really have time to visit 4 places altogether? I don't I'm gonna do that to be honest. If they say the battery is original and the warranty for the battery is recognized, that's good enough for me.

P/S: Viking, please don't misunderstand, I never blamed or accused Clareen at all, I only raised this question when Alienfighter told me that the battery was different, I never bothered to check the battery since I was using my K800i happily. That's a fact. Well, I think you shouldn't mention the part where Clareen sold some of the accessories to me at cost price. That's supposed to be a secret unless you want her to 'bantai' you.

Alienfighter, why you senyap aje? I thought you wanted to say something. If by Sunday no reply from you, then I'll close this thread for good. Otherwise, after that day, you can contact Viking or any mods to reopen this thread.

Not visit all 4 on the same day lah aiyo
I'm working around that area so it's easy for me mah

Hahaha, my mistake
I guess you're famous liao, they probably caught you on CCTV.

Sunauto ,although the battery is original which from other region , please ask Clareen supplier to explain on the Midland sticker.


P/s : I dont think Midland is worldwide right ?

No need liao mah, don't kacau Clareen lah, she's a student, you want her to piak-piak you, ar? As long as SE Malaysia recognized the battery, it's enough liao, don't worry about Midland, let them settle with SE Malaysia, we just grab a popcorn, sit down and watch lor, maybe their distributor rights will be terminated in the future leh? Who knows?