N95-1: Counterfeit BL-5F?

This one looks genuine, though the after-market batteries are also safe to use and just as reliable.

If you got it for about $10 or $15 US, then you paid the right price - at least the price that the originals sell for here in Asia.

The after market batteries sell for about 1/2 to 3/4 of the originals.

alright cool i was alittle scared cuz the serial didnt check out right but even if it is fake it should be ok. its just a backup in case those days im away from home more than a couple days and i needa backup.

thanks a lot !

I have spent a few months battling a counterfeiter on eBay with some help from Nokia, but not much. Seems Nokia don't really care that their costumers gets cheated and their name is tarnished.

From your rather bad pictures I would say you have the real deal, but take a closer look on the holograms. The Nokia ones are much 'deeper' than the fakes. The oval frame around the word Nokia have different markings on the top/bottom/left/right, when you tilt it. 1 bar on the left, 2 on the right, 3 at the bottom and 4 on the top. These are not always to be seen on counterfeit products. Compare to the battery that came with the phone and you should be able to spot any difference right away.

Another way to find out if you got genuine quality, is by keeping an eye on the standby time. I got 3 different counterfeits and none of them had even 60% of the originals standby time. 500-550mAh is the capacity of these cr@ppy copies, compared to the original 950mAh.

In some situations using unoriginal products can be ok, but not when it comes to batteries. Each and every day will be plagued by the horrible standby times, so avoid at all costs.

Better pictures of your batteries would help, or maybe you could do a search in this forum. A few pictures of batteries have been posted, included some I made for you to check the differences by yourself. But based on your pictures, I would say you got good ones this time.

Nokia's battery check is stupid. If you check it once, the next time it will say it can't tell if it's genuine or not!

You should be able to ring Nokia and get them to check the serial or even take it to a service center

SBC - I dont' disagree with you, but my experience has been vastly different to yours. I guess you take a chance every time you buy non-genuine.

Where I live they are sold openly as 3rd party compatible batteries and come with their own warranty and quality standards. They are not sold here as 'fakes' - the sellers openly tell you they are not original. I've never seen an N95 imitation less than 950mA, either on the label or when testing with a multimeter - nor have I ever had one fail. I have loads of them laying around, given the variance in performance of the genuine batteries, the after market ones perform exactly the same and last just as long.

I've also had many 3rd party batteries for other types of phones, again, never a problem.

Ebay is not exactly the place I would shop for batteries though. 😊

The fake holograms tend to have blocky text and the security dots tend to be more squarish in appearance. Also the label itself is often significantly different at the back, the warnings and graphics are usually weird, or completely written in Chinese.

thanks for all the help guys!! im checking out the hologram as we speak... also sorry about the pics it was taken with my N95!! i dont really know how to work the settings tho as everything is using the stupid flash and the macro aint working :con?

ill get back to u guys asap about it

sbc wrote:I have spent a few months battling a counterfeiter on eBay with some help from Nokia, but not much. Seems Nokia don't really care that their costumers gets cheated and their name is tarnished.

Know that feeling, I bought a mem-stick pro duo from ebay

If only SONY gave a crap too, I spent months trying to get an ebay counterfeiter banned but EBAY didn't care (they were making money off him) Trading Standards didn't care (probably lack of knowledge about t'internet) and least of all Sony didn't care. They just wanted to confiscate the memory card and do nothing with it, leaving me out of pocket.

Moral of the story.... Buy nothing off Ebay unless you are prepared to take the risk of being conned.

Sorry for going off topic... Spleen vented..

I don't think that was off topic at all. Everything that can be said and done to prevent other users from paying good money for bad copies is on topic.

Yes, eBay and PayPal are very reluctant to help, for the reason you mention. They too earn money of these counterfeits. I send countless amounts of emails to both, especially PayPal, but to no avail. Send one email, wait 2-3 days for a reply, which tells you nothing. Then you don't get a reply-to address, but have to start over again and wait 2-3 days for a reply from another useless supporter. This indeed turned out to be a much bigger headache than being cheated by the seller, because I expected so much more from PayPal.

I learned my lesson: don't buy anything from eBay that you aren't ready to toss in the bin, because they are quite happy to see you ripped off, as long as they get their share. I used to shop on eBay 5-6 times each month, now I am down to once every 2-3 months and not promoting that way of buying goods any more. Hope this is the reaction eBay and PayPal wanted, 'cause it's what they got.

Seems like this thread has turned into an eBay/Paypal bashing thread!!!
For my part I have to say that after 700 transactions on eBay/Paypal I have NEVER had a major problem. All items I have bought have been as stated and indeed the cost savings acheived have been tremendous.
IMO eBay has been excellent and anyone who uses eBay must read all of the item description whilst at the same time take note of the eBay feedback "scores" and the Paypal "safe trading" cover.
Works for me :icon14:

Isn't that exactly the point? As long as it work, then why should you be unhappy? But sooner or later issues WILL arise and then how do they tackle them?

Not exactly new to eBay myself either. Registered when they were just starting out and have a 3-digit experience too. I have bought items in the $1.000 + range and all went well. I have even written guides with do's and don'ts on messageboards in my own country to help newbies avoiding the pitfalls. Until the Nokia battery problem, I was an eBay fan too. Not so anymore, because the costumer concerns of eBay and PayPal are non-exsistant. Just do a google and you will know.

So my point is still the same as in my first post of this thread. eBay is NOT the place to buy batteries and I think most will agree to that.

Checking http://europe.nokia.com/batterycheck is the best way to go. If it claims to be from Nokia and does not pass this then it is a fake. Either that or its source is very questionable.

Nokia does care about this sort of thing and I would always recommend getting the genuine article (see also http://press.nokia.com/PR/200311/925010_5.html)