Voltaplex.com / BatteryBro.com - Are they legit?

[frame]

@BenjaminF

compelling prices for not-sure-if-legit 30Q’s

ftfy

[BenjaminF]

@frame

pretty much all actual companies that run by genuine Hong Kong people will never reply email starting with “hello friend”, no, actually the word friend won’t even appear in a business conversation, we have a higher english standard

Literally just got this hhahaha

(different company, not batterybro or voltaplex)

[frame]

hello friend, they are fake

[BenjaminF]

Nah, that’s an email from a know-decent company I have ordered from before.

[frame]

i still don’t understand why “friend”, it doesn’t make it more friendlier, if anything, its even worse than “hello there” or “hello (ur name)”

[BenjaminF]

Definitely. It’s creepy/robotic 9 times out of 10.

[frame]

its creepy for sure im chinese and i can’t even stand this crap

[Battery_Mooch]

@BenjaminF

@Battery_Mooch this topic uses the words “battery,” “cell,” and “genuine,” at least once, so this is your obligatory tag Got any experience with these vendors

BatteryBro was one of the more popular sites for vapers to order cells from a few years ago but, as you noted, they disappeared. I haven’t heard anything about them in a long time. I don’t know if they or Voltaplex are vendors to trust or not. I have not heard anything bad, I just don’t know.

[BenjaminF]

Awesome, thanks man! Your insights on this stuff is greatly appreciated!

[BenjaminF]

Margie’s response. Doesn’t seem to provide any new info, just confirms what we already found out.

I am leaning towards not rolling the dice on this vendor. With global cell shortages and major cell manufacturers pushing to get their cells out of the retail market, I suspect that now is a particularly high-risk time for fake cells or b-grade or any number of other bad things to sneak into our markets.

That’s not to say that BatteryBro is not legit. I still dont have any strong evidence one way or the other. I just think I will be sticking to the roads more traveled for now, even if that means paying more per cell.

[Tamatoa]

@BenjaminF

I’m not sure what fronting as a Hong Kong business would benefit a Shenzhen based company, but whatevs.

A company registered in Hong Kong doesn"t pay profit taxes on deals or transactions taking place outside of hong kong. If the inventory and employees are in china or anywhere else and Hong Kong just has the bank account to recieive the payments, no taxes. It is usually harder to prove if you do have an actual office and employees in Hong Kong.

Plus that will be cash on an account that isn’t in China, I am sure it has its perks.

[frame]

@Tamatoa

it has its perks

anything kind of money that isn’t in china is already a huge profit

[Tamatoa]

That’s what I have been told as well , and this is why they are really good at finding “solutions” to avoid paying

[BCoad]

@BenjaminF I bought 50 30q’s from batterybro about 2 years ago. Also Margie was the person who I talked to. Haven’t actually finished my esk8 battery yet, but can say I’ve been vaping with a few of the batteries ever since and they seem to have held up well(using 2 right now) had one fail but I did drop it and it was quite dented so think it just was that rather then failed because it was shity. If you do decide to try them from memory I was able to talk Margie into giving me a small discount(and I’m not great at bargaining). I did hear about them possibly selling a batch of fake cells too so dunno if I’m super confident in them either. But I think I would buy from them again.

[BenjaminF]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[anton_vp]

Hi everyone! I am Anton from Battery Bro / Voltaplex / Voltx.ai

And hello Battery_Mooch I remember those days well, and you are right we stopped serving the vape / e-cigarette demographic some years ago. That’s because the OEMs asked us to and we obliged. Since those days around 2015 we have pivoted from being a loose-cell supplier for B2B into mainly battery packs for entities all around the world.

Our clients include governments, Fortune 500 companies, and leading institutions. Our battery packs have flown to space and deep in the oceans. We are producing battery packs for Covid-19 respirators in India as well as Covid-19 IoT shipment trackers used in the USA and in other countries.

Now on to all the fun questions!

1. What is the Hong Kong address

It is for mail receiving / forwarding as someone else has said. For example sometimes we need a few parts like a special connector flown in for a sample. Where there are customs issues if we fly them into China directly.

2. Why is Anton (CEO) replying to that blog post

I wish I didn’t! But my sales department was getting a reasonable amount of questions about it when people Googled us so I decided to reply myself. I did some research and I believe that site is run by a competitor in Dongguan. (Same one they “speculate” we are working with in that article.) But we have never heard of them lol…

Second I am an older millennial that uses the internet like everyone else. I get alerts for social media when my company + name is mentioned and that’s how I found this site.

3. I heard I received fakes from them

Since we opened in late 2014 we have never had a claim of fake cells, we also offer a 21 day warranty for users to check if they are fake or underperform since inception. Weve had literally thousands of orders and millions of cells shipped without any issue. Keep in mind we were are the forefront of cell anti-counterfeiting operations back in the day and have the highest-viewed article on fake LG HG2s (this article alone was viewed millions of times).

4. Margie is Chinese

No, she’s in the Philippines and born there haha. I think she has been with us for at least 4 years now. Our sales team is all working remotely. I am an avid traveler myself (and lived in China for 7 years) but no longer do.

Thanks for the interest in our products.

If you are interested in automating battery pack design, please check out our new alpha release at https://voltx.ai You can make a free account and generate designs in just a few minutes. We’re also working on some new features we are going to release in the next few months that will make drawing custom shapes and configurations a lot more fun.

[Battery_Mooch]

Hello Anton!
Thanks for stopping by.

[Cryo]

I got some quoted some really good prices for cells in my exchange with margie. Unfortunately shipping to california was about 220 usd.

[BenjaminF]

Hey Anton, thanks for coming and addressing these questions!

@anton_vp

Since those days around 2015 we have pivoted from being a loose-cell supplier for B2B into mainly battery packs for entities all around the world.

Where are your battery packs manufactured?

@anton_vp

Keep in mind we were are the forefront of cell anti-counterfeiting operations back in the day and have the highest-viewed article on fake LG HG2s (this article alone was viewed millions of times).

Im wondering if you can expand on what measures your company/companies currently take to verify cell quality? Especially with the market as it currently is, lots of us are on high-alert for counterfeit cells. Even large suppliers recently have been the victim of counterfeit/low quality cells, and they passed on many of those cells to customers due to improper quality control.

@anton_vp

4. Margie is Chinese

No, she’s in the Philippines and born there haha.

My mistake, I should not have assumed her country of origin. I meant no offense, I apologize.

@anton_vp

If you are interested in automating battery pack design, please check out our new alpha release at https://voltx.ai

I have tested out this tool myself, and it is definitely something new and interesting. It has a lot of potential, and I can see myself using it in the future depending on what features get added.