Complaint Review: BatteryRefill.com

I was attracted by BatteryRefill's claims and my personal fear of a DIY job refilling Li-Ion batteries into my Apple laptop battery case. After chatting with sales and tech support, I sent in my battery in the 3Q of 2007 using their e-mailed label. Three months later I called to find out what happened to my missing battery that obviously didn't get turned around quick. I was told by tech support that there was a crisis in availability of Li-Ion cells because China had sold more than they could make. (Really? The whole country? I would have thought BatteryRefill bought from a supplier, not a country.)

After spraying them with a healthy shower of doubt about their veracity, the tech support guys promised they would do what they could to move my job to the front of the line (as if it weren't there already after a three-month wait) and grab the "first cells off of the boat" for me. Mysteriously, a week later, they called and said they had packed my battery, but when they tested it, the monitoring circuit blew up. (???) They did not say it arrived damaged, because I knew it wasn't. They then promised to rebuild my battery with more new cells and find a working monitoring circuit from a scrap battery. It was mysterious how they had gone from a famine to a feast of batteries right after my energetic intervention. I wonder if I yell at my bank will my deposit balance go up?

After many more weeks I received an e-mail saying my job was done and they would ship the next day. Actually they shipped about five days later, giving the "quick turn around" a five month schedule. (Maybe a new worst record?) The battery arrived and System Profiler confirmed it had almost 60% more capacity than my other used battery, but strangely, it lasted about half as long as my used battery. I called and was told to "cycle it" through several more discharge/recharge cycles. When that didn't work they recommended I used Battery Reset utility from OS 9. That seemed to help some, but the rebuilt battery never exceeded the running time of my used battery.

One year later my used battery is still going, but the BatteryReset rebuilt is totally dead. No status LEDs light up on the side and System Profiler doesn't recognize a battery when it's installed. I emailed BatteryRefill about their one-year warranty on cells, but they don't respond. Time to take it up a notch! Thank goodness I paid with a credit card that doubled the manufacturer's warranty.

Paul v.
Austin, Texas
U.S.A.