Bought a 5ah Dewalt battery from Amazon for a great price. When using that battery to cut up a hot tub it went dead after 5 minutes. Looked up your video and guess what???? My Dewalt 5ah battery is FAKE. Thanks for the video helping me spot the fake.
If they came wrapped in the dewalt plastic package that requires a chainsaw to open then they have to be real but are older ones that were never sold in time so they expired. So then these expired batteries are sold in large quantities to the highest bidder and then that person turns around and sells these expired batteries for far cheaper on eBay. Some still may be good some not. I bought a 2 pack of 5amp dewalt batteries on eBay for $95 and they lasted just over a month. They were dated 2022. I bought them in July of 2023. I contacted dewalt and told them I received them as a gift so all they asked for was a picture of the date code and they sent me 2 6amp batteries because they didn’t have any of the 5amp in stock. So basically I spent $95 and got 2 brand new direct from dewalt 6amp batteries. Had I told dewalt I bought them on eBay from some joblo they would not have sent me shit.
This is why I double check I take pictures of the original packaging, and I make sure I have the actual model number. You have to have pictures because you need to make sure that the spelling is correct, and you need the model number because if you just type in DeWalt battery it can let you do anything. to get them. You need as many methods of authentication and verification as you can get before you buy.
I just bought a couple on amazon and at a heavy discount they were $65 each (said normal price was $179 so thought genuine) they showed up in heavy plastic packaging like they were real but i noticed a hair in one (they were very well sealed plastic packages that you needed a chain saw to get into). I was a bit skeptical at that point so i took the other out and opened it up and it looked just like your fake one but my battery cells didnt even have any printing or numbers of any kind on them.
Did the fake have normal torx screws while the real had security torx screws? That is a good way to tell without taking it apart. Also, the copper contracts are a great way to tell without opening the battery.
The good thing about this is that you always get your money back on ebay if it is a counterfeit with the logo on it. And you won't have to send the batteries back.
So I actually just received batteries and experienced the same exact thing you did. Luckily I bought ones that have a return policy, so I'll be sending them back. These clones are so close on the outside that it's hard to tell. Here are some other differences I noticed on the casing: 1) The amp hour "AH" text on the side isn't centered on the 5. 2) The center battery indicator in the middle isn't as big as the others. 3) The laser etching isn't the same and isn't as nice. 4) The serial date code doesn't actually match up as the letter "A" is supposed to be two letters/numbers. My date code also matches exactly to yours, although the serial is different. 5) They definitely do not fit into my tool as nice. I'll be returning these and going to Home Depot.
Luckily I found this out before it was too late and requested a return thru the seller. Told them that they had died and opened a case through eBay. Next day I received a full refund from them and a message telling me they were sorry they were defective and not to leave negative feedback. One other different I noticed after this video is, if you look at DeWalt on the side, the real has a line on top and bottom. While the fake only has the black line on the bottom. I haven't bought any others since being weary of the fakes out there. Might end up going to Home Depot as well.
It's not so simple unfortunately. Dewalt has various people manufacturing their batteries and there are slight differences from one to the other. Even the same amp hour battery can have slight changes from one year to the other. All of them being authentic. Some manufacturers include an authentication code with the battery that you can register on their website. Unfortunately is probably the best solution to this ongoing issue.
@@aco2518 Totally agree, it makes sense for any manufacturing company to do that. The big tipping point for me was the overall quality of the battery and the fact that when I took mine apart they had unbranded (18650) batteries and didn't have the typical flat laying chip (maybe a bms?) on them like DeWalt batteries do. This was the clear giveaway.
I have two DCB205 batteries purchased from the same DeWALT dealer (Tractor Supply Co) and the laser etching is different even though both are originals. The difference boils down to one being assembled in USA and the other assembled in Mexico. The seal was different and the USA backing paper had inferior print quality but that’s not unexpected.
Actually I bought fake batteries that were in the original package. Best tell tale then you'll spot on the fake DeWalt batteries is the charge indicator lights, on the fake battery the second indicator light is smaller than both the first and third.
the package doesn't matter either , i bought a 5ah xr in the package and it looks like the real dewalt package but the battery was a counterfeit just like yours but with varying shades of light blue unmarked cells. same thing charged a few times and then solid light on the charger, no charge.
Also highly likely that the cells inside are just some generic 18650’s. Chances are they lack the discharge rate of the red LG cells used in the real pack. The whole point of the XR line is to use the highest discharge cells on the market (sometimes at the cost of a little capacity) So you’ll get cells that are 2500mAh and probably 25A or 30A Continuous Discharge Rate, meaning a burst rate around double that. The Chinese pack probably has some run of the mill cells used in budget scooters that have similar capacity but a more moderate discharge current like 10A. You should notice a power difference when you are using the knockoff packs in your tools that consume the most power. Big saws is where I’d test it. The chargers can also be a problem with these knockoffs. The cells in the real dewalt are just barely rated to handle the charging current of Dewalts fastest chargers. Honestly they are too fast and I don’t recommend people use them. The knockoff packs have cells that absolutely cannot handle the charge cycle so no surprise that after only a couple rounds they are literally just about to combust. Hope you never used those cells again. Big boom right around the corner guaranteed.
It is very easy to know if seller is selling fake batteries. If you can't see feedback on that specific battery and is set up as private to protect buyer it is probably fake and seller doesn't want you to know bad feedbacks.
These are ALL over ebay. Almost all 5.0 XRs. 90% of them will say they ship from California, but when you view the seller profile it shows they are in China. This is a huge scam by Chinese criminals collaborating with counterfeit item smugglers on the west coast.
Last week I bought two DeWALT DCB205 20V Max XR 5Ah batteries on clearance from Tractor Supply Company, which is an official DeWALT dealer. Both were made in 2022 but one looked a little suspect. Though both were inside a locked security case, it’s possible they sold a fake due to someone previously committing returns fraud (buying original and returning a fake)… but I highly doubt it. The first thing I noticed was the different seal on the clamshell packages. The heat seal on one looked like an on/off tread pattern that only went about half-way down the sides while the seal was continuous on the other package and went almost all the way down both sides. I might not have noticed except I sliced across the bottom where the clamshell was folded before being heat sealed which gave me enough room to remove the battery only on one. I looked a bit closer when I realized one battery was still captive after making the same cut that freed the other. This revealed that the print quality on the first package was inferior with a little black bleeding into yellow/white anywhere there was contrast from the left. The blur looked almost like a subtle drop shadow to add a 3D look. On the back of the package the unique barcode sticker with a date code was a different font and both were very close to what was marked on their respective batteries. Both packages said to see the product labeling for their respective country of origin statements and, sure enough, they were different. The suspect battery said it was assembled in USA with cells from Malaysia. The other said it was assembled in Mexico with cells from Korea. It’s well-known that DeWALT sources a variety of cells in order to have the right specs (namely, high discharge rates for each target capacity), so this doesn’t really mean much. As I removed the housing to look inside the USA pack I noticed that the DeWALT logo molded in the top was done with a mold insert while it appeared to be part of the mold on the Mexico pack. Inside was a proper battery controller board, which satisfies my curiosity. It even had the mica isolator over the negative rail with heat tape on the top housing above it. Both had dielectric grease coating the contacts. I don’t think those are touches a counterfeit would bother with since they just want to make more money. So, yeah, I’m pretty sure both are real.
@@aco2518 They definitely do. Any tool bundle that says “assembled in USA with global materials” will have a battery that is also assembled in USA. I guess the extras get packed up the same as the imported batteries.
@@aco2518 Yes and yes. :) My main concern was returns fraud leaving a legitimate DeWALT dealer with a counterfeit battery that ended up with me but it seems to be real. Still wish they were a matched pair now that I have a DeWALT mower but I’m happy with them. :)
I blame dewalt for this and now I wish I had stuck to my cheap power tools. In fact there is a document from dewalt's website that lists how to tell fake batteries. Read that and then compare to say dcb205 on home depot and it would look like hd is selling fakes. So far I've bought dcb205 on amz and 2 on ebay. The amz batteries manufactured in 2021 but they were sold as 'returns', 'new condition'. Work ok so far. The ebay batteries came in separate blister packs and no hints of fake in the packaging. Only, they were shipped from some company in calif but the seller is in china. Ebay batteries have a slightly different yellow and the top printing is different including no qr code but who knows how much dewalt has changed these batteries in 1-2 years and if they are the same all over the world. says 'cells' from korea, assembled in china on the bottom. I've used one of the ebay. Fully charged and checks out at 20.5 volts. Weighs about 1oz less than the others I bought on amz. I'm not using these for high torque app, using every day and so far I've not noticed any issue. I tried taking one of the amz batteries apart but I couldn't get the cover off without forcing it so I gave up. My guess is though if I took one of the amz apart and one of the ebay apart, I'd see the same as you've shown in the video. I could return the ebay batteries but I'm curious how they will hold up so I guess I'll have to wait until they die to find out. Everyone mentions price but I don't accept that just because they are cheaper they couldn't be dewalt because amz sells them cheaper but are they real, or are they real, but returns or pulls, who knows. I noticed yesterday hd was selling 2 packs for about 150 which makes each about 75, slightly more than amz and presumably come with a guarantee which neither amz or ebay do.
I bought two double packs and all four 5ah batteries wouldn’t take a charge anymore, what I’m doing to make it work is put 20volts directly to the batteries and works …. But won’t charge on dewalt charger .
Some are only 1/4 of the DeWalt cost, and make perfect sense for some users. There are actually some decent knock-offs. Depends on your needs, and what fit you have in giant retail box stores. Being made in China or anywhere else means nothing as they're made to the specifications of American distributors. I work in hospitals, and CT and MRI scanners are made in China but to exact standards. Same with all new Boeing airliners. They're made in China but to our specs.
Terrible comment. You think these counterfeiters are making them to the manufacturers specs? Lol. They make them as cheap as possible. They don't even have circuit boards to control charge/discharge. Do you want to sleep at night with one of these on a charger and risk a house fire that could kill you and your family? No one is questioning made in china, everyone knows that quality brand name products are made there - we're talking about generic products that are made with bottom of the barrel components that wouldn't pass QC standards of larger brands.
China is the SAME country that had a small issue with some baby formula manufacturer putting crap in the baby formula to rip people off and babies died. This is the level they will go to become the next rich asian! I do not trust ... They phrase "Chinese junk" exists for a reason.
You are being scammed in the first place by assuming 18v and 20v-max are different, it is a marketing gimmick. 18v batteries when fully charged are: 5x4.2v=21v and drop to 5x3.7=18v when discharged. 20v "max" refers to "at max charge". The ten batteries you see is two banks of five in parallel. The batteries are 2.5Ah and since there are two banks it makes the pack 5Ah. Check the Watt hrs on the underside of both batteries it will be the same.
Measure the voltage on a fully charged 18V battery and a fully charged 20V battery, You're wasting money if you think +2V is better. Its just marketing
Bought a 5ah Dewalt battery from Amazon for a great price. When using that battery to cut up a hot tub it went dead after 5 minutes. Looked up your video and guess what???? My Dewalt 5ah battery is FAKE. Thanks for the video helping me spot the fake.
If they came wrapped in the dewalt plastic package that requires a chainsaw to open then they have to be real but are older ones that were never sold in time so they expired. So then these expired batteries are sold in large quantities to the highest bidder and then that person turns around and sells these expired batteries for far cheaper on eBay. Some still may be good some not. I bought a 2 pack of 5amp dewalt batteries on eBay for $95 and they lasted just over a month. They were dated 2022. I bought them in July of 2023.
I contacted dewalt and told them I received them as a gift so all they asked for was a picture of the date code and they sent me 2 6amp batteries because they didn’t have any of the 5amp in stock.
So basically I spent $95 and got 2 brand new direct from dewalt 6amp batteries. Had I told dewalt I bought them on eBay from some joblo they would not have sent me shit.
Glad you posted this I was wondering the same thing.
thanks for the heads up!
Easieat way to tell is the real ones have a circuit board amd the fake ones dont. Thats why the fake ones catch on fire.
These situations always worry me.
Thanks for the info . I dont think a real dewalt battery would be missing the bms circuit board .
I love how every single frame with text on the red cells is blurred
The AH under the 5 is offset, also.
I'm sorry that you got caught up in all this madness, man.
This is why I double check I take pictures of the original packaging, and I make sure I have the actual model number. You have to have pictures because you need to make sure that the spelling is correct, and you need the model number because if you just type in DeWalt battery it can let you do anything. to get them. You need as many methods of authentication and verification as you can get before you buy.
I felt your same pain - got scammed myself.
The fakes have the middle power level LED smaller,then there is black plastic spot on each side of the battery slide rails.
I just bought a couple on amazon and at a heavy discount they were $65 each (said normal price was $179 so thought genuine) they showed up in heavy plastic packaging like they were real but i noticed a hair in one (they were very well sealed plastic packages that you needed a chain saw to get into). I was a bit skeptical at that point so i took the other out and opened it up and it looked just like your fake one but my battery cells didnt even have any printing or numbers of any kind on them.
Same, my counterfeit ones came from Amazon. Also got a counterfeit M12 battery. The Dewalt one was hard to tell till I opened it up.
Did the fake have normal torx screws while the real had security torx screws? That is a good way to tell without taking it apart. Also, the copper contracts are a great way to tell without opening the battery.
No the new ones have regular torx but are legit. I just bought 2 from Home Depot the have regular torx.
The good thing about this is that you always get your money back on ebay if it is a counterfeit with the logo on it. And you won't have to send the batteries back.
I just ordered some. How can you prove (to Ebay's satisfaction) if they're fake?
Can you prove that?
So I actually just received batteries and experienced the same exact thing you did. Luckily I bought ones that have a return policy, so I'll be sending them back. These clones are so close on the outside that it's hard to tell. Here are some other differences I noticed on the casing:
1) The amp hour "AH" text on the side isn't centered on the 5.
2) The center battery indicator in the middle isn't as big as the others.
3) The laser etching isn't the same and isn't as nice.
4) The serial date code doesn't actually match up as the letter "A" is supposed to be two letters/numbers. My date code also matches exactly to yours, although the serial is different.
5) They definitely do not fit into my tool as nice.
I'll be returning these and going to Home Depot.
Luckily I found this out before it was too late and requested a return thru the seller. Told them that they had died and opened a case through eBay. Next day I received a full refund from them and a message telling me they were sorry they were defective and not to leave negative feedback. One other different I noticed after this video is, if you look at DeWalt on the side, the real has a line on top and bottom. While the fake only has the black line on the bottom. I haven't bought any others since being weary of the fakes out there. Might end up going to Home Depot as well.
It's not so simple unfortunately. Dewalt has various people manufacturing their batteries and there are slight differences from one to the other. Even the same amp hour battery can have slight changes from one year to the other. All of them being authentic.
Some manufacturers include an authentication code with the battery that you can register on their website. Unfortunately is probably the best solution to this ongoing issue.
@@aco2518 Totally agree, it makes sense for any manufacturing company to do that. The big tipping point for me was the overall quality of the battery and the fact that when I took mine apart they had unbranded (18650) batteries and didn't have the typical flat laying chip (maybe a bms?) on them like DeWalt batteries do. This was the clear giveaway.
I have two DCB205 batteries purchased from the same DeWALT dealer (Tractor Supply Co) and the laser etching is different even though both are originals. The difference boils down to one being assembled in USA and the other assembled in Mexico. The seal was different and the USA backing paper had inferior print quality but that’s not unexpected.
I got the same one's. The Fake dont have the QR code on top like the real ones do.
Actually I bought fake batteries that were in the original package. Best tell tale then you'll spot on the fake DeWalt batteries is the charge indicator lights, on the fake battery the second indicator light is smaller than both the first and third.
the package doesn't matter either , i bought a 5ah xr in the package and it looks like the real dewalt package but the battery was a counterfeit just like yours but with varying shades of light blue unmarked cells. same thing charged a few times and then solid light on the charger, no charge.
Fake items on Amazon!?! I’m shocked! Shocked I tell’ya.
I stopped buying name brand stuff from Amazon years ago.
Ohh , well good for you Mr knowitall.
Also highly likely that the cells inside are just some generic 18650’s. Chances are they lack the discharge rate of the red LG cells used in the real pack. The whole point of the XR line is to use the highest discharge cells on the market (sometimes at the cost of a little capacity)
So you’ll get cells that are 2500mAh and probably 25A or 30A Continuous Discharge Rate, meaning a burst rate around double that.
The Chinese pack probably has some run of the mill cells used in budget scooters that have similar capacity but a more moderate discharge current like 10A. You should notice a power difference when you are using the knockoff packs in your tools that consume the most power. Big saws is where I’d test it.
The chargers can also be a problem with these knockoffs. The cells in the real dewalt are just barely rated to handle the charging current of Dewalts fastest chargers. Honestly they are too fast and I don’t recommend people use them. The knockoff packs have cells that absolutely cannot handle the charge cycle so no surprise that after only a couple rounds they are literally just about to combust.
Hope you never used those cells again. Big boom right around the corner guaranteed.
It is very easy to know if seller is selling fake batteries.
If you can't see feedback on that specific battery and is set up as private to protect buyer it is probably fake and seller doesn't want you to know bad feedbacks.
These are ALL over ebay. Almost all 5.0 XRs. 90% of them will say they ship from California, but when you view the seller profile it shows they are in China. This is a huge scam by Chinese criminals collaborating with counterfeit item smugglers on the west coast.
People could also be taking out the good batteries and replacing them with cheap ones. Maybe.
Last week I bought two DeWALT DCB205 20V Max XR 5Ah batteries on clearance from Tractor Supply Company, which is an official DeWALT dealer. Both were made in 2022 but one looked a little suspect. Though both were inside a locked security case, it’s possible they sold a fake due to someone previously committing returns fraud (buying original and returning a fake)… but I highly doubt it.
The first thing I noticed was the different seal on the clamshell packages. The heat seal on one looked like an on/off tread pattern that only went about half-way down the sides while the seal was continuous on the other package and went almost all the way down both sides. I might not have noticed except I sliced across the bottom where the clamshell was folded before being heat sealed which gave me enough room to remove the battery only on one.
I looked a bit closer when I realized one battery was still captive after making the same cut that freed the other. This revealed that the print quality on the first package was inferior with a little black bleeding into yellow/white anywhere there was contrast from the left. The blur looked almost like a subtle drop shadow to add a 3D look.
On the back of the package the unique barcode sticker with a date code was a different font and both were very close to what was marked on their respective batteries.
Both packages said to see the product labeling for their respective country of origin statements and, sure enough, they were different. The suspect battery said it was assembled in USA with cells from Malaysia. The other said it was assembled in Mexico with cells from Korea. It’s well-known that DeWALT sources a variety of cells in order to have the right specs (namely, high discharge rates for each target capacity), so this doesn’t really mean much.
As I removed the housing to look inside the USA pack I noticed that the DeWALT logo molded in the top was done with a mold insert while it appeared to be part of the mold on the Mexico pack. Inside was a proper battery controller board, which satisfies my curiosity. It even had the mica isolator over the negative rail with heat tape on the top housing above it. Both had dielectric grease coating the contacts. I don’t think those are touches a counterfeit would bother with since they just want to make more money.
So, yeah, I’m pretty sure both are real.
Do any of the major manufacturers make cells in Malaysia????
Edit. That’s right Samsung does now.
I don't think DeWalt assembles any batteries in the us.
@@aco2518 They definitely do. Any tool bundle that says “assembled in USA with global materials” will have a battery that is also assembled in USA. I guess the extras get packed up the same as the imported batteries.
@@emmettturner9452 That is a possibility. Were the wires nice and tidy on the inside?
And does it use security Torx to hold screws?
@@aco2518 Yes and yes. :) My main concern was returns fraud leaving a legitimate DeWALT dealer with a counterfeit battery that ended up with me but it seems to be real. Still wish they were a matched pair now that I have a DeWALT mower but I’m happy with them. :)
The Plot THiCKENS
I blame dewalt for this and now I wish I had stuck to my cheap power tools. In fact there is a document from dewalt's website that lists how to tell fake batteries. Read that and then compare to say dcb205 on home depot and it would look like hd is selling fakes. So far I've bought dcb205 on amz and 2 on ebay. The amz batteries manufactured in 2021 but they were sold as 'returns', 'new condition'. Work ok so far. The ebay batteries came in separate blister packs and no hints of fake in the packaging. Only, they were shipped from some company in calif but the seller is in china. Ebay batteries have a slightly different yellow and the top printing is different including no qr code but who knows how much dewalt has changed these batteries in 1-2 years and if they are the same all over the world. says 'cells' from korea, assembled in china on the bottom. I've used one of the ebay. Fully charged and checks out at 20.5 volts. Weighs about 1oz less than the others I bought on amz. I'm not using these for high torque app, using every day and so far I've not noticed any issue. I tried taking one of the amz batteries apart but I couldn't get the cover off without forcing it so I gave up. My guess is though if I took one of the amz apart and one of the ebay apart, I'd see the same as you've shown in the video. I could return the ebay batteries but I'm curious how they will hold up so I guess I'll have to wait until they die to find out. Everyone mentions price but I don't accept that just because they are cheaper they couldn't be dewalt because amz sells them cheaper but are they real, or are they real, but returns or pulls, who knows. I noticed yesterday hd was selling 2 packs for about 150 which makes each about 75, slightly more than amz and presumably come with a guarantee which neither amz or ebay do.
Might not have a BMS in there
I bought two double packs and all four 5ah batteries wouldn’t take a charge anymore, what I’m doing to make it work is put 20volts directly to the batteries and works …. But won’t charge on dewalt charger .
Some are only 1/4 of the DeWalt cost, and make perfect sense for some users. There are actually some decent knock-offs. Depends on your needs, and what fit you have in giant retail box stores. Being made in China or anywhere else means nothing as they're made to the specifications of American distributors. I work in hospitals, and CT and MRI scanners are made in China but to exact standards. Same with all new Boeing airliners. They're made in China but to our specs.
Terrible comment. You think these counterfeiters are making them to the manufacturers specs? Lol. They make them as cheap as possible. They don't even have circuit boards to control charge/discharge. Do you want to sleep at night with one of these on a charger and risk a house fire that could kill you and your family? No one is questioning made in china, everyone knows that quality brand name products are made there - we're talking about generic products that are made with bottom of the barrel components that wouldn't pass QC standards of larger brands.
China is the SAME country that had a small issue with some baby formula manufacturer putting crap in the baby formula to rip people off and babies died. This is the level they will go to become the next rich asian! I do not trust ... They phrase "Chinese junk" exists for a reason.
I've been scammed on Ebay with Milwaukee batteries. I won't buy from them again.
You are being scammed in the first place by assuming 18v and 20v-max are different, it is a marketing gimmick.
18v batteries when fully charged are: 5x4.2v=21v and drop to 5x3.7=18v when discharged. 20v "max" refers to "at max charge".
The ten batteries you see is two banks of five in parallel. The batteries are 2.5Ah and since there are two banks it makes the pack 5Ah.
Check the Watt hrs on the underside of both batteries it will be the same.
You should post and shame the eBay seller.
You do know, that there is no difference between 18V and 20V though, right?
Measure the voltage on a fully charged 18V battery and a fully charged 20V battery, You're wasting money if you think +2V is better. Its just marketing