Battery Charger melts from Ebay!

AntiRip

Yes, I received my battery charger for my dell inspiron 9300 laptop yesterday from ebay. The seller has 99.6% rep and also from Hong Kong. Plugged it in yesterday evening and was in bed last night and smelt a burning smell. Looked down to see that the battery charger had actually split open and was melting with the heat. It's input voltage does say 100v - 240v on the back. This was a serious fire hazzard! I emailed the seller straight away last night and have gotten no reply yet. Can anyone tell me the procedure I have to do through here and what rights do I have??

This is on their page for returns : For any short-shipments, or deviations items, please report to our customer service within 3 days of receipt.
For defective items, please report to our customer service for replacement within 7 days of receipt, return items must not be used or have any signs or damage. Buyer is responsible for all return shipping charges.
If replacement is not available, refund will be made via PayPal. Shipping, handling and insurance charges are not refundable.

Here are some pics of the charger

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legs11

you got fook all rights, I cant understand people buying stuff like this on fleece bay. why not just go to maplin or something and buy a decent charger......

nearly everything on ebay now is a risk imo. waste of time.

Ghost Train

Looks like a perfectly genuine charger, comparing to the one I have direct from dell (also made in china), same label etc, so maybe you've just been unlucky. The transformer should have a fuse that burns out before anything like this can happen to stop it getting to the stage where it is a fire hazard. I guess buying off ebay you never know what the quality is really like, or what corners have been cut, ie the testing/quality control stage in this case

If the the ebayer is a power seller and you paid with paypal, open a claim. Item is obviously defective so the seller will have to sort out the problem or paypal wll eventually decide which party is in the right and you should get your money back (this all asumes the listing said it was covered by paypal protection, if it isn't then you just have to deal with the seller and hope they do the right thing)

I bought a wifi card last week from uk from a power seller, the listing said it was new but it was anything but new and didn't work at all. Made a claim with paypal saying the item wasn't as described (with a photo of the card) and the seller sent out a new card plus a free usb optical mouse for my trouble no questions asked

edit: btw did the transformer eventually cut off, before things got nasty or did you have to plug it out to stop the melting... and I hope it didn't damage the laptop

Kimbot

i might have a spare pa-12 lying around but it was boughtfrom ebay. if i find it you can have it.

bushy...

I've definitely seen something about those in the last few months. The guy opened it and the original one , massive difference in internal parts/quality.

Tom Dunne

legs11 wrote:

you got fook all rights, I cant understand people buying stuff like this on fleece bay. why not just go to maplin or something and buy a decent charger......

nearly everything on ebay now is a risk imo. waste of time.

Get on your tinfoil hat, there legs11, the interweb people are after you.

It's one of two things - dodgey rip-off parts, or a genuine Dell part that has gone bad.

Either way, I think this is more suited to the Online Buying forum.

Moved from laptops.

AntiRip

eolhc wrote:

btw did the transformer eventually cut off, before things got nasty or did you have to plug it out to stop the melting... and I hope it didn't damage the laptop

Laptop is fine, I had to plug it out actually because the smell was so bad and it was so hot I couldn't touch it. I was actually afraid of being close to it for awhile incase it exploded:) .

This would be the third such adapters I have gotten in the last year for this laptop, the first one with the laptop and the second from dell under warranty. Not out of abuse just that I guess when the laptop is being moved all the time the top of the lead (where it goes into the laptop) gets flakey from being moved. The reason I went to ebay is because I rang dell to buy one and OMG forget about it, just couldn't get anywhere with them.

jonny24ie wrote:

i might have a spare pa-12 lying around but it was boughtfrom ebay. if i find it you can have it.

Thanks for the offer;)

Message from seller :

hi, thanks for your message. It's a seriour problem. I hope you are be ok. We will let our manufacturer know your case. So, can you return the item to us, we will take it to our manufacturer to show what happend on you.

We will resend you a free replacement to you.

I am waiting for your message.

Kind regards

I have requested a full refund but it's a joke now that I have to pay for postage & packaging back to Hong Kong.

And just to let you know, I'm not a noob when it comes to ebay. I have bought many many times without one single problem, and I usually stay away from anything from HK but this time...well, it's one of those times I guess:)

AntiRip

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Just a couple of comparisons between the dell charger I already own and the one I got from Ebay.