Inquired about a new battery for my Pro 1

[EskeRahn 5,464]

21 minutes ago, sequestris said:

I am really curious considering I paid £39.34 in shipping

And sending it GB to GB at that price seems excessive! I wonder if there somewhere in Blyton is an address that looks somewhat like your US one?

[sequestris 710]

2 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

And sending it GB to GB at that price seems excessive! I wonder of there somewhere in Blyton is an address that looks somewhat like your US one?

I checked every street in Blyton and there is nothing even close

 

[sequestris 710]

You know my trust quotient was already pretty low with fxtec and this is not helping AT ALL.

[EskeRahn 5,464]

Let us hope @Casey can get the parcel stopped, and rerouted to the correct address....
But the tracking already looks weird that it GB-to-GB should take a whole week...
That date would be more what we would expect if sent GB-to-US

[sequestris 710]

@Casey you say that you are here to help us. You encourage us to trust fxtec and have faith.
We do, we try,
We contact you and tag you.
And we get ghosted.

So I am really hoping that you can clear this up and this is not just one more example of fxtec mishandling things.
I paid $161.80 for a battery. That's like 25% the cost of the phone.
 

[sequestris 710]

@Hook @Casey and insight? I feel like they literally stole my money and scammed me.

He asked for my mailing address and phone number in the same email chain.

Who is A. Langstaff and why did my battery get sent to them?

Should I finally another claim with my credit card company and add my report about my money being taken for a product that fxtec never sent to me?
Did you ever plan to?

I am so sick of this. I've been your Cheerleader from Day 1. Obviously replying to the email chain is fruitless.

@EskeRahnwhat would you do? If someone literally stole your money and did not give you your purchase?

[Hook 3,031]

I have no idea what to make of this situation. I don't think it's a scam.  That is, I am pretty sure it really was FxTec (Francisco, bot or not) asking for my money and I'm pretty sure the Paypal invoice was really from them, and assume the same with yours.  So, to my mind, that makes the most likely scenario that they somehow gave you the wrong tracking number (more likely, I think, than they sent your package to someone in GB, though we can't rule that out).  Nowhere does FedEx indicate that you ever figured into this shipment. It may even be that your battery hasn't actually been shipped at all.

We'll see how  mine goes,

It doesn't change the fact that a mistake this huge should get faster attention.

Fingers crossed.

[EskeRahn 5,464]

I think Hook got the most likely explanation, that they gave you the wrong tracking number - obviously that does not change that things are messed up.

I doubt very much that it is a deliberate action against you. But I do understand your frustration and felling of them adding insult to injury....

[sequestris 710]

What would be nice is if the Francisco bot actually responded to any of the 5 emails I sent or that @Casey checked in.

Wrong tracking # doesn't fly because it's no secret that I am in the US.
Saying "Your parcel will be shipped via FedEx and the tracking # above implies that my battery was shipped out.
If that's the case, why wouldn't they just respond "Oh sorry, here's the right # _______________"

Ignoring me doesn't look good or make me feel like I can trust them.
 

[EskeRahn 5,464]

Indeed it looks bad, but the thing was users can do from within here is tag them, We can only hope that the lag of response is because they are digging to find out what on earth went wrong, but it really looks bad....

[sequestris 710]

I don't think anyone is digging into this. I honestly don't think they care any more.
I am going to wait until Wednesday and then file a credit card claim.
It's going to get to the point that Mastercard and Visa won't allow themselves to be used as forms of payment.

I mean how long does it take for the Francisco-bot to say "Sorry we will look into it."
It responded to me within minutes when I asked to buy a new battery. Funny how that is.

 

[EskeRahn 5,464]

11 hours ago, sequestris said:

I mean how long does it take for the Francisco-bot to say "Sorry we will look into it."

Francisco is not a bot - but most likely over-burdened with tasks,
But I do agree, that their communication-skills are sub-optimal, to put it mildly.

[sequestris 710]

So I was sent a new tracking number for a package that left yesterday.

Let's hope this one gets here.

My apologies if Francisco is actually a real person.

[EskeRahn 5,464]

32 minutes ago, sequestris said:

Let's hope this one gets here.

Does the destination of the tracking look correct?

[Hook 3,031]

I received my tracking number this morning as well... and it is to the correct destination!  🥳

[sequestris 710]

5 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

Does the destination of the tracking look correct?

It's coming to my city so that's a start 😆

[sequestris 710]

@Hook @EskeRahn @Casey
Got some Happy Mail today

 

[Hook 3,031]

21 hours ago, sequestris said:

@Hook @EskeRahn @Casey
Got some Happy Mail today

 

And I got my package today!  🎉

[SchattengestaIt 559]

Hey there,

so they actually charged you guys 120€?

If so, I'd be interested in your old/broken battery.
In the case one of you changes their old battery as it lost too much capacity, I'd be happy if you PM me. I'd like to disassemble it, learn about the charging/monitoring circuit and try to change the battery cells to a pack that would fit into the Pro1. Maybe we get a cheap fix that way.
So if your battery is trash, please send it to me instead (I'll pay for shipping of course).

Time doesn't matter. My own battery isn't unusable yet so if you change it in a few months, please feel free to contact me anyways.

[sequestris 710]

1 hour ago, SchattengestaIt said:

Hey there,

so they actually charged you guys 120€?

If so, I'd be interested in your old/broken battery.
In the case one of you changes their old battery as it lost too much capacity, I'd be happy if you PM me. I'd like to disassemble it, learn about the charging/monitoring circuit and try to change the battery cells to a pack that would fit into the Pro1. Maybe we get a cheap fix that way.
So if your battery is trash, please send it to me instead (I'll pay for shipping of course).

Time doesn't matter. My own battery isn't unusable yet so if you change it in a few months, please feel free to contact me anyways.

Yes they charged 120€ - 99 + shipping.
When it comes time for me to deploy the new battery, if it is a fail I will send it to you if they aren't willing to refund me.

[sequestris 710]

What I would like to know is if there is a way that I can hook the replacement battery up to something so I can charge it/keep it charged

[SchattengestaIt 559]

On 5/7/2023 at 12:41 AM, sequestris said:

What I would like to know is if there is a way that I can hook the replacement battery up to something so I can charge it/keep it charged

You can store batteries at around 30-40% battery and if they aren't connected to anything, they'll hold the charge and capacity.

If you want to use it for something, there are 5V to 4.2V converters, you'll get those on ebay for 3-5 dollars.

[Hook 3,031]

My guess would be they ship the batteries with about 50% charge, so I'm not too worried.  What I'm not sure is how one would charge the battery with those converters... can you link to one.  Unlike any battery Ive ever seen (but they were all removable), there are no visible + and - contacts.  I have a universal charger for batteries like that.  But this battery is sealed except for a very thing cable with a connector on the end.  Probably the connector has  tiny pins for  + and - contacts, but I'm really not knowledgeable in this area.  So, I'm hoping I'm right, they sent with a decent storage charge and I don't have to worry.  😉

[SchattengestaIt 559]

On the top of the battery, there's a sealed circuit. It's around 5mm wide and sealed in some yellow tape.
I haven't opened the FxTec battery but most batteries have their two terminals which go into the circuit (usually a BMS - battery management system, sometimes including thermal sensors). I'm 99% sure we'll find the same thing here.

And yes, the connector has positive and negative output (4 pins each, I believe), you can measure the battery by those outer pins and also charge it up to 4.2V with them. You could also measure it through your mainboard, there are golden (round) test spots saying VBAT (or something similar) and GND.

I wouldn't worry about new batteries though. These hardware modifications will get interesting at the point where replacement batteries aren't available anymore...
 

[Hook 3,031]

 

1 hour ago, SchattengestaIt said:

On the top of the battery, there's a sealed circuit. It's around 5mm wide and sealed in some yellow tape.

Thanks for confirming that... I was pretty sure I saw connectors of some sort under that wrap.  I just wasn't sure how important the wrap was or if it was just a protective wrap.  I'll eventually get curious enough to investigate, but for now I'm not too worried.