IBM sues Shentech for selling volatile counterfeit batteries

It's not like ThinkPads have been immune to the notorious overheating battery issue, but a fiery incident in Ohio may not be IBM's fault. In a somewhat bizarre tale, it's reported that an Ohioan purchased a replacement battery from Shentech for his ThinkPad, only to later have it overheat, catch on fire and damage his machine. After discovering that the faulty cell was actually a counterfeit, IBM took the liberty of ordering a dozen batteries from the Flushing, New York-based company, and it soon discovered that all twelve received were indeed fakes. As you can probably guess, IBM has filed suit against the outfit and has asked the court to require Shentech to hand over all of its batteries for destruction, profits it made from selling the fakes and a million dollars "per counterfeit mark per type of item sold." That'll teach 'em to mess with Big Blue.

[Via TGDaily]

[raerae @ Nov 30th 2007 4:06PM]

I am hauln ass home to check my energizers NOW...Geez...batteries...what next, lined white paper

[rzlmlchm009 @ Nov 30th 2007 4:35PM]

Does this mean that I have to return my Malt-O-Meal cereal too? ;)

[alex @ Nov 30th 2007 9:23PM]

Your Malt-O-Meal is actually made out of ground up Chineese newspapers that was where printed with ink that had lead in it.

[Speddy @ Nov 30th 2007 4:06PM]

Big Blue Balls!

[Matthew Hilario @ Nov 30th 2007 4:10PM]

my thinkpad is hot.

[JohnnyGTO @ Nov 30th 2007 4:25PM]

This is nothing new, we had a catastrophic failure of a trailer only to find out the grade 8 bolts that failed were fakes and not much stronger then wet macaroni noodles.

[Ladderless @ Nov 30th 2007 4:28PM]

IBM=Lenovo=Chinese company

Interesting... Most counterfit electronics come from China.

[Jon @ Nov 30th 2007 4:30PM]

Idiot.

IBM =! Lenovo

Anyway 99% of all electronics comes from China regardless. Pre-Lenovo era ThinkPads were also made in China.

[Jack @ Nov 30th 2007 4:32PM]

hmm

[rzlmlchm009 @ Nov 30th 2007 4:35PM]

uh-huh

[Dan @ Nov 30th 2007 6:20PM]

Yup

[MK @ Nov 30th 2007 4:33PM]

I ordered a replacement battery for my IBM X22 from Shentech 2 months ago and the battery was advertised as a new IBM OEM battery. But when I got it, my IBM battery software said it was 3-4 years old and could only hold a charge for less than one hour.

Shentech denied it wasn't a real new IBM battery but they did give me a refund.

True Story.

[paul34 @ Nov 30th 2007 4:36PM]

Definitely a "pwned" moment there. Die, Shentech!

[Will @ Nov 30th 2007 5:53PM]

Die Shentech indeed.
I got two (2gb) Memory Stick Pro Duo's from them about 8 months ago. The capacity when they were plugged in was less than 600mb. I later found that there is an Ebay buying guide that details how to discern counterfeit memory sticks. After determining mine were counterfeit, I emailed them and called them on it. In the reply I got a message in broken English: "We are sorry, we ship merchandise from our supplier. They have the authenication." After about 3 months of wrangling with Citibank to drop the charge, it was finally resolved.
I hope this sinks their battleship.

[Chris @ Dec 1st 2007 12:57AM]

Yes - Good riddance to Shentech! Those guys have been crooks for years, selling crap for years.

[ilogic @ Nov 30th 2007 5:04PM]

yes!! I hate those thieves!

[James Rainey @ Nov 30th 2007 5:24PM]

It's not often that we see a corp giant like IBM actually care enough to do something like this. I know they own a stake in Lenovo's PC division. With the IBM logo still on some of the boxes being shipped by Lenovo, tarnishing that name is taken seriously.

Go get 'em IBM.

Cheers

[Citizen024 @ Nov 30th 2007 5:40PM]

well, this would make a bit more sense if ibm still was in charge of the thinkpad biz, id be expecting lenovo to be filing the suit. although the batteries were ibm branded, so it still works.

but im still not forgiving ibm for selling its thinkpad biz to lenovo,
1, "lenovo thinkpad" just dosent feel right,
2, lenovo spoiled the design by, ammong other things, adding a windows key.
the cons outweigh the pros[rollcage]by far, i switched back from a t60 to a t43p because its just not the same.

These kinds of trademarks/brands should never be sold...
when i hear IBM, i think ThinkPad, OS/2, System X, Deep Blue.
for most people, the only IBM product they see is the ThinkPad, When they travel (like 1/5 of the people on airports have thinkpads), or at cafes/reataurants.

There goes IBMs public brand awareness, to a chinese company with a botched french name, buggers!!!

[El_Matarife @ Nov 30th 2007 5:49PM]

Is there someone at IBM you can talk to if you bought one of these? I can't figure out if I'd need to talk to their legal department, service department, etc. I'm trying to figure out if they can issue me a cheap replacement for this knockoff, or if I have to sue Shentech to get a refund for this, or how dangerous this thing is. I confused the hell out of the poor Indian guy at the switch board when I tried to figure out who to talk to about this.

[tomb @ Dec 1st 2007 10:25PM]

Me too!

Guess it's time to wait a few days for google to index the answer!

[Chris W @ Nov 30th 2007 5:56PM]

I bought a replacement battery from Shentech also. Pricegrabber.com said that they were selling an OEM IBM battery, which the were not. The first one that arrived was DOA, and I had to send it back. The replacement works fine, (~2 months so far.) but I really don't want to worry about it burning up my laptop or exploding.

[BigD145 @ Nov 30th 2007 6:53PM]

Hooray for Capitalism and little to no government oversight. What next, selling our ports to other countries and letting them do all import inspections? Oh yeah, never mind. Been there, done that. Maybe we can just buy up all those Chinese/HK/Korean/Philippine factories and make them American... No. I guess I'm still behind the times. We'll just have to sit back and let companies kill their user base and sue the hell out of each other.

[Reader @ Nov 30th 2007 7:02PM]

Uhm so you're saying IBM shouldn't sue them??? Shentech is selling them counterfeit batteries that have caused trouble with their customers. They're actually protecting customers, not alienating them. What you're saying makes no sense really.

[Will @ Nov 30th 2007 7:06PM]

I'm guessing the "D" doesn't stand for Dallas.

[Bobs @ Dec 1st 2007 2:25AM]

At least we can visit whatever website we feel like.

[Brian @ Nov 30th 2007 9:07PM]

I hope Shentech's supervisors get some prison time for this. Not have the blatently ripped over (probably thousands) of people, but they endangered the lives of their customers; selling inferior, combustible batteries.

[Bob @ Dec 1st 2007 12:49AM]

IBM Rah Rah Rah. Don't mess widda Blue. One more reason to love IBM, they are doing this sort o stuff even though they no longer own the PC devision.

I'm also still annoyed at IBM for selling the PC division. I mean SURE they were cutting a loss, but that was a lot of customer loyalty, free passive advertising, and prospective clients in the hole. Seeing as they no longer have consumer products associated with them, we can assume that they will pass from consumer knowledge in a generation or two. And seeing as the firms IBM is tailoring to is MADE of consumers, that will fade out too. I'm fine with IBM working WITH Lenovo, but an all out sell is going to slowly kill the brand. I already stocked up on IBM Memory keys and Thinkpad X40's to last for a while. If IBM at least kept their brand stamp on the machine, veto rights on designs, and the ability to inspect machines for quality, their share would increase, seeing as Thinkpads could be the way of the future. We already know that smaller technology is moving desktops out of the market, and in a few decades they will be gone, but also, I have never heard of someone using a Thinkpad and then willingly switching to another brand. Ever. Apple has the same loyalty, Dell to a lesser degree, and nearly none on any other brand, in my knowledge.

[ABQNM @ Dec 1st 2007 5:02AM]

Most everything Shentech sells is counterfeit. I got a Motorola BT headset from them a while back. It was totally fake and I reported it to Moto's counterfeit dept. They stopped selling them for a while and now they are only selling real Motos. They need to go out of business.

[parma @ Dec 1st 2007 9:54AM]

Bought my Lian-li at Shentech with no problems.