EEVblog #751 - How To Debunk A Product (The Batteriser)

[jippie]

Interesting how Bob and Ali write their comments every single day (even during the weekends) on IGG, count down 13-9-4 days, 24 hours. And then the once the campain is closed the IGG page turns silent for days. I would expect a happy update for a succesful IGG campaign, but ... nothing. Now that makes me feel uncomfortable, even though I didn't support the campaign. Makes me wonder if everybody left for holiday. I wonder what a $400k holiday would be like

Hopefully I'm wrong.

[ez24]

Interesting how Bob and Ali write their comments every single day (even during the weekends) on IGG, count down 13-9-4 days, 24 hours. And then the once the campain is closed the IGG page turns silent for days. I would expect a happy update for a succesful IGG campaign, but ... nothing. Now that makes me feel uncomfortable, even though I didn't support the campaign. Makes me wonder if everybody left for holiday. I wonder what a $400k holiday would be like

Hopefully I'm wrong.

I thought the same thing.

[SeanB]

Depending on the country ( and if they have an extradition treaty with the USA) it can be pretty good. There is a list of those countries where there is no treaty, but some may not exactly be nice places to live in, though they will be a good holiday wit $00k.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradition_treaties

Madagascar sounds good........

[EEVblog]

Interesting how Bob and Ali write their comments every single day (even during the weekends) on IGG, count down 13-9-4 days, 24 hours. And then the once the campain is closed the IGG page turns silent for days. I would expect a happy update for a succesful IGG campaign, but ... nothing. Now that makes me feel uncomfortable, even though I didn't support the campaign. Makes me wonder if everybody left for holiday. I wonder what a $400k holiday would be like
Hopefully I'm wrong.

They are likely going to have a big meeting with the VC's/board to see what they are going to do. They clearly cannot make money out of this campaign alone, and if they don't currently have a big order from retailer (as I'm sure they are lusting over. In fact it's stated goal of the Indiegogo campaign), they have to decide what to do next financially and production wise.

[samgab]

When they fail, the blame will be firmly pointed at "Those bloggers and naysayers who spread all those lies and slander about our amazing product and turned thousands of customers away, causing the startup to fail so we couldn't get any finished products out".

[firewalker]

They didn't fail. They "must" send a product. They asked for 30k and they got 400k. More that 800% .

Alexander.

[bitwelder]

Now I tried it myself, using 'curl' instead of one of those newfangled web browsers,
and the first connection to their website gets indeed dropped. How rude!

Code: [Select]

$ curl -sv batteriser.com >/tmp/batt1.log
* Rebuilt URL to: batteriser.com/
* Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
*   Trying 198.1.123.166...
* Connected to batteriser.com (198.1.123.166) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.35.0
> Host: batteriser.com
> Accept: */*
>
* Recv failure: Connection reset by peer
* Closing connection 0

Next attempt instead goes through:

Code: [Select]

$ curl -sv batteriser.com >/tmp/batt2.txt
* Rebuilt URL to: batteriser.com/
* Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
*   Trying 198.1.123.166...
* Connected to batteriser.com (198.1.123.166) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.35.0
> Host: batteriser.com
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2015 10:18:14 GMT
* Server Apache is not blacklisted
< Server: Apache
< Vary: Accept-Encoding,Cookie
< Cache-Control: max-age=3, must-revalidate
< WP-Super-Cache: Served supercache file from PHP
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
<
{ [data not shown]
* Connection #0 to host batteriser.com left intact

Also, they have set a redirect from www.batteriser.com to batteriser.com

Code: [Select]

$ curl -sv [url=http://www.batteriser.com]www.batteriser.com[/url] >/tmp/batt3.txt
* Rebuilt URL to: [url=http://www.batteriser.com/]www.batteriser.com/[/url]
* Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
*   Trying 198.1.123.166...
* Connected to [url=http://www.batteriser.com]www.batteriser.com[/url] (198.1.123.166) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.35.0
> Host: [url=http://www.batteriser.com]www.batteriser.com[/url]
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
< Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2015 10:19:52 GMT
* Server Apache is not blacklisted
< Server: Apache
< Vary: Cookie,Accept-Encoding
< X-Pingback: http://batteriser.com/xmlrpc.php
< Location: http://batteriser.com/
< Content-Length: 0
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
<
* Connection #0 to host [url=http://www.batteriser.com]www.batteriser.com[/url] left intact

Interesting that Batteriser website is simply made with Wordpress,
and as they didn't even disable the X-Pingback there is some hope that is even DDoS-sable 

[LabSpokane]

Interesting how Bob and Ali write their comments every single day (even during the weekends) on IGG, count down 13-9-4 days, 24 hours. And then the once the campain is closed the IGG page turns silent for days. I would expect a happy update for a succesful IGG campaign, but ... nothing. Now that makes me feel uncomfortable, even though I didn't support the campaign. Makes me wonder if everybody left for holiday. I wonder what a $400k holiday would be like
Hopefully I'm wrong.

They are likely going to have a big meeting with the VC's/board to see what they are going to do. They clearly cannot make money out of this campaign alone, and if they don't currently have a big order from retailer (as I'm sure they are lusting over. In fact it's stated goal of the Indiegogo campaign), they have to decide what to do next financially and production wise.

Hopefully, refunds or simply not charging the credit cards is an option that's on the table.

And I have to say that the assertions that they will simply take the money and run are totally unfounded and unfair at this point.  There is absolutely no evidence that they would do that. And that's a stupid small amount of money anyway to even regard that as a possibility.

They break in communications is very likely due to the fact that they have some money, a huge level of commitments to meet, but not nearly enough money to meet all those commitments. For all the missteps, at this point, they do deserve a little time to process the situation and respond appropriately.

[Fungus]

Hopefully, refunds or simply not charging the credit cards is an option that's on the table.

Nope.

That would be the end of Batteriser, and they're not rich yet.

My prediction is "stall", keep announcing production problems that are 'out of their control', try to keep the ball rolling and get somebody to buy them out.

Sort of related to this topic: I was looking at 18650 batteries on eBay yesterday. There's sellers on there that have sold thousands of them, all with good feedback. No problem, right?

...except:
a) AFAIK there's no 18650 with more than about 3400mAh capacity but they're all 6000mAh, 9800mAh...etc.
b) The internet is full of 18650 tests that show all those batteries have dismal capacities (200-300mAh is common).
c) There's hundreds of pictures of battery teardowns where they're half full of white powder with a tiny battery inside, etc.



ie. The tiniest bit of research will will let you know you'd have to be insane to buy a cheap 18650  on eBay.

Question: Why are they selling so many and where does all the positive feedback come from?

And back on topic: Will all the imbeciles who buy Batterisers be able to tell if they work or not?

[Kilrah]

And back on topic: Will all the imbeciles who buy Batterisers be able to tell if they work or not?

Of course not, they'll just run on placebo effect and give raving reviews. Sigh 

Question: Why are they selling so many and where does all the positive feedback come from?

Most of the positive feedback is likely paid for fake feedback (like the negative feedback on Dave's videos about the batteriser).

[Galenbo]

...Question: Why are they selling so many and where does all the positive feedback come from?

Part of the positive feedback I regret, is when I ordered parts for spare, that looked good, or were good in a first test.

[meeder]

As for being past calibration... it's never an ideal situation, but as long as you're able to prove that it was working as specified, for example, within spec next calibration, they you can probably get away with it. Just far easier for everyone involved if everything is calibrated.

Exactly it is quite common practice if your test equipment is just out of calibration.
But you really want to avoid it because of the amount of paperwork you need to produce to get the traceability in check.
I found that when doing calibrations for pharmaceutical companies it is easier to reschedule the calibrations (if possible) so there is less trouble in the paper department...

[Fungus]

As for being past calibration... it's never an ideal situation, but as long as you're able to prove that it was working as specified, for example, within spec next calibration, they you can probably get away with it. Just far easier for everyone involved if everything is calibrated.

Exactly it is quite common practice if your test equipment is just out of calibration.

Or if your customer is Batteroo.

[PA0PBZ]

How do you buy feedback on eBay? You actually have to purchase the item in order to leave a feedback.

I think you just answered your own question?

[Fungus]

How do you buy feedback on eBay? You actually have to purchase the item in order to leave a feedback.

I think you just answered your own question?

I think eBay would spot a load of purchases with no actual payments being made.

[Kilrah]

I think eBay would spot a load of purchases with no actual payments being made.

Make the payments, then refund them a month later. Or just eat the payment fees as marketing budget, obviously both the sending and receiving accounts would belong to the same entity.

[Fungus]

I think eBay would spot a load of purchases with no actual payments being made.

Make the payments, then refund them a month later. Or just eat the payment fees as marketing budget, obviously both the sending and receiving accounts would belong to the same entity.

Thousands and thousands  of them?

eg. http://www.ebay.com/itm/121498553553

[f4eru]

you can allow bank transfer payments for that. No need to do the transfer, ebay is not in the loop.

[EEVblog]

Hopefully, refunds or simply not charging the credit cards is an option that's on the table.

I greatly doubt it. They need to produce something and make the campaign a success. It's a big thing that the VC's no doubt want to pitch others.

And I have to say that the assertions that they will simply take the money and run are totally unfounded and unfair at this point.  There is absolutely no evidence that they would do that. And that's a stupid small amount of money anyway to even regard that as a possibility.

Yes, all that talk is complete and utter nonsense.

They break in communications is very likely due to the fact that they have some money, a huge level of commitments to meet, but not nearly enough money to meet all those commitments. For all the missteps, at this point, they do deserve a little time to process the situation and respond appropriately.

This.

[5ky]

Now I tried it myself, using 'curl' instead of one of those newfangled web browsers,
and the first connection to their website gets indeed dropped. How rude!

Interesting that Batteriser website is simply made with Wordpress,
and as they didn't even disable the X-Pingback there is some hope that is even DDoS-sable 

Waaaaaaaaait a minute--could this be to thwart our web-caching webapps that we've been using to keep track of changes to their website?

EDIT: shorted the quoted stuff

[Galenbo]

The feedback in this case is not bought or faked. You can see here:

You are too much into what that site tells about itself.
Their customers are the sellers. Don't expect independence, fair, easy, transparence, thruth,...
But if you absolutely want to: lookup what legal value that stars-hidden-feedback page has.

...that the feedback comes from many different buyer with different sums of feedbacks. If many of them would come from the same account you would see both repeating first / last digits of the eBay name as well as identical feedback counter.

I never typed "feedback farm" in Google. Maybe narrowing down the search to results in Vietnam gives better results.

[Kilrah]

The feedback in this case is not bought or faked. You can see here that the feedback comes from many different buyer with different sums of feedbacks. If many of them would come from the same account you would see both repeating first / last digits of the eBay name as well as identical feedback counter.

There are companies that specialize in selling fake feedback / likes / dislikes / comments and spam for most big online platforms like eBay, facebook, instagram, youtube, twitter etc who own thousands of different accounts just for that purpose and automate the process.

[Fungus]

you can allow bank transfer payments for that. No need to do the transfer, ebay is not in the loop.

Could. Might. Maybe. Theoretically...yada yada.

Have you any proof of this?

[free_electron]

They didn't fail. They "must" send a product. They asked for 30k and they got 400k. More that 800% .

Alexander.

I wonder how they will pay for that 'customised ic'...

[Wytnucls]

I'll eat my hat if it's a customized IC.