[geeks] Burned by bad batteries

[microcode at zoho.com]

We talked about counterfit batteries recently. During one of my unsuccessful
attempts to find real Duracells here (although my wife finally found some at
a great price in shop near her office) I was told several times that "GP is
the best" by people working in shops that didn't have what I asked for. It
is customary here for the guy working in a store to swear with all his might
that whatever you want is not available at all- never heard of it, not
brought into the country, illegal to import, junk anyway, blah blah blah.
Then they will try to sell you junk that is worse than you can possibly
imagine while showering praise on it and swearing it is the best you can
get. Basically, being honest and telling the truth does not show up on their 
radar.

This was getting old, so in the next place when I asked for Duracells and
got the answer that "GP is the best" I was heading for the door. The
impatient, irritated SOB called after me and said "I don't understand why
you play 20 questions and then don't buy anything!" as if I'm obligated to
buy dangerous, defective junk from people with attitude problems. Have a
nice day, bastard!

I know from the rest of the crap they put out under that name that GP is not
only not the best, but is right up there vying for the very worst. I was
unfortunate enough to have been burned by some of their other junk in the
past. Some years ago I bought 2 expensive floor fans that died after 3
months of usage. I went back to the store that sold them and the GP rep took
the fans and promised to swap them out for replacements. I kept hearing the
fans were on the way over to my house but he never replaced the fans. In a
weak moment my wife bought a multipack of GP AAAs to use in some digital
clocks. I thought I was careful to not put them in anything important, but I
remembered wrong.

I left two GP AAAs in an old mint-condition Palm Pilot and today it was
proven that it was a bad idea. One of them leaked all over the battery
compartment and out the battery door. I was able to clean up the visible
mess altough I didn't open the unit itself. I washed off the battery door
in soapy water. I cleaned up the battery compartment with what passes for a
q-tip over here and then swabbed the compartment out with a chemical that
has proven ok to use for cleaning up used electronic gear housings.

There is some damage to the plastic on the case and the door but at least it
shouldn't get worse now. I'm disappointed because the old Palm was pristine
before this. I'm sure some of you can relate.

I don't anticipate that people elsewhere except perhaps in China would ever
be afflicted by this brand but since it is now being sold on eBay I thought
it would be nice to let you know what I found out, so you don't try to save
money the hard way!

-- 
I was a programmer in the 1970s and I still am.
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