A BATTERY MOOCH POST: The recent fake LG HG2’s are rewrapped LG MG1’s

A few vendors were recently sold fake HG2’s, some of which I have been testing. Based on their own in-house testing, IMRBatteries thought they were rewrapped LG MG1’s. I didn’t have any of that battery here but the ones I bought recently arrived and after testing, I agree. The new batch(es) of fake HG2’s are rewrapped 10A 2850mAh LG MG1’s. See the graph below for a comparison of the discharges for the recent fake HG2’s and the MG1.

https://imgur.com/a/6zfmo

Their appearance is identical to the HG2 and their high capacity means they will probably pass any capacity or lower power testing. The fake wrap that is used is very close in color to the real wrap and the printing on the side is good enough. Unfortunately, these are well done fakes.

Here are some ways to spot the fakes…

• All of them have shiny/smooth white top insulating rings. The real HG2’s have matte/textured rings. If it’s too hard to check the surface directly, use a pencil. The real HG2 ring will show the pencil marks. The pencil will just slide over shiny ring on the fake HG2’s and not leave marks. This does not mean every battery with a shiny ring is a fake! Just that the fake HG2’s have them.
• The insulator ring on the fakes is self-adhesive and is firmly glued to the top of the battery. If you can shift the position of the ring, using a toothpick or something plastic (not metal!), that’s a sign that your HG2’s could be genuine.
• The fake HG2’s perform very poorly at 50W, or higher. This is the best way to test if an HG2 is fake or not. If you get an early low/weak battery alert, even compared to a 2500mAh battery, it could be a fake.

This post will probably soon be obsolete as the counterfeiters are most likely already using matte/textured rings without adhesive for the next batch. It might not be HG2’s next time!

We’ve had fake VTC4’s, VTC5’s, 25R’s, HE2’s, and HG2’s. There will be others, and soon. All we can do is stay alert and share whatever info we have as soon as we can. A huge Thank You to everyone who helped spread the word on these fake HG2’s!