500 000 mAh power banks are fraud - that's a decent car battery! Reporting fails, matrix too narrow.

[chief-seattle]

There are several sellers offering power banks with a capacity of 500 000 mAh that is impossible, given their size. One is less than palm size, so at best 5000 mAh the others look like 15 000 to 20 000 mAh, but if they contain highest quality batteries (which is doubtful, given their prices) they might approach 50 000 mAh.

I have tried reporting this to eBay, however there is no provision in their reporting matrix that covers false claims in listings.

[al_merton]

It's a challenge, as it seems 500,000 is the new 50,000 of a couple of years back. Look out for 5,000,000 mAh powerbanks. Same old 5 to 10 A bank with another zero added.

One vendor says they don't put the mAh capacity on the battery otherwise airlines won't allow them.

Storage batteries are rated in Ah. A 130aH 12volt storage battery is the size of a car battery and weighs around 22kg. It costs aournd $AU250. At 5volts it would be about 312aH (or 312,000 mAh).

So this handhled wonder of suspended belief is 500aH - better than a 22kg storage battery.

Reporting is like pulling a raindrop out of storm.

[bidding_finished]

There are now hundreds of advertisements for power banks that falsely claim incredible powers.  I was taken in and bought one, then realised it wasn't going to give me the power it claimed to have.  I’ve now learnt more about these power banks and I see that it simply isn’t possible to achieve such power/energy ratings in such a small size.

There are items on the web about this particular matter including the scam about not printing the capacity due to airlines.  I think that eBay should wake up to this fraud and manage it appropriately, because there is going to be increased returns on these when people find out they’ve been duped.  eBay shouldn’t be the place for ads to freely lie about their items for sale.

[wo977737]

A 500,000 mAhr battery power bank (of 5V rating) should be able to charge a phone with a 5,000 mAhr battery 100 times (without recharging the battery power bank).

A battery power bank of 500,000 mAhr capacity would be very very big and heavy and not be portable enough to be carried in a hand bag.

Most of battery power bank has a LED to indicate the % capacity left. We can use this to calculate the battery bank capacity by checking the % capacity drop after using it to charge a mobile phone with a 5,000 mAh battery from 0% to 100% (or from 50% to 100%). 

A full charge (0% to 100%) of phone battery of size 5,000mAh should cause only 1% drop to a 500,000 mAh battery power bank (ie 99% left). For the same arguement, a full charge (0% to 100%) of phone battery of size 5,000mAh should cause 25% drop (ie 75% left) to a 20,000 mAh battery power bank. (and so on).

Hope this help.