Techhood bribing me, PHR-805t discontinued?

I don't like to blow whistles, but I just want to inform the internets to take caution in their violet laser diode purchases.

I ordered a couple of PHR-805t's from Techhood on ebay, and received them in the proper packaging. I mounted them (using the LM317 driver with capacitor) in heatsinks, and taking all ESD and thermal precautions. Used aixiz acrylic lens with the back opened up. One of them I suspect was working only at about 30mw (couldn't light a black match), and the other one had dark lines in the die (not implying it's not single mode). The driver was set to 125mA on both occations. Since the 2011 documentation here http://laserpointerforums.com/f38/phr-805-graphs-63868.html implies it would be working at about 80mw, and the the diode comes brand new without solder on the pins (meaning it is not extracted from a sled), it points to one thing: someone somewhere is selling techhood counterfeit laser diodes.

I contacted Techhood and asked for a refund, because these were definately not PHR-805t's. They offered a 50% refund for due to restocking. I reluctantly accepted, but still gave them negative feedback, which is no big deal because they're a million dollar company with thousands of positive reviews. They just shot me an email, not an ebay message, apparently stating that they will give me my other $7.50 back if I edit my review and make it positive feedback. Must be a hot selling item.

Has anyone else found differences in their LDs from genuine back-in-the-day PHR-805t's? Not accusing Techhood of anything but bribery, but it sure builds the case that you can't get real PHR-805t's anymore.

Used a cheap driver with a potentiometer, and turned up the current on the underpowered one to 170mA, and then it was bright enough to light a black match. Did the same to the one with the defective die, but it didn't improve, and then set it to 250mA. It isn't dead yet, but lasing at estimated 20mw. Just making sure they didn't sell me the death star by accident. But correct me if I'm wrong; feeding a PHR-805t 125mA 2 years ago would give you 120mw, right?

I am certain they are using Google translate, because the wording is exactly the same as some other Chinese seller I spoke with. When they say, "please advise" that is the giveaway, as that is how GT outputs from Chinese. I tested it myself!

Woah, I wonder if people actually said that phrase before translating software.

Oh, by the way everyone, Techhood is a fantastic company. They are always courteous, and have a great deal of stock to select from at excellent prices.

Why would you possibly think they are being bribed? More likely buying 805 sleds is no longer economical/possible, so they switched to somewhat similar diodes. Not quite sure why you would think there is bribery taking place.

Oh, and techhood is not, by any means, a "multi million dollar company."

Its China, get used to false advertising.

So let me get this straight. they offered you 50% refund to restock the item? So you have to send it back to them? If I was in your shoes I never would have agreed to that in a million years and here is why.
You don't realize how much power you have buying on ebay especially if you used paypal. Too many negative reviews and Ebay and paypal start asking questions and can even ban them.
Second- you have the ultimate leverage in that you have an LPM. One review with details of how this diode was way under spec, and make sure you list the actual numbers, and that will cost them quite a bit of business. And they damn well know this!

They are low balling you. I have been given a full refund and been allowed to keep the item multiple times by Chinese sellers in exchange for a good review. Some have offered me 50 or 75% refund but I have always politely refused and made sure they know I leave feedback for every purchase. Which I do. I tell people on here all the time LEAVE FEEDBACK FOR EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE!!! This makes such a huge difference because the sellers check your profile. If you have a prefect buyers profile and leave tons of feedback you would be surprised what you will get when not satisfied.
Good luck

crazyspaz said:

Why would you possibly think they are being bribed?

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I mean they're bribing me to give them a good review for the other 50% of my refund.
What do you guys think, should i give in? That $7.50 is 1/6 the way to an M140

AgentMcBaine said:

I mean they're bribing me to give them a good review for the other 50% of my refund.
What do you guys think, should i give in? That $7.50 is 1/6 the way to an M140

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Its really up to you. By forfeiting the 7.50 you can keep your review up as is and stop them from misleading other buyers or you can get your money back. I wouldn't judge you if you took the money but It would be a good thing to help out other buyers.
Your call amigo.

It honestly doesn't matter. Like I said, it's China, false advertising is commonplace. Not hardly worth bringing up with feedback, buyers should know what they are getting into.

Out of all of the China laser sellers, my impression has been Techhood was honest, unlike Laserlands who routinely misleads customers. I've left negative feed back to warn other buyers before when I get something other than what was advertised, but at a personal cost to myself when I do that. I wouldn't do so for a mistake, but if I see a purposeful act, I will.

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and accept the offer. Techhood is a great source for optics and brand new monster spec multimode LDs right when they come out. If i left negative feedback, it would only last on eBay for 12 months anyway. The important part is that it's on permanent record right here on this thread.

Or not since "none of my feedback is available for revision". They had it comin to em.

Alaskan said:

Out of all of the China laser sellers, my impression has been Techhood was honest, unlike Laserlands who routinely misleads customers. I've left negative feed back to warn other buyers before when I get something other than what was advertised, but at a personal cost to myself when I do that. I wouldn't do so for a mistake, but if I see a purposeful act, I will.

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Yep that is how I see this too.

Techhood is not small BUt not as big as you may think- i have had nothing but good dealings with them-- Robinson especailly has been very helpful and honest.

IMHO , because almost NOBODY will warrantee a diode due to delicate nature =you were treated fairly and to leave a neg after that is not right.

hakzaw1 said:

IMHO , because almost NOBODY will warrantee a diode due to delicate nature =you were treated fairly and to leave a neg after that is not right.

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I was really going to take back my negative feedback after they offered 100% refund if I did, but I was unable to because that time window had passed.
No offence, but the laser diodes I received were not 120mw as they had specified, and were being overdriven at 120mA. It's the seller's job to test their products, give it a human touch, cuz otherwise they're no better than a Walmart. It's also not right to make your customers feel like an animal doing tricks for $7.50 doggy treats. But I do still purchase lenses from them and leave positive feedback

ebay does not give a crap about how many reports or negative reviews.. calls they get.

At first I thought that within the last 30 days 41 negatives was bad, to shop further and then learn of sellers with 150+ then 300+..
check this one out at over 460 for this month gone by eBay Feedback Profile for elec-mall

That little bit in apparent savings from one seller of the same item to the next can most often lead to a lot of time typing or on the phone with ebay.. I am finding that a good percentage of these chi-'cheaper' sellers will not send what you bought unless you ask them where your stuff is... or they start hearing from you thru ebay.. And even then they will go on about how they have sent you a 2nd shipment and to leave this said -2nd one- in the mailbox so it gets sent back to them... Aint so!, nope, I aint seen -that one- fullfilled yet.
Google "protected chinese ebay sellers" and read more.


AgentMcBaine have you tried to buy from them since?!!!!
I bet you are too "late" to revise feedback because you patiently persisted with them while they would throw you into an endless loop.

-Read-

I seen that ebay seller techhood has 3 different sizes/styles of flexture mounts.. So I order a few of each style from techhood in 3 different orders.
They were dirty and oxidized, very few looked clean and new, also, they were all the same thing, no difference between the 3 types that techood describes, EACH mount was MISSING one grubscrew.. I tried to reason and deal with them for a lonngg time, they would constantly say they were sending my missing parts, yet to again ask what I need.. I'd repeat myself, they would come back saying they have sent me my missing stuff and never could present a tracking number.. to again ask me what I need!. This repeated 4 or more times..
I got one of the orders refunded by ebay while my pleading for correction was going on.
(I learned that I should had first gone to paypal because the periods of time allowed would had been to my advantage.. once you start action under ebay you cannot goto paypal, they say..)
I left them bad feedback on the two orders that I could with and they replied to it saying I was a competitor with a grudge...
If the last time I sold (3 times) on ebay was probably six years ago and not even laser related, how can this even be so, ebay removed this B.S. feedback reply from them. techhood even said they would send me my stuff once I removed the negative comments. ebay told me that is extortion
After all this techhood removed my ability to buy from them for Fk's sAke!

@LaserCo
Thanks for your reply. I had a bad deal with elec-mall too: completely counterfeit cellphone battery bank. Both the ones i ordered shorted my batteries and went up in smoke. And i had no idea Techhood could be that bad, but it's now obvious how much of a language barrier there is. Also good to know about opening complaints on PayPal directly.
I buy lenses from Techhood all the time. They have the cheapest AR 3 Elements i can find, but i guess I'm just lucky that they know how to sell lenses . When i posted this thread, ebay sellers were still able to post negative feedback against buyers, but now I'm free to exercise my full businessieness

Alaskan said:

Out of all of the China laser sellers, my impression has been Techhood was honest, unlike Laserlands who routinely misleads customers. I've left negative feed back to warn other buyers before when I get something other than what was advertised, but at a personal cost to myself when I do that. I wouldn't do so for a mistake, but if I see a purposeful act, I will.

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AFAIK laserlands and techhood are the same people