Frustrated with batteries

[jaymasta]

hey guys, I just purchased a new camera the other day a canon 850is, I was going to buy a new battery when I bought the camera and they wanted 89.95, the guy was going to "give" it to me for 49.95 since I just spend $300 on a new camera anyways I decided to pass on it and got him to throw in some other crap, however after I have done my research the camera uses the nb5l battery and I can easily find 2 of these batterys and an additional charger on ebay brand new shipped to my house for under $20.00, and there are tons of them all over ebay many starting at under $5 for just the battery, and it just annoys the crap out of me how they are so cheap some places but it seems locally I can't get anywhere NEAR these prices...any thoughs or reason for this ?
PS the battery was a 3rd party battery so it wasn't cannon made...

 

[meuge]

hey guys, I just purchased a new camera the other day a canon 850is, I was going to buy a new battery when I bought the camera and they wanted 89.95, the guy was going to "give" it to me for 49.95 since I just spend $300 on a new camera anyways I decided to pass on it and got him to throw in some other crap, however after I have done my research the camera uses the nb5l battery and I can easily find 2 of these batterys and an additional charger on ebay brand new shipped to my house for under $20.00, and there are tons of them all over ebay many starting at under $5 for just the battery, and it just annoys the crap out of me how they are so cheap some places but it seems locally I can't get anywhere NEAR these prices...any thoughs or reason for this ?
PS the battery was a 3rd party battery so it wasn't cannon made...

3rd party lithium-ion batteries tend to start fires and explode.

 

[Fallingwater]

You make it sound like there's a 1/3 chance that a knockoff battery will burst into a supernova on its own accord.

I haven't bought an original battery in years, and I've never had a problem.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I have also bought Lithium packs for my Canon, laptop, portable DVD player, cell phones, cordless phones on Ebay. I look for a seller that has high sales count, positive ratings, larger operation they would not want to jeopardize.

 

[stephenmadpotato]

There are so many records of 3rd party exploding lithium ion batteries people have actually died from it. I wouldn't take the risk of importing any non fda approved items unless I knew how it worked.