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Scam hybrid battery craigslist guy

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by chronon, Aug 21, 2019.

  1. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    ... Scam hybrid battery guy ...

    This guy , Russian, Dimitry Dimitro in Miami ?

    His full time job maybe working for a company called 'hybrid battery doctors' (one in Sarasota and one in Tampa - two different companies)
    Used to have 347 (NYC) area code

    now has new number *** 305 916 1628 ***

    says will come and replace your hybrid battery for $550 with 3 month warranty and takes your old battery as core.
    gives generic receipt, goes for test drive and claims another system has failed (with a new red triangle) (blames your car not his battery) then leaves abruptly and says 'call me when you get it fixed at the dealer' -- then eventually he stops responding and changes his number .
     

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    #1 chronon, Aug 21, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2019
  2. SFO

    SFO Senior Member

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    How about a link to his CL post(s), then we can keep flagging him until the zombie apocalypse begins :sneaky:
     
  3. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    #3 chronon, Aug 21, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2019
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  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    we need a sticky for good, and one for bad
     
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  5. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    have u ever got scammed on craigslist service/goods like this before ?

    and thanks to 3ProngPaul for all his assistance wish he was closer than several states away ....
     
    #5 chronon, Aug 21, 2019
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 30, 2019
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  6. Skibob

    Skibob Senior Member

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    Personally I have never been scammed by someone on Craigslist. What led you to believe that someone offering to repair your battery for 550 dollars at your house would do a good job? The fact you believed it was possible is what you need to fix.
     
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  7. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    and i didnt even pay that much , get what u pay for eh. ? when u see someone having to go in a hurry , that's a good sign that shit went south and they are bailing out of the shitstorm .... leaving you with the pile....
     
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  8. Skibob

    Skibob Senior Member

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    I didn’t mean it in a bad way. You made a mistake, fessed up to it and learned. I call that learning the hard way, we have all been there before.
     
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  9. Georgina Rudkus

    Georgina Rudkus Senior Member

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    One reason I never trusted Craig Newmark's list. I've NEVER been there.

    When, if I ever will need one, I will buy it and have it installed by my trusted dealer. Can't say anything about other dealer's but I bought my 2012 v from the same family who owns and runs the Nissan dealer from whom my husband bought his 2016.
     
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  10. TMR-JWAP

    TMR-JWAP Senior Member

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    @Georgina Rudkus recently said One reason I never trusted Craig Newmark's list. I've NEVER been there.

    Well, Georgina, you don't know what you're missing. There's a lot more to Craigslist than just a couple people out there who hack batteries.. It could literally be considered the largest online flea market after eBay, and then throw in the hundreds of other categories available. I've literally saved 10's of thousands of dollars purchasing items from Craigslist and I've sold thousands of dollars of items on Craigslist. I've purchased 4 of my 5 Gen 2s through CL. I completely replaced a 2 ton HVAC system with a much newer Trane/American Standard split unit for about $800, which includes ALL the tools, equipment and supplies needed. The only thing I didn't get via CL was the line set. I probably have better HVAC tools and equipment than half the techs running around. Out of perhaps hundreds of transactions and meetings, I've only had one odd experience, and that was all via text messaging with a guy who struggled to understand English, and I struggled to understand what he was trying to express. Like many thinks in life, Craigslist is what you make of it.
     
  11. TMR-JWAP

    TMR-JWAP Senior Member

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    On another note....

    @chronon, can you refresh us as to what started all this fiasco? Symptoms you were experiencing that lead to battery replacement? Why the "hack" thinks something else is going on?

    Personally, I always perform a Techstream health check and, usually, a quick visual car inspection before I even attempt to install a replacement battery. It kind of helps to avoid situations like this. If I'm not comfortable that a battery is the solution to your problem, there's no way in the world I'm going to install it. The last thing in the world I need is someone pissed off because a transaxle is failing or the car fails to start due to a fuel system issue or something and they insist it's a battery problem because they drained the battery trying to start it. I would give it a 50/50 chance that I would walk away from a job if the wrong coolant was in the car. If something that simple was wrong, what else is around the corner?
     
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  12. Georgina Rudkus

    Georgina Rudkus Senior Member

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    Doing just fine without Craig. Most all Prius cells out there are up to a decade old. With chemical units, age really matters. I'll buy new.

    My husband's retired engineer's friend is a tool collector of many years. He has tools that I am amazed with. He has a machine shop with multiple lathes, mills and CNC machines.

    Forget Mr. Newmark.

    My 2012 v hasn't hit 21k in miles. It has many years left in it. When it gives up the ghost, I just get a brand new one from my dealer.

    For years, I drove my dad's old van and saved my money. I had enough in 2102 to pay cash for the v. In the last 7 years, I've saved enough for half of the next new car.
     
    #12 Georgina Rudkus, Aug 23, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2019
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  13. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    this idiot from Miami, Dimitri, is a pathological liar, even the older lady down in Lake Wales and her daughter can attest to it .. he ripper her off and she said there was an attorney that also got the shaft from old mr. 'hybrid battery doctors' (magnetic sign on side and custom cap{ .. it is the battery , sitting too long and depleating, like the 12v that also drags it down when it sits .. it took me a week to get the car back to the functionality it had before dimitri's short , fast ' test drive' ...
    \
    here is a current pics of the pack dumbmitri installed that hot day in august ...

    do u notice a blue substance having accumulated on modules /block 1?
    heavy corrosion on the bus bar ...

    and isnt the temp thermistors supposed to stick into the battery hole, and arent there supposed to be 3 of them ? ??

    thanks habitual liar, dumbmitri, go back to the russian mob .....

    also current torque block voltage display
     

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  14. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    AND a year earlier, a different guy (independant) came and installed a battery, we didnt test drive, but the car worked and continued to work starting it, moving it in the driveway (it was not insured for road use), and down street and back, so I got that confidence from that experience the year prior, that guy even vaccummed the cat hair out of the hybrid battery cooling fan(the fan blades are difficult to get to)
     
  15. RRxing

    RRxing Senior Member

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    Looks like Dimitri also messed up your phone's screen... ;)
     
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  16. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Craigs List repair with free tail light warranty.

    We have been making fun of Craigs List battery re builders and there whack-a-mole battery repairs for a long time on this site. many many peeps burned..There a joke. They slap another module in it and hope it won't throw an RTOD when you start the car. They grab the money and run.
     
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  17. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    nah, thats an old droid ZTE phone that got cracked while doing electrician work , one of many that suffered the same .. i had another of that same phone that i accidentally ran over with a scissor lift .. it did alot more than crack the screen .. cheap nice person company should have have supplied company phones, but then again, green guys dont usually get those, - at some point u stop being green, i think thats when u work for a different (and bigger) company ..
     
  18. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    Well, it's one those things where, the car has been sitting a long time, uyou're getting pressure from landloard to do something about it , u have a trip possibility , u think ' i need to get this car going before i go on a multi-day 'leasure trip' and u think u can get a quick solution .. there is no quick (CHEAP) solution --

    further:
    I'm really pissed that Toyota made a battery pack with 28 modules (of 14 blocks) ... and with all this chemistry floating around and a battery management computer , NO CELL BALANCING !!! Not even block balancing .. oh the humanity of that decision ? would it have cost
    the company more money in test and dev. to have cell balancing (something they prob. have to do with Lithium) .. they have a lot of pissed off customers and in states like Cali, they prob. usu end up (under warranty) replacing packs because coverage to 150k miles - and the packs usu. do fail sometime after 130k ... esp. in a hot climate .
     
  19. chronon

    chronon Active Member

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    Current status: I pulled battery away from its home a few feet (i wont risk injury to move it out of the hatch), did the whack a mole module 12 removal and replaced with a bench tested known good one (thank God both modules in that block weren't down) (which i'm finding seems to be coming back on the bench with some C/D cycles ) -- boy wouldnt it have been nice if Toyota bat. mgmt. computer would have saved me the trouble) --

    now have to replace or bench balance all modules on blocks 1 and 2. Then I may shove them back or replace them ... at ~$30+/module I'm leaning to the former .
     
  20. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    seems like the majority of prius batteries get through the warranty period, even in hot climates.

    building cars isn't easy, and decising how durable to make them at what cost is also a difficult balancing act.

    toyota does it as well as anybody, if not better