Maybe I missed it but that battery seems to be in fine shape except for the terminals (and yes, I realize that's a big deal). Given that the battery itself is fine, I'd say the terminals were deliberately damaged similar to demilled firearms.
This might well be as the B+B guy said– a factory second due to be recycled/destroyed. And somebody got a hold of some of these and tried to fob them off as new. Or just some really sloppy work on the part of the vendor....
For what it's worth, that reminds me of an experience I had buying outdoor covers for my ST1100s. The covers were advertised on ebay with a price about US $20. Since they were coming from China, I bought two to be shipped together. They looked like the same thing I could have gotten at Walmart for about the same money, but each seemed to have a small defect.
I left positive feedback for the seller but commented in it that these covers might be factory seconds. That seller quickly stopped advertising ST1100 covers using the same ebay user name. A new user name appeared, selling what looked like the same covers at the same price. Maybe I figured out their secret, and they did not like seeing that secret let out in public. It was many years ago ....
If someone had lots of idle time on their hands, they could test the OP's mangled battery to verify that it was indeed electrically defective, a factory's mistake.
... Amazon ... I usually read the 1 and 2 star reviews, and occasionally 3 star. Rarely do I even skim the 4's and 5's.
I'm the same way; I do that a lot for items I've no intention to buy on Amazon. (I type the name of the product, then add the words "review Amazon" and do a web search to find the product's reviews on Amazon. That's why I recommend that the OP post a 1 star review that mentions his particular seller by name.)
