OK, when you say "TuffIom battery charger" do you mean
THIS? I'm hoping you mean 3.65 volts, that is a good start.
The "smart battery charger", what exactly is that? Does it have a Lithium battery setting? Did you use a BMS? What brand/model? If it is seeing something it doesn't expect (like a dead short, which is what lithium cells will look like to a charger) it will say you have a bad battery, and be wrong.
I wouldn't charge these without a BMS, even if the smart charger has a lithium setting. I was just curious about what you had tried first.
You shouldn't have any problems reading individual cell voltages as long as you are going across the positive and negative of each cell, that's exactly what a BMS does (that's what all the wires are for). Parallel means all positives are connected to each other, and all negative are connected to each other. Serial means you take the negative from one and connect it to the positive in the next cell (like to build a 12 volt battery from cells that are only 3.2 volts each). 4 cells in a series gives 12.8 volts (close enough to 12 volts, which is actually 6 lead acid cells in series at 2 volts each).
So, parallel you should read somewhere between 2.5 and 3.65 volts (depending on state of charge, most likely 3.3 volts when you received them).
In series, it really depends on how many cells in a series, 4 would be approximately 12 to 13 volts, 8 cells in series would be over 24 volts).
People are confused because you seem to be mixing up series and parallel, which isn't that big a deal.