Bought a cheap USB charger from a gas station and it fried my phone battery in 3 days

I figured I'd save $10 grabbing a charger at the Shell station on Route 9 during a road trip last weekend, but it took me 4 hours on the phone with Samsung support to figure out why my battery was draining like crazy and now I'm stuck with a $200 replacement fee so has anyone else had a cheap charger mess up their phone like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_paul1mo ago

Honestly I used to think all chargers were basically the same until my buddy's phone started acting up after using a gas station one. His battery went from fine to dead in like 4 hours, same as yours, and it cost him $150 for a replacement through his carrier. That experience made me switch to only using the cable that came with my phone, even if it means paying a little more at the store.

linda5001mo ago

Totally feel you on that. It's wild how a cheap cable can mess up your whole phone's battery life like that. I had a similar scare with a gas station charger once and my phone started heating up and getting super slow. Switched back to the original cable and it's been fine, but I still get paranoid sometimes. Honestly, it's just not worth risking a $700 phone to save $10 on a charger. People don't realize how much damage those junk cables can do until it's too late.

derek_schmidt61mo ago

@the_paul are you still using the same type of charger from your buddy's meltdown, or did you find a specific brand that doesn't screw phones up?