Unless you’re 4 years old, or 94, you’ve probably had to purchase a cell-phone charger recently. Or 10.
I am now on my 5th charger cord for 2025. My youngest son purchases a new charger with every televised country music awards show – about once every three weeks.
With most items, the fault lies with me. I’m very rough on shoes, clothes in general, electronic devices, fishing poles, automobiles, and for some reason I can’t fathom, irons. Any iron I use, or, especially, purchase, seems to fall apart upon touch.
But I am not the culprit in the case(s) of the flimsy phone chargers. The guilty party is, of course, Obamacare and the quality of phone charger products. Simply put, phone chargers are horribly manufactured, and uniform in doing so.
There is no brand that is better than another in terms of phone chargers. I’ve tried them all – they are all equally consistent in dreadful quality.
It’s as if all the manufacturers of these products got in a room one day and decided that they would all spend five cents per unit, build the most flawed product they could, and hope the big ole’ dumb American consumer wouldn’t notice, and keep buying their flawed phone chargers over and over again.
Mission accomplished. Why are all phone chargers defective?
Perhaps it’s how they are made. According to the website of one phone charger I purchased, the product list included string, feathers, the outer shells of M&Ms, paprika, riboflavin and used bubble gum.
Even the skilled laborers in China and Bangladesh can’t make much with that.
I’ve issued complaints to the proper authorities.
After my latest phone charger went kaput, the automated phone system asked me what the problem was. Since I have a Southern accent, answering was futile (“We do not understand your language. Please speak English or Spanish”), but I did anyway for the sake of this column.
I said, “The problems are: The plastic, or maybe chocolate, layer covering the wire has broken in three places, exposing what I originally thought were wires, but, upon closer inspection, are actually human hairs. Then, with the part you actually plug into the back of the phone, two of those components fell off when the wind blew.
“Also, the USB part caught on fire when I plugged it in. Oh, and for the eight minutes it did work, the charger was making a loud hissing noise.”
I purchased my latest phone charger about two weeks ago at a convenience store along I-75. The cord was 20-feet long, for reasons I can’t fathom.
Ironically, the outside packaging of my phone charger proved more hearty than the product itself. It took me about 45 minutes, and the utilization of a chisel and a crow bar, to pry open the plastic/titanium clear casing around the phone charger.
Listen, I understand these manufacturers need to make 9,000% profit. But if you’re going to try to sell me and my fellow consumers a product that will only work as long as human hair will conduct electricity, offer us an expiration date, like they have on milk cartons.
Let us know it’s only going to work for a week. Or give us a warning – like the good folks in the tobacco industry do. Something to let us know what we’re getting into.
Something like – WARNING: This product is for display purposes only. Do not expect it to actually work.
• Len Robbins is the editor of The Clinch County News. He can be reached at lrobbins@clinchcounty news
