Actually this was a problem with The first gen of one piece chargers (as oppose to the cube chargers of the First gen iPhone) there was a recall on these and apparently if your one piece charger has a little green dot sticker it has passed the inspection that caused these problems. This was told to me by an apple genius when I purchased my 3G October '08 so my advise is to not go out and buy the newest gadget just cause it's the newest gadget. I waited a couple months after 3G S launch to buy one just because of these types of potential problems.