She kept buying phone batteries until support found the charger

A customer who thought her new mobile phone was defective had actually been throwing away its battery every time it ran flat.

That story comes from “Steve,” a reader featured in The Register’s On Call column, who said he started in 2006 doing tech support for a supermarket’s own-brand mobile service, back when many phones still used removable batteries.

According to Steve, one customer called in furious after buying her first mobile phone. She had used it for two weeks and wanted to return it as faulty.

When Steve asked what was wrong, the customer said:

“This phone is supposed to last for years. But I’ve just bought a third battery to keep it running.”

He then worked out what had happened: each time the phone battery ran out, the customer threw it away and bought another one, assuming it was a disposable battery like the kind used in other devices.

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Steve asked whether she was using the charger that came with the phone. She did not know the charger existed and had not been using it.

He told her to fetch the original box and check inside. She soon found the charger hidden under a layer of cardboard, and the complaint ended there.

The anecdote is a reminder of how unfamiliar early mobile ownership could be for first-time users, especially in the mid-2000s as rechargeable handsets became commonplace.