iphone 3G battery began to DISCHARGE when plugged into AC

The problem is that it works & charges fine on my music/radio dock and when hooked to the PC or laptop. It works fine on 1 charger. And it worked fine on the other charger until yesterday afternoon. When I first plugged it into THAT other charger, it began by charging then suddenly discharged and continue to do that every time I plugged it into that one charger. I had an electrician friend test it today for problems and he said there is no polarity problem (I had a lamp suddenly reverse polarity once but there was a bare wire inside close to the other wires and it was shorting. But the polarity and continuity tests were okay so that isn't happening here. He hooked the charger to his phone and it was okay and charged his. I showed him how mine was and plugged it in at 99%. Within a couple minutes, my phone was down to 52%. Just my phone and just on this one charger, which worked fine until yesterday.

As the line from The King & I goes, "It's a puzzlement." I will try the up-down-up-down on the mute and holding the buttons and see if the phone charges on that charger after or what and will let you know. Fingers crossed.

Okay I tried it. The phone never came back on again and I held those buttons until I thought my fingers would break, at least 3 minutes after the phone shut off. I turned it on and it took forever to start back up and it took 2 tries to get it to start up (having had to repeat the holding down of both buttons to get it to unjam and shut off again so I could try turning it on again or booting back up). Eventually it did come back on and I have it on the charger in question and it is going up on my Battery Magic meter and the iphone charge meter. It is up to 82% now. Hope this keeps working. Thanks.

I did it the other day, as cycnical as I am, and I started this thread, and it seemed to work cause the charger/adapter charged really well, so much so that it not only didn't discharge but charged better than the one that always worked and my phone lasted longer through all the games.

Okay, so now it is February 2011. No problems since the initial one and then BOOM last night I plugged the phone in when I went to be, which I do every night because it gets pretty low during the day (I like to play my games when I take a break). I plugged in and it was fine. I played a couple levels-no prob. It was charging. When I woke up 4 hours later (I don't sleep much), the phone was shut off and I couldn't get it to turn on. I checked & it was plugged in to the same charger that had been charging 4 hours before. I finally got a screen display and it showed a totally depleted battery, plugged in but the charg level never went up. I took it to a couple other wall chargers and no luck. Wouldn't charge & wouldn't turn on. Finally, opened the garage door, went out and started the car, pulled it out of the garage & plugged in the phone. By the time the car warmed up - 15 minutes - the phone was showing 91% and finally turned on. I plugged it into the wall charger in the house and within 3 seconds it was at 16% then suddenly 10% . . . 9.1% . . . . 5.2%. I pulled the charger base off and plugged the cord into the computer and it has been slowly charging ever since, 3 hours now and is up to 89.3%.

Since it seemed to work the last time, I tried the mute switch thing and guess what. The phone had charged to 30% on the USB connection so I did the Mute Switch thing then plugged it into the charger and IT DID NOT WORK this time. Now keep in mind THIS CHARGER was the one that worked the last time when the other one gave me the problems.

I don't know. I hate to think of the hassle of changing phones and I love my iphone but. . . it is my only phone and I need something to reply on. My health is not that good.