31 Aug 2026

Consumer Alert: The $418 EV Charging Trap and How to Protect Yourself

By EVWorld.com AI Editorial Team

When Michigan resident Stanley Kpenkaan plugged a rented Chevy Bolt into a Fast Charger at a Hyundai dealership in Macomb, he expected to pay a routine fee for a quick top-up. Instead, a 44-minute session yielded a jaw-dropping bill of $418.27. His experience serves as an urgent warning for electric vehicle drivers relying on smartphone apps to locate public chargers.

The financial surprise resulted from a toxic combination of aggressive station pricing, inter-network roaming agreements, and poor app communication. Kpenkaan located the station using the EVgo app, which lists third-party chargers through a roaming partnership with network provider ChargePoint. Unbeknownst to him, the host dealership had set its ChargePoint station rate at a staggering $5.00 per kilowatt-hour plus $5.00 per minute. Standard public fast-charging costs typically hover between $0.35 and $0.50 per kWh.

While the dealership reportedly intended to keep the station private for internal use, they left it connected to the public ChargePoint network without setting access restrictions. Because roaming was active, EVgo automatically pulled the site into its directory. Kpenkaan initiated the session through his app, unaware that the host network permitted station owners to set arbitrary fees without safeguard caps on cross-network platforms.

When Kpenkaan challenged the charge, EVgo initially held that the transaction was valid because the dealership controls site pricing. It was only after local media coverage that EVgo issued a $405.00 goodwill refund, reducing his out-of-pocket cost to $13.27, which reflected standard network rates. EVgo subsequently delisted the dealership location from its app filters.

Consumer Action Steps

This incident highlights critical gaps in the public charging ecosystem. EVWorld recommends the following precautions before plugging in at non-standard locations:

Always verify rate structures on the physical charger screen prior to starting a session, even if your preferred app led you there. Host site operators retain ultimate pricing control on open networks, and third-party apps do not always update rate changes in real time. Pay close attention to locations situated at auto dealerships, as many configure high fees to deter public use. If an app routes you to a site with stacked per-minute and per-kWh rates, abort the session immediately and report pricing anomalies to your network provider.

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