Cheap voltage tester cost me a $900 service call last month

Bought a no-name voltage tester off Amazon for $18 and it read live on a dead circuit, so I spent 2 hours chasing a ghost before calling in a guy with a proper meter. Turned out the tester was showing phantom voltage from a neighboring wire, and the actual breaker was already tripped. Anyone else had a cheap tester send them down a rabbit hole like this?

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ray_patel272mo ago

Phantom voltage" got me too once, I used to swear cheap testers were fine until that exact thing happened.

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