I'm a fan of apple products, aside from their price, but the iphone connector has always looked like shoddy poo to me. I replaced the ac adapter for my mom's powerbook five or six times, and I ran into the magsafe fire issue myself. Never saw the fire, but when I got up the next morning it was burnt and bent up. Hassle-less replacement under applecare.
Do your family members use third party usb power bricks? I had to throw out a bunch of cheap walmart shitty ones my mom was using to protect her phone.