Hey guys. My young cousin accidentially put his Ipod Shuffle through the wash. It's pretty easy to figure out the result - it doesn't work any longer. However, he did hold onto the paperwork and the packaging that came with the Ipod BUT NOT the receipt. Now, I've heard, in other cases, that Apple can be relatively lenient/helpful in terms of replacing/repairing damaged material, like Ipods. If I contacted Apple about this, and noted that he's all of 8 years old and wasn't thinking, do you think I'd get any help? Side note: If you feel that this thread is the perfect opportunity to say "Put it through the wash? Your cousin is an idiot." or something to that effect, that's fine, go to town. However, the explicit purpose of the thread isn't to solicit a bunch of commentary on how idiotic he is and how it would be worthless to try and defend his stupidity, it's to find out if sending his Ipod to Apple and getting a replacement one is feasible. Regardless, this is an open thread and, if it simply is going to satisfy the asshole in you to call my kid cousin an idiot, then by all means - go to town.
Yeah, just call 1800my apple and they will take care of you no problem. When you give them your serial number they will know when it was purchased and have always been great to me in the past.
I have no idea if Apple would replace it or not, but what's the harm in calling? Unless they charge for customer service, wouldn't it be better to just ask them and find out rather than asking a bunch of geeks on a Transformers board?
Well, mostly because I wanted to find out if there were "Yeah, I've had similar experiences and here is the result" interactions with apple. EDIT: By the way, thank you A LOT, skywarp.
Out of curiosity, if they can't help you are you going to buy your cousin a new Ipod to make his day?
Ops_was_a_truck, is your cousin's iPod shuffle less than a year old? If you're not sure, then go to http://www.apple.com/support/ and enter its serial number in the lower right of the page where it says "About your Support Coverage". You can find the serial number on your iPod shuffle on the back in the lower right in very fine print, as shown here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300618 If it's less than a year old and thusly still under warranty, and if it's not noticeably damaged from the exterior, then just call Apple or visit a Retail Apple Store and tell them it just stopped working. There's no need to tell them your cousin put it through the wash unless you think they'll figure it out when they look at it. So long as it's less than a year old and they don't figure out he wrecked it, they'll replace it for him. Good luck.
Hey Cory...do you need the receipt if I go into the Apple Store? I would assume, based on what's been said so far, that the answer is no, but I figured I'd be sure. EDIT: Thanks for the heads up on the support page. Indeed, it looks like his Shuffle is still under warranty. Thank you Cory!!
No problem, and no you definitely don't need a receipt. It's a one-year warranty no matter what, and Apple knows when it was purchased. Kinda spooky, but very helpful.
If they won't replace it, you could always put it in the microwave to dry it out. But seriously, if they won't replace it and you're stuck with it, why not try taking it apart and drying it out? It's worth a shot. Does a shuffle have a HDD?
Since it's under warranty, DO NOT OPEN IT. Let Apple do it. If they won't do anything for you, go Frankenstein on it if you like. If I were you, I'd let Apple fix it, then tell the cousin they wouldn't do anything, they found laundry soap in it and figured it out. Free iPod for you, life lesson learned for him. Clean your pants pockets out before doing laundry.
I had a somewhat similar experience with customer service for a fax machine that we had bought. It was an open box buy from I want to say Circuit City, well anyway from day one it never worked. So I called customer service and was basically told what to do to repair it over the phone and I broke a piece off, the technicians response was I told you to be careful, now you gotta repair it out of pocket. So anyhow I got fed up with the damn thing took it to comp usa who said we can take a look at it for something insane like 30 bucks an hour to diagnose the issue, parts and labor extra, they were very nice and I of course politely said, "no thank you." Well anyway this was fuel to the fire to have the thing fixed. So now it was war. Armed with my warranty and a written estimate for repair I then called customer service back and told the the customer rep I wanted a supervisor. So then I went through the litany of it was an open box buy for my Dad who was disbled in a lawsuit against the Veterans Admin and Social Security (which we won btw), that it really never worked since day one, I spoke with one of your service reps, got an estimate for repair blah blah either repair it or replace it. Well to the service rep he agreed that it in the first place the fax machine should have been sent to the company for repair and a box with prepaid shipping to the company was sent to my door. Basically the point after the long winded story is this, call back, if you think you are being treated poorly call back, and you maybe surprised at the answer you'll get. I was expected to go away but when I returned with my ducks in a row ready to take it up the chain doors opened. Or just maybe that asshole wasn't working that day but either way I've had the fax machine 10 years now with no problems.
Wha? Oh, honestly. I'm only a complete asshole to people who deserve it. The poor kid doesn't deserve that. Dude.
Why does every post say "you must be logged in to view attachments"? I am logged in, and I seriously doubt all of those posts had attachments.
I must be logged in to view your attachments too! WE MUST WORK TOGETHER IF WE WANT TO SEE EVERYONE'S ATTACHMENTS! Ew. I think it'd be awesome if they changed that default "You must be logged in to view attachments" sentence, wherever it is in the system, to "Everything above this sentence is a lie."
I dunno, $50-70? He keeps saying he was hoping he could get a Nano as a result of the fact that he broke his Shuffle...when I told his Mom today that I found out I could replace the Shuffle, she was overjoyed and he was (and I found this funny) happy, but you could tell that he had just realized he wouldn't get his Nano. I find this really funny because he's been boasting about how his Mom was going to buy him a Nano because he busted the Shuffle. Not anymore, kiddo!
