Is it possible that my new iPod touch is a used one?

Question

I've purchased a new iPod touch 4G last week through a 3rd party reseller. I saw the packaging is still good in white plastic around the acrylic box. The seller assured me that the product is new and still in sealed condition.

Then, he unsealed the box to open it and picked the unit to another room (he said that he wanted to activate it first). 5 minutes later, I received the unit again and noticed that the iOS was 5.1.1 (I thought it was supposed to be 5.0.1 considering it was released in 2011)

Then I went home to register the iPod in my ASP (with the SN of course). However, after I put in the serial number, this came up :

According to our records, this serial number is registered to another Apple ID. If you have more than one Apple ID, log in to My Support Profile with that Apple ID to see your other registered products. Not sure if you have another Apple ID?

As I was about to contact Apple with telephone support, this came up :

1. Valid purchase date

2. Telephone technical support : Expired

3. Repairs and Service Coverage : Active, 2 August 2013

4. Elgible for Apple Protection Plan

Yep, the telephone support had expired and the warranty was less than 365 days. I went back to that guy for an explanation but he said that I'd better bring this matter to the Authorized Service Provider. Before I went there, I did noticed that the iPod touch often freeze after "slide to unlock" and I had to hard-reset it to get it back working. Then, it's battery capacity was awfully weak; I used it for music then it got 20% warning in just 2 hours from full charge.

So I did go the Authorized Service Provider, but the guy at the ASP laughed at me because I've received a quite non-functional product which was not supposed to be sold to customer just by looking at the serial number and the part number (ZP). Honestly, I don't even know where was ZP region located ? (My iPod touch 3rd Gen was a ZA actually). Those guys also said that Apple won't be held responsible for such thing.

Hence, I don't know where should I bring this matter, since both sides (reseller and ASP) are dead-end. I wanted to ask guys here if there were really such thing as "not supposed to be sold" iPod touch. Or if there's someone else have the same problem as I did.

I can only think of one thing, probably this iPod was a display unit, then somehow, the seller cleaned the box and the unit then resealed it again to make it looked new. I don't even know if it's possible to reseal an iPod packaging.

I don't know where else to ask, so I hope that I might find something here.

Answer 1

Phone AppleCare, they will have more details on the original purchase date, location and registration details. Then take this information to the reseller and demand your money back if it was sold as new. If they are an Apple Authorised Resealer consider reporting them to Apple for not following the correct sales procedures.

In future I would suggest buying directly from Apple wherever possible.

Answer 2

As far as I can tell, you might be doped by the reseller (since you said 3rd party, I'll assumed that it's not an authorized reseller). By looking into your problems, I've done some searches through google. Here's what I found :

According to this website, ZP covers a lot of region. Your unit might be came from Hongkong and Macau. But it doesn't stops there. I also found ZP products in Malaysia, Indonesia (ID), and Australia + New Zealand. From the looks of those items, ZP iPods are legally sold only in Hongkong, Macau, and Australia + New Zealand. (I need someone to confirm if there are legal ones in Malaysia)

In short terms, I may conclude that you bought the iPod in Indonesia or Singapore because you had ZA iPods before the ZP ones which were both (illegally) imported to your country (especially through a 3rd Party reseller). Legal products were to include import tax, however if your seller could bought some iPods from Malaysia or Australia, packed them in a luggage, and traveled back to your country, the seller may get better profit this way (I've tried once with 3 macbooks actually, so it might work).

Unfortunately, that's a risk you'd have to take if you bought it through a 3rd Party reseller. However, about your ASP who said "quite non-functional product which was not supposed to be sold to customer", it'd be quite right for illegal products. I thought that your iPod may be used iPod in other countries which then bought by the reseller and he resold it.

Here's how :

1. Since the product was a display unit but still functioning (at least), the seller bought it from another store at a cheap price (this would explained how the box and the contained headphone + cable still looked so good).
2. Then, he restored it with iTunes to wipe any data but it could not revert the iOS to the default 5.0.1 (that's why your iPod touch got 5.1.1)
3. He'd cleaned the unit and the box carefully, putting the unit back to its box, and he'd used an illegal seal to reseal it again.
4. He'd put a good price for that fake new iPod too (i.e. $199 instead of $229 for Indonesia)

Source : I've bought an iPod touch 4G during my visit in Medan (island of Sumatra, if I wasn't mistaken) a few months ago because I thought it'd be cheaper here, but I got a used one while the seller said it was new. I knew this from the fact that I didn't had to register it for the first time. The box was sealed as well but then I found out the seal was just another fake adhesive tape.

You also mentioned that you can't register your iPod touch into your Apple Support Profile. You could ask your seller to unregister it first for you. Some stores, registered its product in order to make sure that it won't be missing or stolen. But, if your seller is witted enough, he could've snatched an iPod touch with its box. However, that could only be possible if your seller admitted that they can't unregister it for you.

Anyhow, you'd have hard time to get to Apple, since you'd be in South East Asia. The closest Retail Store there would be in Australia. Since, it wasn't an Authorized store, you could always demand full refund from your seller for selling bogus iPod but telling you that it was new. In another word, the store cheated on you.

Then, you could wait until the new iPod touch to be released and buy a perfectly new unit. Sorry if this is too long, but I hope this might help.

Answer 3

Freeze when unlocking might be cause by the small number of RAM inside iPod touch 4G. However, there's also a possibility of a faulty RAM module from the factory.

The short battery or unstable battery life is definitely a factory flaw. There's no other reason for battery flaw when you got the iPod brand new.

Meanwhile, I've checked the SN you emailed to me through the help of my local ASP. The purchase date was in 4th January when it was pre-installed with iOS 5 (not 5.1) and registered somewhere in Malaysia (I still can't found out what was the appleID). My wild guess would be a customer who bought the iPod touch, registered it, and found out it was defective. So he/she went back to the shop in Malaysia for a refund. The store accepted it and restored the iPod touch to 5.1, then resealed it back so it will looked like new. I found out that resealing was quite easy to do especially to pre-unlock iPhones

Now the store (where you might be purchasing the iPod touch) sold the iPod to you and now you are the one using the defective product.

You can find more about it here : Faulty iPod touch 4G

Answer 4

Regarding the freeze and the battery problem, I had thought of another possibility.

The iPod touch you received might be a fake (not exactly) unit. There could've been 2 iPods with the same SN, one which had been purchased before the one you purchased and the second one is yours. This will explain why your warranty started before you purchased it and why you were unable to register onto ASP. (Someone else shared the same SN with you)

1. Try to check the free RAM of your iPod touch when no apps running in background, usually the fake units I ever used were equipped with less-quality RAM, hence made less free RAM available.
2. Next, try to play games and compare it to other iPods, yours would be significantly slower in terms of frame-rate.
3. Weak battery was usually caused by someone had used another (possibly used) lower quality battery
4. Yours kind of freeze are usually caused by a large app/game were installed. It's normal considering the bad RAM you had.

The rest of the quality might be the same, except the fact that you had received somewhat weaker iPod. I really recommends you ask for refund ASAP then wait for iPod touch 5th gen to be released.