well, some shops do tell you to not use the online function at all, including to play games just to avoid your wii from getting bricked

but anyway, i do feel sorry for the new wii owner to find himself in this situation

there may be a solution...but i think it's wayyy too complicated (and not 100% proven to be successful) in helping to unbrick your wii

there are ways out there (which claims to be successful)...but it involves opening up the wii and performing a bypass or something which is sooo complicated

But, i think there's even a vid showing how it is done (as far as i can recall)...however, i doubt anyone would be really be willing to go that far for something that he or she doesn't know how to do...it may even cause some other internal damage to the hardware too...who knows?XD