Was your ipod under its initial warranty? because service charge is applicable if your warranty is expired or void. The indicators will straight away say whether or not you are applicable for warranty claims, this is entirely up to the Apple Service side to decide, if they say the warranty is void then you'd have to pay for the inspection. They write this clearly at the glass display near the Helpdesk, where the charges are displayed. Its very subjective at this point to put a blanket statement that they are at fault if the ipod was indeed put in its current situation by your actions, there are many indicators that the tech people have to look through before its confirmed that its a faulty part.

If you insist that you're not going to pay does it mean that they won't return the device to you?

Thats the thing, its a help desk not a real tech person, they always send the cases back to the Machines HQ to check and validate your case. There is a lot of diagnostics that would be run to determine the cause, thats why its called a diagnosis, a through one should take 1 to 2 days, because as any other company they wouldnt want to blindly incur extra costs on to themselves for customer negligence. Is the same for any electronics manufacturers to do this, its not something new. You buy the applecare to extend the warranty of genuinely broken parts that is not directly caused by you, immersion indicators and such is to cover human error possibilities. There is no honest person that would willingly admit that hey i whacked it a few times and its spoilt right? You should have asked them before sending it in whether or not items not covered under warranty is chargeable under inspection, plus its already present on every help desk tables for all to see. Again, i would like to reiterate that, warranty claims are not decided by Machines or any service center, its decided by Apple. I wouldnt want to imply anything was there any instance where the ipod wasnt used by you? placed it to near a spill? its very hard to say, cause how to remember all the variables right? Even if you were to go to Epicentre, Maccity, Sapura, Switch, Vr Tech, it would all also incur charges, theres no difference.

Wah, what are you talking about man, no device is perfect and no user is perfect either, there is a reason why companies create safe guards like water immersion sensors and other means to find out what actually happened, are you insinuating that Black Boxes are also faulty and shouldnt be used to gauge what actually happened in a crashed plane's cockpit? We are talking about an aircraft worth millions here. Even BMW and Mercedes benz cars have sensors in them that are downloadable to a diagnostic machine that can ascertain whether its a parts error or human error, how else would they know what happened? If someone were to suggest Malaysia's weather can trigger such instances then how come people who use their ipods for running and all that involves sweat dont come running to service centers to claim foul? Warranty claims has always been decided by the manufacturer who knows their device best, trust me just check out the many views on service that has been posted by forummers here in the mac servicing thread, they even exchanged a battery for my macbook even though its waaaay out of warranty and the exchange program has ceased to exist a year back,when they could have said sorry pal, we cant help you. if you feel that its not fair for companies to decide service then better to build one yourself ey?

No sir, i think its your right to ask anyway, to maaany bad experiences with mechanics, they'll say they'd check your car and all and assure you there wont be charges but when you come back the'd already charge you for everything. This exists everywhere, even in retail, dont expect them to tell you all the details, you should take your own initiative, to avoid being overcharged or manipulated. An informed customer can never be fooled.

The thing with your case is, they already found out that your ipod still has warranty, thats why they check the serial number just in case. But like all help desk they have to send it back to the service center for tests, once they established that its human error, they have no avenue to plead your case to Apple service, and they would have to charge you for tests, but from what i can understand they only informed you at the point of collection. This i feel is wrong, they should have told you on the phone when they mention that your ipod is due for collection. For this reason alone, you shouldnt be charged.

No sir, i think its your right to ask anyway, to maaany bad experiences with mechanics, they'll say they'd check your car and all and assure you there wont be charges but when you come back the'd already charge you for everything. This exists everywhere, even in retail, dont expect them to tell you all the details, you should take your own initiative, to avoid being overcharged or manipulated. An informed customer can never be fooled.

The thing with your case is, they already found out that your ipod still has warranty, thats why they check the serial number just in case. But like all help desk they have to send it back to the service center for tests, once they established that its human error, they have no avenue to plead your case to Apple service, and they would have to charge you for tests, but from what i can understand they only informed you at the point of collection. This i feel is wrong, they should have told you on the phone when they mention that your ipod is due for collection. For this reason alone, you shouldnt be charged.

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Added on May 4, 2010, 10:42 pm

well folks here always recommend Sapura and VR tech as the foremost professional service centers. But since they established that your ipod is not covered under warranty, perhaps pm-ing wei, might solve your problems, but well there will be charges.