I got my repaired iPod back last Friday, but unbeknownst to me, the damn thing will no longer output any sound. So I went from a static filled output that did have output, to absolute silence.

So I go back to Best Buy last night and give them the run down. Of course the guy treats me like I have the Black Death and am trying to pull a fast one. I am not sure why customers have to justify why they are bringing in something for repair, but I guess if you have a 40GB G4 iPod, you have to justify your actions.

The manager-type of the Geek Squad tells me that his iPod specialist will be in on Wednesday, and if he cannot fix it then they will give me a new one. Of course I cannot get this in writing, so knows what will happen. I just want the damn thing to work again, and I do not care to have to wait another three weeks for the repair guys to do nothing, which is basically what they did last time. How can you swap out a HDD and not verify that the unit actually plays sound?

The Best Buy customer service has been horrendous. A decent store would just give me a replacement and return the original back to Apple as defective. According to the manager-type, there is sort of a lemon law in effect – I have to send it in for repairs four times before they will replace the unit. I am now on repair order two.

Next steps? I will wait until Wednesday to see what the iPod specialist can do – apparently he is something short of God, and the only person trained to do a little more than a soft reset. After that, if I do not get a replacement I will have to call my credit card company, and maybe call Apple.