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

Solution 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.

Solution 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.