Originally Posted by jooley
It's the stress fracture, no signs of damage. I figured they're holding on to refurbs for such instances but I can sure hope!!
As a matter of fact, they do have to replace it if its under warranty and I called the Apple Tech support because I too have stress cracks in my 16G 3G Black, and want to swap it out.
I have an appointment at the Apple Store in my mall tomorrow. I called the store and they were ambiguous as to if they had any referb replacements or not. They said if they didn't have any they could send the phone out for me and have the replacement sent back to me and it wouldn't take long.
I then called the Apple Tech support number, and they called the store and couldn't get a straight answer out of them either as to the amount of stock they had for replacements. He told me you have to use the right words when dealing with the Geniuses. Ask them if they have any "Service Stock" in and they can take it from there. I don't know how that would work, but it's worth a try.
Anyhow, I'm going to my store tomorrow, getting a replacement, getting an Apple Care Protection plan for it to extend the life of the 3G another year and selling the hell out of this thing this weekend.
You should have no problem getting a replacement for your phone.