iPod touch Looking for others with broken charger pins on new itouch

[jibberyish]

we recently purchased an Itouch. Less than 3 months later, we noticed that the black casing protecting the charging wires was missing and that it wouldn't charge. My son informed me that it was never on the itouch when he got it. Now apple is saying that It is not their fault that they sent a device out that was faulty to begin with. I have found numerous other people who have had the same problem and were forced to pay for repairs. Our whole family has itouch 4th generations. Never has that black protector broken off. I agree that i should have looked inside the charging doc to make sure it was there when we bought it, but i honestly didn't think that was an issue at the time. I would like to find as many people as possible who have encountered this same problem.