Actually, he was probably just being nice (customer service - smile, instead of calling you a liar).
Since it was a "hardware" malfunction they will work with you. I had an Iphone fry on me, took it in with my hacked apps, summerboard theme and all. The "genius" told me it looked cool and it voids the warranty then......gave me a new one
because being a hardware issue, my "software" hacking didnt break it.