IPhone Warranty - Help!

Question

Hi,
I have an issue with my iPhone 4, whereby, when I plug it into charge, it starts up, displays the Apple logo for about 5 seconds then powers down. About 10seconds later, this repeats - and this continues with no progress beyond the apple logo.
I'm an expat living in Guangzhou, China - so I took the phone to the only Apple Premium Service Center here. They looked at it with a light, and said that it had been exposed to water. It has NOT been exposed to water, and I let them know this. They then said they do not have the parts to repair and I needed to go back to Hong Kong where I bought it from. I don't speak Chinese, and the lady did speak OK English, but I'm not sure if the "we don't have parts" is due to them thinking it was exposed to water - or if they actually can't repair (which would surprise me).
I really don't want to have to take this to HK for repair, and I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have to under Apple's International Warranty (of which this phone is still under). I did some reading, and am guessing she looked for a pink line - which seems to happen when the phone is exposed to water. In my case it hasn't, and I did read that high humidity can cause the same effect. Guangzhou is very humid, and the issue occurred shortly after I returned from Thailand on business - extremely high humidity.
_*The bottom line is - where do I go next?*_
I'm unable to fully discuss this with the service center here in Guangzhou (due to English/Chinese language limitations). Hong Kong is not somewhere I will be traveling any time soon, so I'm at a loss for how I can successfully follow up with a warranty claim & repair here. I can't believe a Premium Apple Service center doesn't have parts to repair the phone!

Answer 1

iPhones are only serviced under warranty in the country where they were purchased. While HK is the same "country" as Guangzhou politically, I suspect it is not from the perspective of Apple's distribution and franchising. You can check the phone yourself; look at the bottom connector and in the headset jack with a light. If you see a red spot in either location the phone was exposed to water, whether you recall it or not. The sensors don't change from white to red unless they got wet.