I’ve received two calls in the last month from people seeking iPod repair service. My office line is 801-494-2029 and Apple has a preferred provider with the number 801-494-2920 so you can see how easy it would be to mix things up.

I remember last year my wife’s uncle asking how to fix his iPod without losing all his music. It seemed he would do just about anything to ensure the safe return of his MP3 player and music library. The problem was easily solved, and I can’t tell you how happy he was to have it fixed. I bet he would have paid $50-100, maybe even more for the service provided.

Cost of an iPod: $200-400. Cost of an iPod with thousands of purchased songs (or even “borrowed”) plus time spent organizing, ripping and uploading music: $10-15k, maybe more. There’s a good margin in there.