Brand new and corrupted ipod shuffle 4th gen.

i have a new ipod shuffle 4th gen which isnt working with itunes. This is the replacement for my original one which we had the same problem with and apple support deemed it faulty. But surely we wouldnt be that unlucky to get two in a row that are faulty? There must be another explanation.

We are using a Macbook Pro running OS X 10.6.8 (and the software is up to date with no available updates). The connection with the headphone jack->USB cable is flush and 'clicks' into place. We have the latest version of itunes and we have even updated it again today after recieving the replacement ipod. When we plug the ipod into the USB the light initially goes green and then flashes orange (is trying to sync as far as i can tell) and itunes then comes up with a message that the ipod appears corrupted and to restore the ipod.

So we restore the ipod, still no good. Manually reset the ipod, still no good. Tried both USB ports, no change. The ipod is seen by the computer in system profiler under USB so I dont think its an issue with the cable. When I plug in the headphones I get the usual message to load music to the ipod shuffle via itunes. Our old ipod (nano 4th gen) works fine with itunes and we have no trouble syncing.

I wonder if it is that we are temporarily living in europe at the moment. Macbook Pro (and ipod nano) bought in Australia, and ipod shuffle bought locally (germany) via apple online store as the local stores didnt have them in stock but online was in stock. We didnt think this would be an issue but maybe it is the problem (I would have thought they would all be generic and only the packaging/instructions etc would change depending on sale location and language, especially considering the voiceover telling me to load music via itunes is an american voice speaking english, not speaking german). Also as we are new in germany we dont know anyone to test it out with on another computer. If we did find someone who could test it with (hoping maybe a work collegue might be able to help), would they also have to be running a Mac or would a PC running windows cause more issues?

Any suggestions on what to try before we go back to apple customer support once again.