I've learned quite a bit in the last two months on the topic of cell phone damage by fluids. Certain fluids, like distilled water (providing it is dried immediately), are not as damaging to electronics as soda, coffee, detergents mixed with water, or tap water. With common tap water, the residue that adheres to the electronic circuitry may be a microscopic conductive metal that can protentially impact a resistor and therefore interfere with power or communication signal propagation. Various chemicals can have an impact on the electronics during the long run. The most notable is soda which coats the electronics with a dialectric substance (sugar or glucose) that is damaging even if a small quantity seeps through a unit.
Damage doesn't typically occur during shipment. If it does, the store owner above is right: they send it back. I've been told that most damage occurs in phones that are sold from outdoor kiosk carts because they are subjected to the everity and changes in weather conditions and are constantly being transported back and forth between storage and display locations. Second are the indoor kiosk carts found in malls for much of the same reasons. Third are the popular large electronic stores like Best Buy which tend to over order with no room to stock. I've been told that damage in these stores generally occurs more when there is a large sale and clerks get busy. A consumer might damage the phone if a salesperson lets the customer remove one from the box and then goes off to help another customer. New and improperly trained employees can drive up the damage, but while Motorola has received phones that have experienced water damage come from inventory, they indicated that these phones are probably returned by consumers and not checked for water damage. The phones may appear in good enough condition to resell w/o repackaging and they go back onto the shelves especially when stores are low in stock. I've been told that in many stores, if the phone turns on and off, the staff at the return counters of large electronic stores are not typcially trained to open the battery compartment, even if the phone is completely dysfunctional. Those who have responded to this post and other resources have agreed that a wet phone which dries can still be operational until it begins to corrode. In my case, the phone was already degrading when I bought it, so I theorized that the phone was probably water damaged when I purchased it.
I believe that it was my responsibility to take the battery out in the store (it actually shouldn't be in the phone anyway: that's another clue of a resale) and checked for water damage. However, I dropped the carrier, Verizon -- even though I would rather not have done this with a company which I technically respect, but when their Customer Service 1) didn't have a plan; 2) made themselves unavailable; and 3) when a CSR kept interrupting me with: "That's your problem not my problem" and "I'm not here to wate my time listening to you're story..." she was absolultely incorrect: It IS the carrier's problem if they are charging me for a service and I don't have phone. After all, if I don't have a phone, what kind of service do I have? If no one had a cell phone, they wouldn't be in business. Furthermore, carrier's have made it their business by providing phones for free or comparatively nominal costs. If the electric company provided such deals on lamps or computers, it would be their problem if I had a defective lamp or computer. Second, the purpose of Customer Service is to liaise with customers. The most vulger thing that can be said to a customer is that they are wasting the time of customer service. A CSR with that attitude should not be assigned to Customer Service and that is a Verizon management problem that could very well be a reflection of the company's philospophies and policies. (I've worked with NYNEX and GTE before they merged to become Verizon but who am I to say that these customer service reps had a bad day or don't like their jobs. Thus, less than 20 days into my account, I cancelled it after posing a senario to Cingular identical to the one I had with Verizon and asking them how they would respond. Of course, I expected to be overwhelmed by the difference, and the fact that Cingular indicated that because the water damage was reported within the first 30 days, they would have conducted an investigation and provided me with a solution to -- such as a refurbished loaner phone within 24 hrs. (Whether they would comply, remains open for dispute). What I liked about Cingular is that I felt intelligent when asking a question I knew was totally ridiculous. The people at Cingular appeared to be trained; the people at Verizon don't. I liked the way Cingular CS treated me; all Verizon did was give me a headache and wonder when anyone will be able to reach me by cell phone... and when I would be able to reach them.
(sorry 
)