Motorola Defy+ :: Serial Number Wasn't Found For Repair?

I bought a Defy+ from a private seller on eBay a few weeks back. The phone is in pristine condition and worked fine.Unfortunately, a problem occurred when I tried to run the Motorola Software Update utility against the phone, to make sure that the firmware was fully up to date. This managed to put my phone in to a state where it won't turn on at all.I sent the phone to SBE, Motorola's repair agent in the UK, for repair. I have now been told that the phone cannot be repaired because the IMEI and MSN numbers are "not appearing on our system". Now, I know what an IMEI number is (though not an MSN) but I don't have any idea why the number not appearing on their "system" would prevent them from repairing the phone. I tried to e-mail Motorola Support about it but got an extremely unhelpful answer which explained nothing.The IMEI is clearly marked on the sticker in the battery compartment. It's obviously a Motorola phone: it says "Motorola" on the front! That's all it does, though: functionally, it's bricked.