Oh no this whole thread sounds makes me really sad.
The strangest thing is a tech needing to replace a "loose" pot on a new pedal - very strange.
I've bought/been given a few pedals that have been fried, and they are fixable - but it tends to be a long process of tracing and testing components to work out what's gone wrong and why - for me it's been investing hours to fix something rather than shell out money I don't have on something. Sometimes it works, other times not.
Having said that I doubt that's it's economically viable to pay a tech to do that