PLX-1000 Tonearm ground short.

First off, I absolutely love these decks. Pioneer, you have a great product! I baby them, they literally went from the box, to a case. Not banged around, or mishandled whatsoever.

Saying that, Friday, I was using them as normal. Out of nowhere, there was a grounding issue from the tonearm. Everything was fine, and CRACKLE. Whenever I would move the tonearm, the bar would go red in Serato, and have a huge cracking come out of the speakers. Even with the power unplugged, the bar would go into red, and make whatever track was loaded, jump around like crazy. Tried it with a standard record, hooked up to a home receiver. Same horrible crackling. Turntable was grounded, swapped RCA's, power cords, cleaned contacts, and swapped cartridges. I knew it was a grounding issue, because i then moved it with a ruler, and it didn't act up. Am i the first to have this issue? They are literally a year and 2 months old. I'm hoping Pioneer can rectify this with me, and make it right.