Problem with Sony MDM-X4

[lbanks]

I bought this off Ebay and it seem to work well. But recently it has started a little trick where (in rec or play mode) if I hit the play button, instead of playing, it starts counting seconds and the play LED starts flashing. I thought I may have put it in some kind of cue mode, but it will keep counting until you stop it. Is anyone run into this behavior. If this is a repair item, is it expensive? Thanks.