I noticed the connector metal parts were blackened or oxidized and it would only charge in one direction. I called apple support who suggested a factory reset -I was pretty unwilling as a factory reset is quite a bit of work and my iopd touch 5th gen was jailbroken -the factory reset would force an upgrade to ios7.0.4 for which there is yet no jailbreak.
I decided to take a chance and rinsed off a steel wool SOS pad thoroughly and very carefully attempted to clean the metal oxidized/dirty connectors. After a few minutes I thoroughly dried the connector and plugged it in. Success! both ways now charge the touch.
It should be noted that I took some risk in doing this as I could have damaged the connectors further but luck and patience paid off.
This was a 5th gen ipod touch purchased in December 2012 with the original lightning connector -hope this helps someone.