Bamboozlement by Sony

[elfs]

So, I called Sony this afternoon to get an RMA on the DVD drive. The first guy told me over and over that "Sony cannot honor the warranty of a product that was not used under Windows 2000 or Windows XP." I told him he was full of [censored] and that the DVD drive had run reliably for six months and seventy burns without flaw and if there was something wrong with the drive it was clearly a hardware problem. The spindle wasn't engaging fully and the drive was rattling.

He finally gave me to a 2nd-tier support guy who said, "That's clearly a hardware problem. You know it. I know it. Here's the RMA procedure."

But the first guy was clearly lying to me, and I was annoyed by that. But I got satisfaction out of the competent people, and that's all that matters. And they didn't keep on hold very long; I guess the election has lots of people distracted.

Comments

[rapier.livejournal.com]

Actually, as far as the 1st tier guy knew, he wasn't lying. He didn't say it wasn't a hardware problem -- he said that Sony couldn't honor the warranty unless X. X wasn't true for you, so he was doing what he understood to be his job. Which would be either get you to hang up or pass you on to someone else.

That said, I agree that the 1st tier guy's line is bullshit and I'm glad you got to the second tier guy.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

But it wasn't true that "Sony couldn't warranty the product unless X." That was my point. The second-tier guy knew full well that the DVD Burner was known to work well with Linux and that if it had stopped working after being reliable for six months then something other than the drivers was the problem. The first guy was tech support trying to discourage me from creating an RMA; he had no clue what he was talking about, and I was annoyed that he chose to make an excuse that was patently false.

[whipartist.livejournal.com]

I will never purchase Sony computer gear again!

A couple of years ago, I had a Vaio SR-7K laptop. The machine was released onto the market in August, and I bought mine in October.

In January, the machine overheated and ate its hard drive. I tried to go through Sony to get it fixed under warranty, and got all manner of hassle. Why? I couldn't find the receipt.

First tier support just wouldn't talk to me without a receipt. One guy told me, "We can't tell if it's under warranty without the reciept." I asked him what the release date for the machine was, and how long the warranty was, and he even agreed with my conclusion that every single SR-7K ever sold was still under warranty, but he still wouldn't do anything.

I finally got a service manager who told me, "If you don't have a receipt then you probably stole it, and we don't want to repair it if you stole it."

Bastards!

I finally managed to get the drive replaced via its manufacturer (Hitachi or Toshiba, I can't remember), but Sony pretty much cost themselves my business for a very long time. It's too bad, because there are some pretty sexy Sony laptops out.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Really? That's a shame; I've never had a problem with Sony before. Usually they've been very good to me. I didn't have the receipt for the unit; someone gave it to me as a birthday gift. When I said that, the "do you have a receipt" question went away.