Complain about a product or service

Sony Computers

Cyrus of Gibraltar, Gibraltar October 10, 2009

Less than 9 months ago I spent £1400 on top of the range 'flagship vaio fw21z' models. After approximately 8 months the wireless function of this supposedly super flagship laptop stopped functioning, further to that the LED lights at the front also stopped working. Now by this point I may have been worried but I remembered this product is still under warranty so great, I call the store I purchased from and arranged for them to collect my laptop and they send to sony for my free repair.

All is well and good for me for the next month and a half whilst I am left without a laptop and wondering why this repair takes so very long. I have already at this point been informed by the store owner that "well it will take a lot of time as it is Sony and they will never honour the guarantee. how can this shop owner after my spending so much money on vaio products (I bought two laptops during the same year, 2 months apart) be telling me this now. Surely a company of Sony's size and reputation cannot do this to clients. Surely this is not the way they make money. A company whose products I have trusted for so many years (yes I also own a PS3, 2 bravia tvs, and a blu ray player)

But sure enough much to my shock and horror I get the dreaded news back that my laptop will not be fixed, not only that but I will be charged 738 Euros for the repair. Okay lets ignore the fact I paid in pounds for my product and now I am being asked to pay Euros which will cost me even more due to exchange rate and the bank fee for paying in a foreign currency. I call up pathetic excuse for a customer service center, looking for an explanation. Apparently my wireless switch will not be repaired under warranty as I have pressed it. Sorry but if it is a switch at the front of the laptop that has the functionality of turning it on or off why would I as the owner of the product not be allowed to 'press it'. If this was not allowed it was nowhere on the instruction manual that was never provided with my laptop. Again I still cannot get my head around why this does not fall under guarantee, I mean surely if it is a button that has an on and an off position, the owner of said product must have the ability to select as desired. If this was not meant to be 'pressed' would this not have been better designed to not even be an on or off switch and just be a feature that is constantly on?

Again the sad pathetic excuse of customer servce agents cannot answer my questions. At this point I spot something else on the invoice I have been sent, I am being charged a high rate fee for the repair. So naturally I enquire about this high rate, no one seems to be able to explain to me why I am being charged a high rate for the repair. Every agent I ask gives me a different answer related to something irrelevant to my question. By this point it is completely clear in my mind I am getting no where, no body can answer any of my questions, no one can assure me what is repaired under warranty or not, at one point I am told by a customer service agent that "well sir you must understand that the terms of our warranty can change on a daily basis", seriously do any of the agents have any form of training? Now here is a summary of my issues, I am being told that my super top of the range laptop will not be repaired under warranty. The cheap plastic parts it has obviously been built from are not strong enough to be pressed to turn on or off. Talking to customer support further frustrates me as I get no real answers from anyone. No one can truly answer my questions regarding the high rate for the repair I spend much time thinking about this, do I spend a further 738 Euros for a replacement cheap piece of plastic that I have been told I cannot press or do I use half of that money and get myself a new DELL for half the price (Same spec machine too) and have money left over? 2 seconds later I am calling up dell and placing my order. I once again phone up 'customer support' and ask for my laptop to be shipped back to me without a new shiny piece of 738 euro plastic button.

Now yesterday I receive my laptop back, to my surprise when i open up the box it came packed in, I have a letter saying thank you for your continued support of sony (in Spanish even though again my machine is an English machine) and this includes a free DIRT CLOTH. Now of course this has made it all the much better now, in fact seeing as you have been so generous as to give me a free cleaning cloth I will immediately call up the office of consumer affairs and fair trading and inform them that I want to drop my case immediately as Sony have offered not to repair my laptop but have given me a free cloth instead.

As for the cleaning cloth to be used on my fw laptop, I have come to the conclusion that no matter how much you polish a turd at the end of the day it is still a turd. A real shame as I have always been a fan of sony products.

Mrs of 35 Shardelow Avenue, United Kingdom October 6, 2009

I bought my daughter a new Sony Vaio VGN CS35X laptop to return to University with. 10 days after we received it (puchased from Sonystyle because our local showroom did not have the range and suggested buying online) it refused to boot up. I contacted Sonystyle customer service who arranged to have it collected. They refused to replace it or give a refund even though it cost £1168 and had only worked for 10 days. They also said it would be back in 5 working days.

One month later and I am still calling them every couple of days to find out when we can have it back. They are unhelpful on the phone and everyone you speak to says it is not their responsibility and they refuse to let you talk to a supervisor. I have now been "escalated" which makes not a jot of difference. They hide away behind a large complicated company structure and refuse to take responsibility for their poor service.

I am never going near this company again - oh, except for the county court hearing, lets hope its very inconvenient to them when they have to attend. I have lost £1168 , my daughter still has no laptop and I have spent hours making phone calls and writing letters and emails. Never buy a Sony their customer service stinks.

Jared of Phoenix, AZ September 30, 2009

I had a Sony Vaio laptop that I purchased about 8 months ago fry one day. I plugged the ac adapter into the laptop, plugged it into the wall, and my laptop started smoking. I quickly unplugged everything but the laptop no longer turned on, and the little green LED on the ac adapter didn't light up when it was plugged in. Obviously the ac adapter was defective and sent way too much current to the laptop and burnt it up. I brought it into a Sony Style store to get it repaired. The sales associate put the laptop through a battery of tests and came to the exact same conclusion. I handed him the receipt for the purchase of the laptop 8 months prior, he agreed that the repair would be covered under warranty, I filled out a work order form and left laptop in his care.

3 weeks passed and I had received no contact from Sony. I saw on the work order receipt that I could check the status of my repair online. I attempted, but apparently my work order number wasn't found, so I called the store. I was informed that my warranty work had been denied and that they had attempted to contact me at the number on the work order, which they definitely had not. He put me through to the general customer service line, and the agent there gave me the runaround about why the warranty work was denied. She then put me through to the repair center, where the agent there told me, and I quote, "we found liquid *in* your laptop." I knew this wasn't possible since I take great care of my laptop! If there was liquid in the laptop, it happened somewhere between the Sony Style store and the repair center! He went on to tell me that there was "a massive amount of corrosion" and that there was no way the work would be covered under warranty and it would cost 650 to repair. After arguing with the guy for a good 30 minutes, I requested the laptop be returned to me and verified my address with him, the exact same address that was on the work order.

2 more weeks passed and I had no contact from Sony and no laptop. So I called customer service back and they informed me that it had already been delivered! The agent verified my address again and, of course, they left off my apartment number. Turns out the laptop was sitting at Fed Ex because it couldn't be delivered. I went to pick the laptop up and, coincidentally, there was another guy there picking up a Vaio that was sent back to him from the repair center with no apartment number! When I got the laptop home, I COMPLETELY disassembled it, and could not find a single indication of water damage, as I had known all along. What I did find was a burnt out connector where the motherboard hit the power supply, which I also had known all along.

ronnie of dollingstown, United Kingdom September 25, 2009

8 month old sony vaio laptop, hinge broke, Sony refuse to repair it ,say it is not covered by warrenty

Leejanice of palos verdes estates , CA September 15, 2009

My teenage son bought a Sony laptop in January 2008. By October it was having "dim screen" problems. He got a repair box from Sony but we managed to get it fixed. In November 2008, it crashed. Was sent back to Sony for warranty repair and returned with the hard drive wiped clean. By June it was broken again. My son didn't want to send it back for another faulty repair and lose everything again, but the computer never worked again. He finally called Sony who told him it was out of warranty now and they wouldn't fix it. So I decided to call them. I literally spent 3 hours on the phone escalating from "Customer Service" to "Escalated Customer" to "National Customer Service" only to be told that they would not pay for the repair and I could do whatever I wanted to do. They also refused to give me a supervisor (saying she is too busy supervising) or the phone numbers of the legal department or president. She actually told me that the president is too busy to speak to customers. Anyway, I called the general counsel's office in San Diego. His name is Michael and his number is on the State bar website. Spoke to his assistant and the PR assistant. Today I got a call from an Executive in Customer service. He had the nerve to tell me how this computer had worked for 8 months before there was a complaint and it was now almost 2 years old. I have asked all of the Sony people how long they think a product should last that cost 1000. Anyway, he finally agreed to repair it at Sony's cost and gave me his number to call when it breaks again, which I have no doubt that it will

FERHEEN of SOMERSET, NJ September 5, 2009

We bought a Vaio Laptop from Best Buy on 2009. We have had so many problems with it. We have called Sony at least 7 times to correct various issues with the laptop. Below are the problems we have had so far...

Battery Life was lasting only 1 hour; we called Sony and we sent it in to the processing center to correct and they replaced the battery. The computer froze and the screen flickered. The only way to fix it was to take out the battery and restart the computer. We called Sony and the technician came and replaced the hard disc. Additional account wasn't saving documents, only the master one is. I called Sony and they said to send it in to diagnose. Laptop doesn't start; we get a colored screen or/and it says "windows is starting" for over 10 minutes and we have to restart the computer to fix it. When we shut down the computer, it restarts itself and does something... the lights are on....

All we want is to get our money back, we feel that this laptop was damaged from the beginning. When we have called Sony, they refuse to even help us lately and are very rude. We have had numerous other laptops such as Dell and Toshiba and we hadn't had these problems with any of them.

Kelsey of Mount Vernon, OH July 20, 2009

I spent over a grand for a Top of the line Sony computer and 10 days after my purchase it died. It wouldn't turn on. I am lucky that it was within the 14 day return policy at Best Buy or else I would have been completely at a loss. From what I gather from reading other people's comments is that Sony would not have been helpful replacing it. I do NOT recommend buying a Sony computer.

Andrew of Bolton, AK July 14, 2009

I do computer systems for a living. A company bought sony vgn-aw21z with vista home premium. They had tried for ultimate or business vista but could not fined one available.

I tried to install ultimate upgrade, eom full, and business upgrade. Then after 10 hours called sony support. Web cam and blue ray CD utils not available.

They basically said that as soon as I change the operating system that I will get no support phone microsoft, and with an attitude stated: we get alot of calls of this kind. I said: why when most other manufacturers manage to supply drivers and utils they do not! No answer. The system is useless for business use and sony support in the UK come second to that. Buy a dell, their support is superb in the UK and cheaper. The said laptop is now being used as a play thing for one of the directors children. What a waste of money and time. Anyone at sony want to fix this

Cory of Woodbridge, VA June 11, 2009

I purchased an expensive Sony VAIO laptop which I used and very carefully protected fror 2 years. The screen suddenly stopped working and I had to send it in to Sony for repair. I was told that both the motherboard and the hard drive needed to be replaced and the cost was near 650.00. The technician could not tell me how the problem came about, which was extremely dissapointing and frustrating. I opted not to repair the laptop.

I think this is a ploy by Sony to continue to generate revenue from consumers who purchase their systems. I wanted to write a letter of complaint until I realized that so many others have experienced what I went through and that it was not going to make much of a difference. I can honestly say I will NEVER purchase a SONY product again. There are far too many other good brands out there for me to have to allow this to happen again.

S of Richmond Hill, ON May 28, 2009

I only wish that I had read some of the Sony reviews before I purchased my laptop in September 2008. Now I will never buy another Sony product and I strongly urge others to do the same. Sony does not stand behind their products. The hard drive on my Sony Vaio died suddenly while I was studying for my final exams. As the laptop was only 8 months old I returned it to Sony for repair. I received a phone call a few days later telling me that when they opened up the computer they found a dent on the inside corner and consequently there was physical damage to the computer and it would not be covered under the warranty.

Now I took the utmost care with this computer and it was at no time dropped or banged. in fact it was in mint condition. Also please tell me how it is possible to have a dent on the inside of the computer when there is absolutely not even a scratch let alone a dent on the outside. I don't even know how that is physically possible and Sony doesn't either. The estimate for the repair was around 900. Since I had purchased the extended warranty for an extra 3 years I thought that it might still be worth my while to have the unit fixed. However, Sony told me that my warranty would now be null and void. Even Sony's one year warranty until September 2009 would be useless let alone my extended (very expensive) 3 year warranty. I feel very strongly that Sony is an unreputable company that does not stand behind the products they sell and they certainly do not care about their customers. I know that my hard drive failed due to shoddy workmanship on Sony's part and yet they refuse to even acknowledge that possibility and yet they cannot explain how a dent could happen inside without even a hint of damage on the outside. It is my word against theirs, and guess what I lost.

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