Sony Reverses Decision To Deny Repairs After Reader Threatens Writing The Consumerist
A reader claims he got Sony to change its mind about not honoring his warranty. All he had to do was namedrop The Consumerist.com.
Philip bought a $3000 Sony Wega 50" rear projection LCD TV a year and half ago, with a two year warranty.
Recently his optic block failed for the second time.
When he called, Sony referred him to a "judiciary group." They refused the repair, citing "customer abuse."
Philip then told Sony he planned to write The Consumerist. He described the nature of our blog and spelled out the URL. He noted our national media coverage and number of daily visitors.
Less than an hour later, Sony called to arrange a time for a technician to come to Philip's house and perform the repair, free of charge.
Philip bathes once again in flickering cathode rays.
Sony, Philip writes, "lost a customer who has been loyal to them for over thirty years and only purchased Sony video and audio equipment. That loyalty has been destroyed. I'm moving to Panasonic from now on."
"Sony sucks - CONSUMERIST.COM RULES!!!!!!! Thanks again Ben!!!!!!!!"
Hey, it could work for other Consumerist readers, too. It's worth a shot.
At the very least, you're helping us out with free advertising.
This is a test using rich text formatting and html links. It's the generic "company" ad that should appear on all posts with the Company category if they don't have an ad attached to a specific company.
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Comments:
Ahhh the ol' Radiation King...
This is all just one big misunderstanding. You see, Sony doesn't make TV's, they make Telescreens. That's why they were so reluctant to repair your "TV." It's all just a terminology problem.
Kudos for the awesome name drop though, that is why I love the Consumerist so much! Power to the consumer!
Oh, and don't buy Sony products...Ridge Racer!
Big Brother Sony ate my comment!! I must have a Root Kit on my comp!!
Consumerist rocks!
I can see the conversation now:
Nameless Tech 1: That was amusing. The guy threatened to post it on "consumerist.com". Ooooh, I'm scared.Okay, so maybe it wouldn't work exactly like that, but I wouldn't complain if it did!
Nameless Tech 2: Consumerist?
Nameless Tech 1: [spells out URL]
Nameless Tech 2: [goes to URL] ... Well, that isn't good. [long boring discussion about what Consumerist is]
Nameless Tech 1: [sweating bullets] ...I'll go call him back now.
Good to know that companies and the like are finally noticing Consumerist... maybe it might even get them to change their shoddy business practices?
Consumerist...is that like a private blog?
By "consumer abuse", do they mean the consumer abused the TV, or that they were going to abuse the consumer.
Reminds me of that line from the Eurythmics' song:
Sweet dreams are made of this ... Some of them want to be abused.
But... then he went & emailed you guys anyway. So he screwed 'em over even though the threat worked? Doesn't quite seem right...
i don't know, i almost think sony should get a pass for this. sure, it took a struggle, but they did the right thing. and they did it hoping to avoid exactly what happened- bad press on this site.
the reader owes sony an apology- he threatened them, they made good, and he still shafted 'em. they shouldn't get a pat on the back by any means, but he should've backed off after they backed down.
I wonder if that threat would work with Samsung? In February I bought a nice shiny new Samsung Slimfit 30" HDTV, and already the set is on its second major repair. So far, Samsung has given me the run-around (albeit very pleasantly).
I hope they fix it by next February.
Making good because you have to resort to threats isn't making good at all.
Ben: remember - with great power comes great responsibility.
OTOH: Bwah hahahahahahahahaha! MINE. MINE! IT'S ALL *MINE*!!
The reader shouldn't have HAD to threaten.
.....Sony: great on features, horrible on durability. I've bought enough of their products to know.
Sony used to be innovative (Trinitron flat panel CRTs, before LCDs were affordable), Discman, Walkman, etc... Now, their electronics are only average.
And, they're evil, with the DRM rootkit (Google "sony rootkit" if you don't know what I'm talking about), and the flaming batteries.
You don't have to go to google for that, just click on the Sony tag to see all of the DRM rootkit fun
I agree that the dude shouldn't have had to threaten to make Sony do good. But he did, and they did, and I think it is a great thing that he still wrote to the Consumerist. Perhaps if more people did this, then Sony and other corporations will think twice before trying to screw over their customers.
he shouldn't have had to threaten, and i'm not saying sony should be given a pat on the back or congratulated. but the way i see it, he made an offer to sony- fix it or he goes public. sony took him up on his offer, then he went public anyway and broke his end of the deal.
how is that so different from them stiffing him in the first place? if their behavior was so reprehensible, how was his not? (he didn't write to the site just to give props, he did it to bad-mouth sony as well.) all i'm saying is, when you sacrifice the high ground, you lose. maybe the next time someone makes the threat, the business won't care- why should they, if they're gonna get s**t on regardless?
The big difference is that he threatened to tell how Sony stiffed him. Instead he told a story about how Sony "tried" to stiff him but how with a little coersion they ended up making good on the warranty. I see a difference there and I'm glad he sent in the warning.
LCDs don't emit no dang cathode rays, man.