“I just got off the phone With PS3 customer support who kindly informed me that my PS3 is “too dusty” to be replaced under warranty. But won’t provide pictures unless they are subpoenaed.”
I have kept my 60gb PS3 in Its entertainment center since its purchase. It is known within the PS3 community that the thing is a HUGE dust magnet. I took good care of it, I have about 10 Blu-ray discs (did NOT come free with my PS3), 5 games, 5 controllers, 2 42″ Bravia LCD’s 1 50″ Bravia 3lcd Rear projection TV, A Vaio desktop, Vaio laptop, I’ve even got a psp and location free TV. One day I turn it on and put in a disc and it doesn’t show up, then it wont eject, finally I get it to eject and I try a blu-ray, nothing, CDs, nothing.
I call Customer support who originally tell me that they can do anything because I don’t have the original sales receipt, (it was a GIFT!!!), I stayed on the phone for hours explaining to them that I don’t have thee receipt as it was a gift from my parents. Finally I got a rep who said that it was strange that earlier reps hadn’t let me go through with the exchange as if it was a gift it was policy not to require a receipt. He sent me a box, I boxed up my console and sent it in.
5 days later I have no updates on the PS3, I call in to check on it, The first rep I speak to says that it was received without a receipt, and was delayed but he was going to note that it was a gift and get the replacement sent out to me.
6 hours later I get a call from Neil saying that unfortunately they have opened the case and taken pictures of the inside and outside of the case and that it was too dirty to be eligible for replacement. I paused for a good 8 seconds, because my PS3 had not moved from the entertainment center that it sat in more than 8 months I had wiped it off before sending it out, THE WHOLE POINT of the PS3 Is that it is part of your entertainment center! I Told him that was crazy and that it was a known problem that the PS3 collected mass loads of dust. That their product hasn’t even been out for 1 year and he’s telling me I’m out of warranty because there is too much dust in it!? I told him that someone needed to double check because I really took care of my PS3 and there was no way it was so dirty that they wouldn’t replace it. He said he would and he would find out about getting pictures.
The next day I got a call from the same guy, Saying he couldn’t get pictures, and there was no way they could replace the console unless I paid 150$ out-of-warranty replacement fee. I dais I needed to speak to his supervisor and it took him a while but he eventually transferred me to yet another person who just told me from the pictures they saw of the outside of the PS3, the memory ports and the USB ports, that there was dust inside of these ports, and that there was no way they would replace such a dusty console.
I then asked for HER supervisor, who was a very rude woman named Daria Woo Ext # 55682. She basically told me if I wanted the pictures of the PS3 That they were property of SCEA, And that I would have to SUBPOENA the pictures! I told her that this was ridiculous! That in order to take the same pictures that they did I would have to open my case, and void my warranty! I asked her if I could record what she was saying and she immediately snapped a NO, And asked for what purpose, I told her it was so I could educate the entire world on the ethics of the PS3 repair center. She told me my only options were to have the PS3 sent back, pay 150$ for a replacement, or leave it there for 10 days until it gets sent back. I told her to leave it because I was going to write a few emails so that this situation could actually get resolved. She told me any email I wrote or number I called would get me transferred to her department and that she would not help. I asked her exactly what part of the warranty stated that if a unit is too dusty it cannot be replaced.
She told me that it was under “acts of god, customer abuse” section when I had clearly told her that it sat in my entertainment center acting as a blu-ray playing, folding@home computing, media center and that obviously the amount of dust inside the console is caused by a design flaw and not my quite dust-less room.
I don’t get it! Sony is including Folding@home with their consoles, The auto-start feature makes it so its running almost all the time, OF COURSE ITS GOING TO BE FILLED WITH DUST! A few reps said that the reason they couldn’t replace it was because it looked as if it had about 2 years worth of dust in it rather than 8 months….. The console hasn’t even been out a year so obviously that is less than a years worth of dust.
I love the PS3, I’m a Sony fanboy, I have a copy of Heavenly Sword Un-Played because I’m waiting for the replacement to come back, For them to say they wont replace it because it is such a damn dust magnet is absolutely ridiculous. IM NOT paying 150$ for someone to use an air compressor to dust off my PS3 re-test it and send it back. MAYBE Sony should let their customers know that excessive dust voids the warranty, so that people can start selling air filter set’s for it, and air-sealed boxes for the PS3 to sit in.
Warranty-voiding clumps of dust shouldn’t constitute normal wear and tear, and certainly wouldn’t rank high on the list of awe-inspiring acts of God. Tell us wise commenters, what should reader Ive do with his divinely dusty PS3? Pay Sony $150? Maybe smash the dust out? Share your advice in the comments.
(Photo: lunarworks)
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@busboy33: There is no poof that Sony said the reason was because of dust. Ive is the one that keeps pushing the dust thing. Apparently your in love and only seeing things with rose colored glasses on.
@EDDIE2010:
a) I have no idea who Ive is.
b) he used the term dust magnet. so did other posters in this thread alone (see the 100th post for example). You are the one flipping out about it and losing your temper, not Ive, not the other posters . . . just you.
c) I see you are disagreeing with the use of the term. What does that have to do with anything going on in this thread? I disagree with the way you act like an ass, but them’s the berries, as they say.
d) Awww . . . you’re hurting my feelings. really. Attack me personally, attack Ive’s personally, obsess over the phrase “dust magnet” . . . anything you can do to avoid talking about Sony not honoring their warranty.
e) concise enough for you?
@busboy33: @busboy33
It can happen under extreme conditions.
Heres an example, I have had a computer I built for a little over a year. I have a fairly clean house that may get a little dusty from time to time. I clean the case about once a year and the last time I did this I had to run My finger through the case to see any dust. There was very little dust in a years time.
On the other hand
My brother has a computer he baught a little before I built mine. He has animals and both him and his wife smoke, his house is not the nastiest nor the cleanest. I recently installed a gtaphics card for him and found that the inside of the case was extremely nasty, greasy film, pet hair and dust. I had to clean it, because I could not stand how nasty it was. If I ran a company that provided a warenty for this computer, I would consider it missuse.
We only have this guys word that his room is clean and his PS3 is not dusty, but the USB ports are Quite Dusty (contradiction).
There are so many holes in this guys story that the only thing I believe is that he has a broken console that Sony says it can not repair because of missuse.
@busboy33: Like I said you Only see what you want to see. Sounds like you have lost your temper, Busboy. Hipacrit
Your comments are arraghant, hipacritical.
It seems your obsessed with me not liking the use of term dust magnet.
Like I said, Your not as smart as you think you are.
See Ya!
@Eddie:
I’m not obsessed with you . . . I’m answering your statements and accusations directed at me. Try not to swell your head too much . . . I wouldn’t want you to become an “attention whore” (Dear God, he might actually post more!)
“see ya”? Does that mean you’ll finally stop posting and insulting me, Ive, and anybody else who doesn’t agree with you? Thanks be to heaven!! Only took 48 hours.
Ivealwaysgotmail10 is lying.
He’s a liar, probably some spoiled rich kid who lives like some hick and got his stuff dirty and wants revenge because a CSR didn’t let this brat walk all over him. I can tell he’s lying because he never posted on his or his father’s ebay blog what happened to him… it’s because that account was his father’s. ivealwaysgotmail is so full of lying that he probably craps pentagrams.
@pixelsword: Wow i can comfortably say i have no motivation to set you straight
you obviously have the IQ of an unsharpened pencil. Only matched by your ability to fill every unkown detail with mundane random babble.
I’m sorry, it’s probably because his account WASN’T his fathers.
He’s a big, fat, moronic liar. He’s probably poor as a welfare rat, too.
@PixelSword:
Am I reading the above correctly? Did you accuse Ive of being both “probably some spoiled rich kid” and “probably poor as a welfare rat” within the span of one minute?
That is the most impressive thing I’m likely to see all day. Kudos to you, sir.
@busboy33
That’s why I apologized.
@Pixelsword:
Out of curiosity, what does his financial status have to do with any of this? It obviously isn’t affecting your opinion, so I’m trying to figure out why it matters (or at least matters enough to speculate about).
@ Anybody and Everybody:
Does anyone know why the Consumerist is running two seperate threads for the same discussion? Is this just a by-product of running the “No, Wait, Dust doesn’t void the Warranty” information as a seperate story, as opposed to an update on the first post? Id there any way they can combine them? Seems silly (to me, at least) to have identical discussions in two neighboring threads.
Well, actually, it doesn’t matter what his financial status is because he’s lying plain and simple. Being on welfare has nothing to do with the intregrity of a man, so I aplolgize if I offended anyone or gave that impression; but he seems like a person who is trying to get over on someone, in this case, Sony.
See, he put up info from what he is now saying is his dad’s account, but yet he never posted a complaint from his dad’s account. It makes it sounds like it’s his account. It would be different if his dad didn’t want him to do that on his account, but if he gave him access, I can’t see him not giving him freedom to complain on ebay. So therefore he has an account. If he said “I didn’t have an account” then I’m the moron, and I would apologize.
He got caught lying about the date, he specifically said he got it eight months a few different times and using “only eight months” which was a lie according to his account. I would understand if he didn’t give a specific number, but he did, numerous times.
And the reason why (earlier post) I suspect this dude is named after his father is because I seen most spoiled sissy brats all the time that are named after their father, or at least has the same first name or middle name and they’re like freakin’ father-and-son butt buddies or somethin’ (most jr.s) That’s why he didn’t answer that he was named after his father or not: because he knows I am right. If he would have said “I’m don’t have my dad’s first or middle name” I would admit I was wrong and apologize and then I would have looked like an ass, but he shut up like a little spoiled punk and refused to talk to me, because I was right, just like I was right he is lying.
I got this kid pegged out.
I haven’t read all the other posts, and I’m sure someone might have already posted this already, but when you call customer service centers that have a warning that the call may be recorded or monitored, you can legally record the call on your side without any further consent on the company’s part, especially if you make sure to record the statement from them that the call may be recorded. This is not necessary, though. If you begin recording the call at a later time, but can show that calls may be routinely recorded by the company during the regular course of business (ie, all of their calls are routinely preceded by this message), you can still do it. Just a hint for next time – whenever you deal with these soulless pricks, make sure you record the call from the begining. You don’t even have to tell them you’re doing it if they may be doing it to you. That way, you level the playing field a bit.
the origin of household dust is mainly your own skin cells shedding off your body. pets are usually the second reason dust collects in your house. if you have adequate air flow, dust should be less of an issue. the only harm this dust can do to you is if small insects -such as dust mites- come and ravage your dust. they can bring infections and diseases into your house, but hardly worth the issue. your own immune system should take care of that well. i have no idead where THEPROF00 got his his info that excess dust can harm you.
if you truly have excess dust, then cleaning every once and a while isn’t a bad idea. it’s pretty easy to sweep up or vacuum a room once a month. air spray your electronics now and again, even wipe their vents with a damp sponge out to help somewhat.
however, there is no proof of the “dustiness” associated with his product. sony won’t let him see the photos they claimed to have taken. why not? if he truly was in the wrong, why not send him those photos showing him how dusty his system got?
or perhaps it’s best to never send him the photos because they might reveal the system isn’t actually all that dusty… and therefore this whole sham they are trying to pull would be revealed.
but if sony’s machine is a dust sucker, and it’s warranty is void if you open it to get a good cleaning in, then fuck sony. sorry apologetics, but it seems sony has been falling out of grace in the last five years. i can’t wait to see them crash and burn, especially if this is how their customer service is.
There are a few things to this article I would like to comment on.
First and foremost: Get a spell checker. This article is riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
The name “Neil” is brought forth at the beginning of a paragraph, stating “Neil” called the author of this article, and said ..blah.. . Is it just me, or do we not know who “Neil” is? Was he a normal support tech? Perhaps he was the last tech the author spoke to, the one who sent him the box. We may never know.
On the Sony note:
There is no reason dust should constitute such an attitude towards warranties. For the “head” supervisor to say no to recording, to say any emails or phone calls would go to her eventually, and that she would not help him any further, is disgusting. No manager should say such things, and I am thoroughly appalled that a business as large as Sony is would ever do such a thing.
Furthermore, I am going to send a quote out of the Sony warranty page to Jay Leno for his Monday night Headlines segment (specifically taking care to bold[, underline, and italicize the “ACTS OF GOD” line).
Also, I will be calling in to the Sony support lines to inquire about such a thing as dust killing “my system”. I put “my system” in quotes due to the fact that I do not own any Sony products, and never will.
You know.. half of you are posting pointlessly.
It has NOT been stated that dust is the cause of the failure (of the PS3). The dust is apparently hazardous to the service technicians who would work on it, and that is why they will not repair it. Furthermore, they said that paying an extra $150 would allow him to have it fixed, as though it were not under warranty. So the failure might (most likely) have NOTHING to do with dust, whatsoever. They just don’t want to fix it for free because they are cheap, or something like that.
Has no one considered that the dust may have come from the Sony shop itself? Or the shipping? Or anything else like that, not being the customer’s fault? The dust is not an excuse for not fixing it, nor can dust “void the warranty”, as Sony has said. They only said it has “voided the warranty”, after they stated they would not fix it due to the “hazard” associated with the “dust”. So is it just me, or is Sony trying to make a quick buck? Not that $150 would save their failure of a systeme, but there is honestly no other REAL reason I can think of that they would do such a thing. Corporate email carpet-bombing time, it sounds like.
-Rai
even if dust counts as wear and tear, warranty doesn’t cover that.
hahaha dust is my newest enemy! wow…
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Sony has a policy, no reiept=no warranty,great good for them. Honestly how many people that give items for gifts save the reciepts, and if they do how many people remember where they put them. My ps3 has died. It was a gift from my son. Sony basically told me to get lost and accused me of theft. Huh!! I have now had to track down a reciept from my Son who gave my wife cash, to her credit card, to contacting visa for a resolutions request to get a copy of the original reciept with only 26 days left on my warranty. Pease let it get here on time to race down to the repair depot. Oh wait no i still have to call sony back for a repair number first. I think Sony could come up with a better way to keep track of at least original owners purchase date for warranty purposes. And the dust side of the issue, Well please god after all this crap, dont let the dust in my usb ports void my warranty or should i buy a can of compressed air now? Funny thing to add. When my son called Microsoft about a disc his 360 ate. they send him a box to send back his 360 and a new game with no request of a recipt.
And they wonder why there’s so much piracy? I’m not spending a penny on EITHER the PS3 or the X360. I’m going to keep putting my money into my high-end PC, and keep downloading games for free from torrent sites because the console companies have become a racket.
99.9 percent of all manufacturer’s warranties do not cover things like dust. they cover manufacturer’s defects wich is why they are such short warranties. A manufacturer’s defect is when your product breaks without any outside influence (Including dust, because the manufacturer did not put your product in a dusty enviroment.) If dust is a known issue with the system maybe you should have checked if it was covered in the warranty, which obviously it was not, and perhaps you should have seen what retailers offer a protection plan (Not an extended warranty) for one Best Buy (I am not a Best Buy employee so there is no bias) offers a protection plan for many of their electronics including the PS3 that covers heat, DUST, humidity, powers surges, wear and tear, and usage (which means that if you pressed a button on it too often the product can be fixed) I was smart and got this said plan and have sent my PS3 in twice so far for repairs and in one occasion the repair was needed because of DUST. But you probably yell at the little 18 and 19 year olds when they try to explain this to you, then call them idiots to your friends until suddenly all that money you spent on your PS3 becomes a waste when all you had to do was spend an extra $50 to make sure that such a waste would not happen. Those 18/19 year old kids now laugh at your epic fail!