Ha! Bad PR!

Carey with the NES reference. Nice.

But seriously, I'm guessing this appearance might just get SCEA off its dust-free horses and start keeping a customer.

Agreed, nice NES reference. Also, props to OP for naming Neil as the customer service guy and for using the snarky tone.

WOW! No Sony rep to rebut?

This hurts.

I love consumerist, but the poll was poorly implemented and panned by a lot of readers.

Woooo. Blow on the games! Awesome.

Is this the same PS3 that looked like it was buried in fucking mud for weeks on end?

I hope that the photos of that disgusting PS3 were aired as well. Because you damn well know this wasn't denied because of it just being dusty, but because it was neglected.

That ammount of filth just does not happen on accident. The dust magnet shit is retarded too. Just because some random kid says it's a dust magnet since day one like it's his mantra, does not make it a fact.

He's a pig and deserved to have his claim shut down.

It says in the manual explicitly, and more than once, that you need to keep it free of dust and away from smoke and excessivly dusty areas.

I find it laughable that Fox would give this story airplay, but then I remember it's Fox.

Why is this still a story. Its a freaking ps3, I dont' care about it. Why are there freaking daily updates on the status of whether dusty ps3s should be repaired?!

Wait, are we sure this is dust and not 'ash?'
Well spoken, Carey!

@KingPsyz: Well said. That PS3 was absolutely disgusting! No warranty covers consumer negligence and he deserved what he got.

Fox fighting on behalf of the little guy and against 'the man'... ironic, isn't it?

Anyhow, that's some bad PR for Sony... the photos looked pretty tame on the (you)tube... it's probably about time to replace the guy's PS3!

I remember when I was a kid and there was always that one kid who never flossed until the day his mom was coming to pick him up from school to go the dentists, and he was in the bathroom every period flossing to make up for lost time, hoping the dentist wouldn't notice.
You'd think the PS3 guy would have taken the same approach. (Considering how well he cares for his electronics, I'll assume he has bad hygiene as well and has pulled the flossing stunt.) You know, just dust it off before sending it. I mean REALLY.

How can that guy be an "IDEAL CUSTOMER" as Carey said? By the looks of his PS3 alone, this guy is a slob.

The only thing wrong that Sony said was that the PS3 was a "hazzard to the technician". They should have just said that the warranty is voided because of neglect and we would not have any story to sensationalize.

@AlisonAshleigh: Ugh, flossing. I hate flossing. That's some tedious shit.

Bravo, Carey! I'm sure our momma must be very proud. :-)

Nice!!!

The thing that I don't get is that the OP claimed in the original article, "I had wiped it off before sending it out." Either that's completely false (as this was pre-posting of pics, perhaps he didn't expect visual evidence to surface), or he wiped it off with... more dust. Dust magnet or no, that seems like a lot of filth, and as the owner you're obligated to do at least a little preventative maintenance. Not cleaning or moving the thing in 8 months? It's not that hard to swipe a cloth across the back of the unit once in a while.

Boy, talk about ALOT of spin in this story. Just about the same amount as the poll showed.

Fight the good fight!

10 points for the blowing into NES comments.... Ahh the good ol days with Tecmo Bowl and Punch Out. But that PS3 owner is a whiner and he really did neglect his PS3.

As another poster stated, Sony's big mistake was the idiotic "danger to technician's health" comment and not the rejection of the warranty repair.

if you neglect your car and never change the oil and the car craps out on you they won't warranty the car even if you are still under warranty -- either way he should have wiped it down before he sent it -- so he is just plain stupid --

I looked at the the photos of the dust and it wasn't that bad. They were poor photos, but it wasn't that bad.

Ugh, I just watched the video. Nice of them to not bother even trying to tell Sony's point of view, and yeah, that Consumerist blog poll is not exactly anything I'd call "reliable" (apart from the fact that around 40% of people apparently agreed with Sony - not exactly overwhelming support for Mr. Godshaw).

It's nice to see Consumerist getting press coverage, or "press" coverage since it's Fox, but shouldn't the site be championing more egregious abuses of corporate power rather than advocating for a complete abdication of consumer responsibility?

@Pylon83: It's FOX NEWS. You were expecting a lack of bias?

I'm sorry, but in regards to this story in general, I just can't give it to the kid. Companies have the right to deny warrenty when there are obvious signs of neglect. If you can't take care of your toys, why should they be held at fault?

And while the nice, glossy finish might attract dust, I doubt the front grill was sucking it up. Odds are this kid had his toy sitting in a corner that hadn't seen a vacuum since the world was created.

As far as the entire "hazard to health" line, I'm willing to bet that's an intentional misunderstanding. The CSR may have said something along the lines of "the dust is a clear sign of mistreatment, and asking our employees to repair consoles like this would be a hazard to their health." Oh, let's just ignore that part about the neglect and skip to the part that makes for a sob story, shall we?

You broke your toy, kid. Pay $150 or do not pass Go.

Oh, and despite the above issues, big ups to Casey! Great job speaking and you look really good on camera. Congrats!

@Beerad: Er, Carey. Sorry about that.

@Landru: Wasn't that bad compared to what, though? That PS3 looks like it spent time out in Arrakis!

@Beerad: Hey, you get what you get. It's nice to see the blog get some attention, but also it's important that other people will take notice of the blog and be able to join in on the war against Walbuckgovermegacorpia (Wal-Mart/Starbucks/Government/Megacorporations).

Dust on the outside of the PS3 means that the electronics inside won't fuction? Gee, thats just amazing. If I remember correctly, pictures of the inside were never shown.

eh, must be a slow news day for Fox. (when isn't it?)

After reading the story, I was pissed at Sony, and AFTER seeing the pictures I was with Sony.

If the PS3 was a 'dust magnet' why bother not cleaning it? It's not a 'dust magnet' the shiny black coating makes it appear that way. I had a black DS sitting in my room for about a week, it was pretty dusty, but that black shine really makes it looks worse.

The picture was absolute horror. Dust will clog the air ducts which probably caused it to overheat and fail. A simple air can on the owner's part would have probably fixed the problem.

What looked in his eyes as Sony's "stupid" decision has backed fired when the community realized this was just a lazy idiot.

@jwcone: If he didn't wipe the unit down (he claims he did) then that probably wasn't the smartest move... but your comments don't hold sway with me for two reasons:

1) Does not changing the oil turn your car into a supposed 'health hazard' that would make the car co. refuse to even look into what the problem is? Would not changing the oil void the warranty if the problem was a bad wheel bearing?

2) *If if if* dust caused the failure (and we simply don't know that it did), then does wiping off the exterior prior to shipping really make anything better?

Wah, wah wah. Keep your place clean (or at least dust around the TV and such), pay the $150 and shut the hell up. This is some dingleberry looking for a reason to get his goofy mug on TV and make a little bank from Sony.

Sorry, but if you bother to read manuals of electronics, they say part of normal care is to dust it. It doesn't matter how many of his friends have equally or more dusty consoles. That just means they don't take care of their stuff either and are lucky electrostatic shocks haven't fried their electronics.

Idiots like Captain Dust make it harder for people to legitimately get service.

I've pulled things out of my parents' basement that were decades old and less dusty than that PS3. If your PS3 is covered in an inch of dust you should probably buy an air can and blow it all out before calling Sony up.

Oh yes, but definite props to the NES blowing in the cartridge contacts reference! SO old school. :D

@adehus: But your analogy isn't valid.

Dust CAN clog up the air vents and cause the unit to overheat and die. Changing your oil or not CANNOT affect your wheel bearings in any way.

More importantly, Carey -- is Alexis Glick as hot in person as she is on TV?

The damage has now been done. The only way Sony can get vindication as of right now is for the kid to take him to court and for side with them.

This piece is about what I expected except for the bias from the consumerist rep. But it good to know if I ever have problems that they will go to bat for me.

@Canadian Impostor: Since you apparently missed the point, I'll spell it out for you- we don't know that dust caused the failure of the unit! Sony refused to crack open the unit, citing 'health issues' (lol).

Dust can cause some problems, but not all problems. Not changing the oil will cause some problems, but not all problems. Get it?

@CaffeinatedSquint: HA! But yea, I've seen bums that are cleaner than that PS3.

@Techguy1138: A site called 'Consumerist' being biased towards the consumer? Imagine that. Hey, I thought Casey did a great job.

Corporations have plenty of advocates. Regardless of who is right or wrong, Sony has been utterly foolish to stand on principle in this case. Mark my words- given their refusal to budge under such intense pressure, this 'dust' excuse must be the cornerstone of their warranty refusal strategy.

I have to say this was an extremely biased view point, and shame on Carey for doing this. I'm all for the consumer, but ridiculous cases like this are part of the reason why higher costs are factored into pricing of products.

And Adehus, regardless of the cause of failure, neglected is neglected. Read the warranty carefully. Note how having a modchip in any console also voids warranty regardless of the actual cause of failure. See a link here? The warranty is void if you do (or don't do) things that lead to a greatly increased chance of failure of things out of the norm. This is normal practice. It makes sense for both companies AND consumers (I sure don't want companies to factor in crazy insurance costs into the price of all their products). Stop trying to argue something else. What's important here is whether or not it was neglected, which would constitute a reasonable case for them to void a warranty.

Ben, it's over. I love Carey now.

@adehus: If I drop my Xbox from a five-foot height, and it doesn't work right afterwards, can I demand that they honor the warranty? I mean, you don't KNOW that the drop made it stop working, right?

@Beerad:
Of course we know the drop didn't make it stop working.
It could obviously be some other fault like all the badly produced parts that decided to come apart from each other for no apparent reason... even though no one else seemed to have this issue.

Do I need to add those sarcasm tags?

*Groans* If Sony has to fight this in court, it's possible that the court may argue against the manual's "normal care" of the console which requires dusting off is inadmissionable versus those who are teens and lower. Sounds like consoles may have to be "rated" just like video games. Seriously though, the PS3 owner should have taken serious care of his PS3. You should at least treat anything that is valuable with precious care, as if it were your own health.

talk about sensationalist reporting. not only has fox news decided to cover a story about a bizarre customer service story, but that lady was so overdramatic about it, its just unnecessary. makes me start to wonder if fox has something against sony, or if fox has a partnership with toshiba/hddvd and just cant let this one go un-spun! i dont see fox doing articles about the huge number of press releases and issues Microsoft has gone through with the 360 three-red-light problems and other warranty stuff (not to mention the console bans and other stories). i bet that guy Reid with the console was thinking to himself "uh yeah ill repeat to you what ive probably already told people 100 times. it was dusty. service got denied. here's a sweet pic. wtf?"

I also wonder when this report was made on fox because since the original story, sony already resolved the problem directly with the PS3 owner, didnt they?

@Torabo: Ummm, opening the case voids the warranty... so modchip is no comparison and I guess I don't see the link.

Neglect is neglect, and it's also very subjective. I think the gut reaction a lot of people are having is this- 'I don't particularly go to any effort to keep dust off of my electronics, and nothing I've ever owned has failed from it!' People may wipe the unit, but that's not going to clear much from the vents. Or at least it didn't do much for my PS2. Is vent vaccuming mandatory for warranty coverage? Hope not, cuz I'm sure that few will go to that effort. Of course, they could just go to the effort to engineer the thing to deal with dust better... just like every other piece of electronics we own that hasn't failed in our homes.

For whatever reason, some here want to treat it like a simple case of neglect and be done with it... but it doesn't go away. Why? because it's *not* that simple and it truly hits a nerve- everyone's been through something like this, and been given absurd excuses from customer service. Isn't it a little insulting to tell someone that the unit is a health hazard because it's (gasp) been in their home?

Personally, I'd pay an extra $5 for a high ticket item like this if it meant I'd know that a warranty would be there when I need it. But then I don't buy a whole lot, and expect the things I do buy to last.