Warranty Fraud?? Is that like skin failure?

Skin failure. LMFAO

*Obligitory comment about how much I've always hated SONY.*

Sounds like a technician dropped a laptop and is now trying to hide it.

$500 for a failed hard drive? /facepalm

On a side note, if it really is your hard drive, you can score a new one for $150 or so. Not that you should have to pay when you're under warranty, but if you have to send it away, have no laptop for however long, and know the new drive is going to be substantially larger anyway - might want to call it an upgrade.

I'm paranoid, but I clone and replace laptop hard drives every year and desktop drives ever two years. A dead drive is just too much of a hassle for me to ever risk. It also allows for significant storage upgrades as HD prices drop!

Sony lost my business after they refused to fix my daughter's MP3 player. I assured her Sony was a quality outfit so she bought one from them for $300.

The left channel stopped working after 10 months. Sent in for warranty repair. Repair center claimed the headphone jack was broken due to abuse and wanted $200 to fix it. Escalation did not help. I said no. When they returned it, I opened it up and found one failed solder joint (not on the headphone) and fixed it. It still works more than a year later.

So, after a life time of buying TVs from them, starting from money I saved from my paper route, I don't buy anything from them. No big screen TV for the basement, no stereo, no PS3. My kids won't buy from them either due to the bad treatment from the repair center.

Hey Sony, good work on saving money on the warranty work!

It went in for service. While in service somebody dropped it and then "lost" it. When it was recovered it had new paperwork indicating it didn't turn on.

Now it's her fault.

This probably happened at the repair center that Sony contracted the work to. Sony doesn't have more information other than "It's her fault".

EECB- Bomb bay doors open, Sir.

@ColoradoShark: I'm with you ColoradoShark. I had a nasty service experience with a CLEO personal organizer a few years back - was accused of breaking through "rough treatment" when in actuality, I treated it like a delicate piece of electronics. Prior to that, I defaulted to Sony for my electronics needs - TVs, stereo equipment, clock radios and anything else I needed that they made. Not since and never again. I've bought 3 flat screens, 2 laptops and several cell phones since. Each time there was a Sony (or Sony Ericsson) model that was in contention and each time it lost - solely because I remembered that SOB service rep.

Typical Sony. When I worked there, we were trained to deny warranty repairs any way we thought we could get away with. Internal FAQs contained bold faced lies (for instance, we all knew there was a design issue with the VGN-FJ series, because we were all taking 3-4 calls a day about a specific screen issue. The internal FAQ on the matter? "Only results from physical damage.". Excuse me? How is it that 40% of the notebooks in that series have that issue? They're all damaged?) and we were told to never give out the escalation information.

That was all BEFORE they outsourced it all to Mexico and The Filipino support centers. I'm sure it's much worse now.

@brent_w: Ditto on the Sony hate.

I'll never buy a Sony anything again after my digital camera stopped working two weeks out of the 1 year warranty, and when I called to ask about repairs they told me "Well of course it doesn't work, those cameras are only designed to last for a year." Next time I'll just buy an actual disposable camera for $2.99 instead of a Sony for $200.

This is consistent with everything I have read about Sony's warranties. I don't know anyone with a good experience. They used to be my product of choice, but I can't justify the high cost with the low service. You may be able to get your laptop insured though your insurance agent. I did with my cell phone, and they replace it for what it costs, so you just buy a new one.

We had a very similar experience with a Sony Vaio a couple of years ago. Terrible terrible customer service, held the laptop hostage for 2 months, people we talked to would disappear completely, while at the same time demanding payment for things that should have been covered under their 'total' (Gold?) service plan. Utterly incompetent.

If we hadn't bought it through a reseller (CDW), and forced the reseller to take it back or lose the account, we'd still be stuck with that lemon. We got a replacement, guess what, that one broke within weeks too. So, finally, the third one has lasted about 3 years.

Sort of... the DVD drive no longer works, and a replacement is only $189. F that.

I'm happy to report that in the past 3 years I have gleefully bought 2 digital cameras, 2 TVs, 2 DVD players, and another laptop-- all not Sony. Add that up, that's at least $8k that their shitty service has cost them.

I am excited to see all of you react with such passion. Sony needs to be aware of their poor excuse for customer service and make an active change immediately. Make your bad experiences known and very public so we can save innocent people, like ourselves.

I always thought that the Japanese companies were really big on the customer service. I've always had so much faith in Sony.

I guess it just pays to be a bad company :(

@Ouze: You'll need to buy a new copy of Windows, as well, since the Windows keys that you buy with computers are generally tied to the HD.

"Sounds like Daniela needs some TLE" Ben I didn't know that Ashely was Daniela, LOL!

So far Apple has been good to me with defective products under warranty.

I stopped buying Sony because everything I ever owned from them broke before its time. That includes: a 5-slot carousel CD player, a Trinitron TV, numerous Walkmans, a cordless phone, a mini-stereo system and a laptop that was actually owned by my office but still sucked. I can honestly say that I've never owned one thing from Sony that didn't break. In my experience their quality is shite.

@Bootyology: Me too. Usually even if they have bad service here, they have good service in Jp. But I've heard even there Sony is slipping.

I have a friend who works in the tech sector and oversees imports/exports of tech components. Sony used to only accept the highest level of product 8 or so years ago. Recently, it seems, they are scrapping their long-held "higher quality, higher price" for the more profitable "lower quality, higher price, ride on our customers' perceptions of how good we used to be." They are accepting lower-grade components and have lost their legendary low fail rate.

A few years ago, when I was thinking about getting a Vaio, my friend set me straight -- not only that, but the more I looked into it on Cnet and CR, the worse Sony products and customer service looked. As someone who's bought lots of Sony stuff in the past, I agree with all of you who are avoiding them now.

I've been told by people in the know that you only want to buy Sony Products assembled in Japan. Their quality controls are a bit lax when it's assembled elsewhere.

@amoeba: I've been using Dells for over 15 years and I have never had a problem. Once they switched to Indian support for home computers, I just switched to business computers which, have US tech support.

Sony makes TVs. They should stick to that.

And you can forget about Sony's Rootkit fiasco?

@Shadowfire: Not true, recovery CDs (which Sonys come with) check the motherboard to make sure the computer is a Sony before they run, not the hard drive. If you replace the HDD, windows will re-install no problem.

Why doesn't Sony go the way Toshiba (and I am sure a few other companies) go? Toshiba has a list of local repair centers. When I need a warranty repair, I select one, take it in, they check my warranty status online, do the needful and give my laptop back. The BEST ever warranty coverage I have had. Much easier to deal with than online/e-mail/phone/fedex routine. HOW of warranty repairs is one of the things to check while buying computers, I think.

Maybe the laptop was too dusty to repair?

@Shadowfire: My understanding of XP's activation process is that it's tied to a hash generated by all of the computer's hardware, and that it tolerates a certain amount of change over a certain period of time. Just changing out the hard drive is no issue, but if you were to go and change out half the PC (including the mainboard), Microsoft would throw a flag and ask you to buy a new license.

having been screwed over by laptop warranties before, this good info, my next laptop defn won't be a sony

Sony is a pretty ill-reputed laptop manufacturer. I rank them even lower than Dell, because you pay even more for low-quality hardware and bad customer service.

Probably the worst part of this story is the fact that the tech told her to ship it out for a hard drive replacement. A motherboard I can understand, but hard drives take like two seconds to replace in laptops, and any shmuck can do it his or her self. What's the point of having a tech come out if they cannot conduct the repair?

I dealt with Sony on 2 issues within 2 months of each other and that made me decide not to purchase any more Sony products. The first was my video cameras firewire port quit working after about 7 months. The camera had a 1 yr warranty...the firewire port for some reason had a "6 month warranty" I went through about 3 people and never got anywhere. Then my cd burner died after only a couple of months. More call to support. The reason..I wasnt using Sony discs. Even the brand that was included with the drive wasnt the "correct" type of disc. Three calls to support ending with my finally giving up and screaming obscenities at the last guy. I have been 5 years Sony free and I feel much better about the world.

@ExGC: I was also rooting for HD-DVD to win so Sony's Blu-ray would not win. My family really does not want to send any more money to Sony.

I stopped messing with sony about 5 years ago. When PS2 came out I was on a sony kick and got a home theater and a 2000 dollar tv. The tv made weird beeping and hums when turned down low when not hooked up to the home theater. I called them about it within 90 days of purchase and the guy on the other line blamed me because he said I must have turned it up too loud and messed up the speakers and was like "why can't you just keep it hooked up to the home theater". I won't buy another sony product anymore minus the game systems.

Sony screwed me on a DiscMan when they cost over $100 and I was young enough that $100 was a BIG f'in deal.

The only thing I've bought since then are the behind the neck headphones because I like them for jogging.

Come to think of it, the Panny portable CD player I bought afterwards still works (after many years of abuse) and I've gone on to buy two plasmas, a Blu Ray player and more from them.

Daniella,
Have you received resolution?

@ColoradoShark: Blu-ray isn't owned by sony. I suggest you go look at wikipedia. I'm really getting sick of uninformed consumerist.

@Shadowfire: I've updated hard drives on XP with no problems.

@CharlieSeattle: Sony is indeed part-owner of Blu-ray and most articles refer to them as the primary force behind the format.

@sleepydumbdude: Haha. Blamed you? You should've been asking why the television even has the ability to increase the volume enough to damage the *built-in* speakers. That's like putting an insant-puree speed on a blender and blaming you for actually using it.

HP/ Compaq is the best.

I sent in my laptop for warranty last year, they sent me a prepaid box for shipping it to them.

I got it back in record time, like a week or two.

Every rep I spoke to was excellent and was from north america.

Next laptop I buy is going to be a hp or compaq

@evslin: My understanding too is that if you break the activation, MS is pretty reasonable if you call them up and explain that you merely bought "this, that and the other" for an upgrade and you're not loading it on a second machine.

Sony lost my business for good with the rootkits. I had started buying Panasonic before that thought. All the Panasonic kit is still working. Wide screen? Good to go. DVD x3 , audio components, clock radio? All working.

Sony customer service- Epic FAIL.

Ok, Sony's fault here no doubt. But repeat after me:

"I will not buy an extended warranty that costs more than my item is worth."

Say it again. Write it down even. Make it your mantra.

By the way, fark the EECB. This calls for smalls claims court.

Warranty "fraud" is like "abuse" as normal wear and tear. This is why you should not pay extra for a warranty and if you do, read the fine print and look for ways they can deny service. Things like "scratched" off serial number, physical damage (read anything except showroom condition), water, etc, etc. They have a million ways to deny service and they WILL!

Best Buy is the worst.. ok, they are neck and neck with Sony... oh Sears too.

@evslin: You don't have to buy a new license, you just can't activate over the internet, but have to call in. It's a bit of a hassle, but no big deal.

I bought XP from a friend who worked at MS a month after it came out, and I've been using the same key since then through probably seven or eight complete computer overhauls.

Hmmm... another reason why i don't buy Sony. To tell you the truth I have never had a Sony product last more than a year save for a walkman and a discman.

Simply put Sony puts out garbage. Fitting to know that their warranty is garbage too.

Too bad she can't verify the condition her notebook was in before she sent it it. I guess I'm lucky I've never had to send anything like that in for warranty repair.

I won't buy Sony stuff for a few reasons.The first being I've had to replace lasers on 3 PS2 consoles, second I have a dead PSP because the laser failed just out of warranty, third everything they make uses that infernal memory stick instead of something normal like SD cards, and then there is that rootkit issue.

oh man, i wish we could hear a recording of his mis-adventures. I would have loved to heard that rep scream then hang up.

@kable2: Apple's pretty good, too. My built-in iSight stopped working and they shipped a box to me and had it back in like a week. No problems whatsoever.