Why am I accused of damaging my ereader?

[Dissatisfied]

I bought an ereader to take on holiday. The first day I tried to use it after travelling with it, carefully protected, in my hand baggage the screen was scrambled. A reset failed to work. The day after returning from holiday I took it into the Sony Centre from which I bought it and was told that there was impact damage. I do not see how this was possible because it was carefully packed. In fact I could not see the damage they referred to. However the Centre said that I could pay to have it repaired though it would be cheaper to buy a new one.

I do not accept this. I believe that there was a manufacturing flaw which only became apparent after air travel. There was no suggestion that they would investigate possible faulty manufacture. It was apparent that I was being accused, tacitly, of not looking after my property.

I will be contacting Sony for a response and if this is unsatisfactory my Trading Standards authority.

I am extremely disappointed that no investigation or recompense was even offered

[carpetmojo]

Sadly, this seems to be typical of Sony's response on screen, and other problems, certainly in the U.K.

And I would seriously doubt the Sony Centre staff are technically qualified enough decide the matter anyway.

Employees apear to have a "default" mode answer, which is "it must be your fault, whatever's wrong with it, and you must have been mistreating it".

From what has come up here in the past, Sony will agree to investigate the reader, then once they have their hands on it, tell you it is not covered by Warranty , give you a quote for how much it'll cost,(huge), and then charge £28/£56..(cant remember) anyway, whether you agree or not, to get it back.

The Sony centre seems to forget your contract is with them, it's their problem, and obviously have never heard of the Sale of Goods Act.

Threaten them with that, and the Small Claims Court.

They should be coping with all the hassle, not you.

Do the phrases Customer Care, Customer Loyalty, Consumer Law, or commonsense, actually get covered in whatever training these people get, I wonder ?

(And if it does get sent back, make sure you have extensive photographs of it's condition............. )

[StartTheCar]

Sorry carpetmojo, I have to disagree on your verdict on our "typical response" on issues like this.

Certainly when it comes to Reader screens we take a very open minded view and, more often than not, look to give our customers the benifit of the doubt.  Its worth remebering that these screen are unlikly to simply break, there would have had to have been some sort of external force or presure.  The trick (for want of a better work) is to judge if this this force should have caused the resulting damage. 

As you can imagine, this is going to differ from one case to another and be open to interpritation.  It is therefore impossible to provide anyone with a difinative "default" answer other than accidental damage would usually not be covered under the guarantee; which I feel is fair.

I cannot speak on behalf of the Sony Centre, but I would be surpised if they are not aware of their obligations and the supplying retailer, although I do agree that the customer should not be doing all the leg work on something like this.

As always, I am happy to help where I can and will certainly ensure any Customer Service issue is dealt with fairly.

Best regards
Lee

[carpetmojo]

Lee - I am delighted - at last a reply in the Forum from Sony Service itself, & on topic..

(Although Specialist-convergence has popped in now and then)

If you care to take the time, there are many, many  instances on this Forum of people having had problems, and recieving a lot less than helpful responses from Sony. And it seems at times even getting a bad response is progress from getting none.

When I first joined the Forum, I was astonished at some of the things I read - the stylus question popped up a number of times in that period, I remember.    But it really made me nervous.

Now I love my 650, don't know how I did without it, and I think it's a great piece of kit, but it doesn't prevent me feeling bewildered at some of the posts on this - and other - Forums worldwide.

It seems at times that Sony don't know what to do with their readers ! It's many people's choice for it's engineering and features, despite no WiFi etc..., and it's high price.

But sometimes one wonders....  The strange lack of product, and conflicting information about availability and sales strategy, is pretty bewildering, from all over the world.

And, sadly ,  numbers of owners have said they would never buy a Sony anything again after their reader experiences.

Ummm... and I think you might be surprised at how unclued-up some of  your sales staff are about the SoG act, and consumer's rights  generally......

So it is fairly obvious something is going badly wrong sometimes, certainly regarding this product, and it's interesting that I think this is the first time, in my experience, a direct "official" reponse to a post, on the UK Forum has arrived.

So it would be great if a regular read of the Forum was on someone's "ToDo" list at the start of the week ?

Good service keeps customers, as I have found over 30-odd years in my business.

So well done for diving in !  Thanks.

Now, next, doing something about the non-speed of the site..................................:smileywink:

[Cymraes]

You are so right about the problems with my Reader putting me off buying other Sony products. The software is a particular issue. I'm looking for a new MP3 player, and was put off the Sony Walkman by the thought of having to do battle with the software.

It's a pity because Sony products always used to have a reputation for being of high quality, plus I always felt inclined to support a company that supported jobs here in South Wales. But the Reader Experience has put me off.

I'll stick with the Reader until it dies (which may be some time, especially as I now know how to turn it off properly!) but much as I love it, I'm unlikely to replace it with another Sony product.

Message was edited by: Cymraes

[carpetmojo]

Yup, that's the other huge problem with the 650 (and I presume the 350 ?) - the software is awful, non-intuitive, and especially difficult to anyone non-techy, who you would think would be a huge market.

I've thought before now I've mastered it, then up pops another strange configuration. But the very basic getting going is terrible, and the manual equally bad.

A lot of users simply use Calibre, and other programmes if you use interesting sites like Singapore and Philly.

Come on Lee, who designs the "easy to use aspects..................... ? :smileymischief:

[specialist-convergence]

Hi  I believe all our Walkman products now operate on Drag & Drop or Windows Media Player, Sony no longer has any software requirements and supports most of the generic Audio formats and some even support iTunes.

Accidental damage is always difficult to support, but the service centre will advise only if they have clear evidence of impact or clear indication of a crack rather than a failure of the screen.

[bluewarrior]

I have had the exact same experience and dreadful customer service from the  Warrington shop who dont know the Sale of Goods act and made me feel I had no option but to accept the possibility of a repair when I have hardly used the thing and they accused me of sitting on it !! As if .

They said they had never heard of this happening before that the screen should fail so I was relieved to hear that someone else had had this experience

They also said it could take weeks to get it back and seemed completely unmoved by the fact that they had sold a faulty product and that I was entitled to a replacement or a refund as it was less than six months since purchase.It should be fit for purpose It is portable  and described as a pocket edition so it should be reasonably durable I took care of it and only used it twice Its only got one book on it.

I am going to complain further and will try to get a replacement or refund as I think it is a matter of principle. I have always bought Sony but this has definitly put me off.

[SteveF48]

The response of the Sony Centre is, unfortunately typical of customer service organisations in the electronics industry. The Sony people who look at this forum are very helpful, but it seems every time a piece of electronic equipment develops a fault the standard response is accidental damage.

I had that problem with:

A Panasonic camera, though I eventually managed to persuade them to honour the guarantee.

A Tamron lense, same again.

A Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox, which I failed with. They said that I'd dmagaed the SD card slot by inserting the card incorrectly (SD cards can only be inserted correctly), demanded about £50 more than the original cost of the PDA to repair it, plus £56 just for looking at it. To add insult to injury they claimed to have lost all correspondence. DON'T buy a Fujitsu laptop!

[Lockwood999]

Having the exact same problem with sony. My PRS600 wouldn't power up so Comet sent it to Sony for repair. When it left Comet it was in good condition with just a slight scratch to the back cover. Sony are now saying it is a terrible state with a loose cover and a dent to the top. I have been so careful with it, it has been my prized possession since Christmas. Neither Comet nor Sony want to know, I can't believe it.