We have also had the misfortune of this experience, made even worse by the attitude of Sony's 'so-called' Customer Services - who we feel are now holding us to ransom for the return of our laptop!
Please see below for a copy of my final email attempt to get Sony to see sense - after a lot of very stressful conversations - and which still hasn't generated any acknowledgement from Sony that there is a problem with this type of Vaio Fit Multiflip laptop or even that they have an appalling way of treating their previously brand loyal customers. Sony's 'get out of jail free' card seems to be to continually deny any responsibility for 'physical damage' regardless of cause. Anyone can see that our laptop has 'physical damage' - as it has a cracked screen - and given that highly obvious fact, Sony believe that their warranty terms absolve them from any responsibility at all - even if this cracked screen was due to a manufacturing or design fault.
Don't Sony realise that if we had actually damaged our laptop in any way at all we would just simply have claimed on our house insurance and saved ourselves the extreme aggrevation of all of this? This is a matter of principle now that has highlighted that Sony are not the company we thought they were for all these years!
Copy of my final email:
Dear Mr De Pauw
I am writing to complain about the way that your Customer Service team has dealt with the issue of a cracked screen on our laptop - both in terms of their decision to override the previous email confirmation that the repair would be free of charge and their manner of dealing with your customers.
When we first contacted Sony the initial response was that responsibility was not accepted. Sony’s view - from the single photograph we sent them - was that the screen had been damaged by ‘excessive force or bumping the screen suddenly’. However, as neither of these things had ever happened to the laptop, my husband researched this issue on the internet and emailed Sony again on 6 November, referencing internet postings where numerous people had experienced similar faults.
We then received an email response from Sony on the same date which stated ‘As you are within the manufacturer’s guarantee period this service WILL be completely free of charge UNDER the below repair terms and conditions’.
We were delighted to hear that Sony had acknowledged the issue that other customers had also experienced and, on the basis that the repairs were going to be free of charge, we agreed to return the laptop to Sony for repair.
A subsequent email on 12 November from Sony’s Mariam ElSayed confirmed that the repair ‘had been organised’ – with no reference to any charges - and confirmed the laptop collection arrangements.
Only once the laptop had been returned to Sony were we contacted by the Sony Repair Centre in Appleton Thorn to say that the repair would be chargeable. This came as a complete shock to us and despite several telephone calls with staff at the Repair Centre, we were eventually referred back to Sony. We were put in contact with their Customer Care Administrator, Adrian Hodges, who simply said that the repair did not meet the repair terms and conditions for a free of charge repair.
This was completely contrary to Sony’s 6 November email saying that the repair ‘WILL be free of charge’ and on the basis of which we had agreed to the laptop being collected by Sony.
Sony’s email of 6 November did not state that the repair would only be free of charge IF the repair terms and conditions were met, neither did it say that the free of charge repair was 'subject to' the conditions stated later in the email, instead it said that the repair WILL be free of charge ...UNDER the terms and conditions set out. Our view at this point was that Sony had listened to us, changed their position and had fully accepted that the fault was covered under these very terms and conditions.
Your team of customer service advisers now seem to be ignoring the fact that there is no conditionality in Sony's confirmation of the free of charge repair and the fact that the standard terms referred to did not concern us. They are also ignoring the context of the the email in that it followed our request for our case to be reconsidered.
If we had been in any doubt that Sony were going to complete the repair free of charge, we would never have agreed to the laptop being collected.
Our laptop is currently still at the Sony Repair Centre in Appleton Thorn.
Sony initially offered to return it to us but only if we paid £65 for the privilege of this - although they have since offered to offset this charge against the repair cost (estimated to be many hundreds of pounds).
In Sony’s last email to us of 16 December, Ewan stated that the laptop could be ‘disposed of’ if it was left at the repair centre for more than 90 days – a position which we consider totally unacceptable and an inappropriately threatening stance for a company such as yours to take.
However, having had some very fraught conversations with Steve and other members of your team today, I am no longer surprised by this approach as this appears to be in line with their view that customer service consists of:
Actually using the words 'I don't believe you' when I was explaining that we had not done anything other than use the laptop as intended;
Insisting that they have absolutely no manager to whom the matter could be escalated to; and
Continuing to ignore the context and commitments that Sony staff had already made - as is evident from Steve's email below.
We have been totally brand loyal to Sony for all our electrical purchases and find your team's attitude to this matter quite beyond belief.
I am therefore writing to you to appeal for some common sense to be applied to this matter to resolve it once and for all.
