My experience with SONY.

I purchased a brand new Sony Vaio laptop at the beginning of August 2010. It was an excellent computer and served me well for a month and a half, until it decided to stop working (it won't even turn on). The moment I realized it wasn't working, I called Sony. That was Sunday Sept 19. The first phone call was miserable--15 minutes long, with only a minute and a half total of actual conversation with the agent, who kept putting me on hold while he tried to figure out what he was doing. He put in an order for a tech to come on-site to fix it. The next morning I called again to see if they could suggest any troubleshooting, since the other guy hadn't suggested anything; three phone calls later (the line kept getting cut off, which never happens with anyone else I talk to on the phone in my apartment, so I know it was on their end) I was able to talk to someone who seemed to know what they were doing. He had me do a few things and we were able to get it to turn on--miracle! So he canceled the service request and I celebrated by treating myself to lunch. However, an hour later I went to turn it on, and of course, it didn't work, even after I tried everything we'd done earlier...so I had to call again. Another request was put in. The tech called on Wednesday the 22nd, and he came in the morning because he had to go to Nevada later that day for another appointment. He replaced the hard drive, tried some other things, and couldn't fix it, even with tech support on the phone. Unfortunately he got there a bit late and then stayed for an hour, which meant I had to miss a class. Not cool. He left, unsuccessful, saying that they were going to order a new motherboard that usually takes two days to arrive, so it should get there by that Friday and someone would come out with it to fix my computer. I didn't receive a call on Friday, so I waited until Monday since they don't do business over the weekend.

Monday Sept 27th around noon, I called them to find out what was going on (note that it had already been over a week). The agent I talked to said that he would put out an alert for a tech, who would be calling me within two business days, and he specified that those two days were that very day (Monday) and Tuesday, not Tuesday and Wednesday. I called Tuesday evening, having not received a call, and was told that another alert had been put out and I would get a call at 6pm the next day from a tech to schedule an appointment. I told him the situation and asked how I was supposed to believe that I would get the phone call when it hadn't been true for any of the other times I'd been told that; his answer was "ma'am, a tech will call you at 6pm tomorrow." I called at 11:30pm Wednesday night, having once again not received a call. Finally, I talked to someone who knew what they were doing again (every other phone call I'd had to re-explain the situation even though I was giving them reference numbers where they could look up everything that had happened so far). This lady told me that the product had been shipped the day before, on Tuesday Sept 28th. I asked why it was ordered on Wed the 22nd and not shipped until Tues the 28th, and she said she didn't know, but a tech would call me within four business days to schedule an appointment to come out and fix it. I asked what I was supposed to do while I waited around for the call; I asked if there was anything they could do to compensate or at least help me. Her only suggestion was to borrow a computer from a family member or friend (by the way, who has an extra computer just lying around that they don't need?). Of course, I never received that call she promised.

I called them this afternoon (Monday Oct 4th) and once again asked for information on my order. The guy said that the product was on back order, so I told him that last week I'd been told it had already shipped. He seemed very confused and said that it was never shipped, that it was on back order because they were doing some updates for the company and hadn't been able to process everyone's orders yet. I asked to speak to a manager, and was put on hold again (of course they were playing country music, which did nothing to help my already extremely annoyed mood); after 10 minutes of being on hold, the call was disconnected. I called back and asked to speak to a manager again, so he transferred me to Customer Relations (which is apparently the highest I could go; they refused to transfer me any higher). I talked to the Customer Relations lady, who put me on hold for 15 minutes while she read my information and tried to figure out what to do. She came back and said they would send someone out as soon as they could. I didn't want to wait around anymore (it's been over two weeks now), so I told her I wanted them to replace my product. It's under a limited warranty, but even that clearly says Sony will "repair the product using new or refurbished parts or replace the product with a new or refurbished product". I read that to her and said that since they'd failed to repair it, I wanted them to replace it. She refused to do so and said that the best option she could give me was for me to send my computer to San Diego (they'd pay for postage), have them look at it and try to fix it, and then if they couldn't, they might replace it. This process would take 3 business days for the box to come to me to package it in, so that I wouldn't have to pay, and then another 9-14 business days for the computer to be sent to San Diego, fixed, and returned. Basically I have to wait another 2-3 weeks at best. I accepted this offer because apparently it's the best I'm going to get, but I told the lady that I will never buy another Sony product again because of how bad the customer service is. She said only "we respect your right to make that decision", and did nothing to try and change my mind or even show that she regretted losing a customer. She seemed eager to get off the phone with a "difficult customer" and ended the conversation as quickly as she could without seeming too rude. Now I'm just waiting for my box. Updates soon.

Overall, my experience:
- Probably an hour total of being on hold.
- Calls were dropped at least six times, which meant calling back and re-explaining the situation to yet another person.
- Only three of the fifteen or so people I talked to knew what they were talking about.
- Only two of the people I talked to had English as their first language, and these were included in the three who knew what they were talking about. I understand that everyone needs jobs, but this is a huge problem with customer service! Especially for those taking calls in the U.S. and who don't seem to know what they are doing!
- I was lied to multiple times--they lied several times about when they would call me, they lied about the product being shipped, they lied about what was going on with the part.
- I tried to be civil; I never swore or yelled or anything like that, just spoke firmly, because I didn't want to be rude. Didn't help my situation.
- Only once did it sound like the person I was talking to actually cared about my situation, even though I told several of them how long it had been and that I am a grad student who needs her computer for school and for work as a graduate research assistant. Yet they didn't say anything like, "I understand and am very sorry about what is happening, but I can't solve your problem," or even, "would you like to speak to someone who might be able to help?"

I will never buy another Sony product ever again, not even earphones or speakers. I don't care how high quality it seems or how great the price is. If it breaks, their Customer Service will not help me at all. Of that I am certain.