Hi,
I bought a Sony Tablet S in March which I enjoyed using until 3 weeks ago when I found that the only way that I could switch it on in the morning was by means of the "reset" hole. Within 2 weeks even that failed to start the tablet up and I was left with a non functioning device.
A call to the Sony service line bought the UPS collection van to my door and the tablet was delivered to the Alsace centre for a warranty repair. Although I was unhappy to not have the tablet for I while I was confident that the repaired unit would soon be returned and that I would be able to continue as before.
But no.... I received an email from Sony stating that the repair would not be covered by the warranty but would be carried out if I paid £482.05! The email stated that this was due to the defect being "water damage", "proof" being provided by a photograph of a part of a motherboard showing discoloured areas.
I rang the service centre (the email gave a phone number - a french number rather than an 0870 number) and contested the verdict of water damage for, as far as I am aware, the unit has never been in contact with water. The call centre agent was quite adamant - it was water damage but that if I wanted to appeal they would send me further photographs.
To date I have received no further photographs and am not sure what further steps to take. My first thoughts were to ask for the unit to be returned to me so that I could get an independent assessment / repair carried out but I noted that should I want the item returned unrepaired, Sony will charge me 160.26 euro!
This all seems to me a travesty of customer service. Sony seems to think that it is quite reasonable to take a view regarding warranty and then deny the owner the opportunity to get an independent judgement as to whether that view was reasonable.
Has anyone else had this problem before? I’m now at a loss to know how to take this forward short of writing to the Chairman of Sony Europe (which I will be doing following the submission of this post) and involving the media.
