Complaint Review: SCEA (Sony)

My wife and I purchased a PS3 for our children for Christmas and somewhere along the way the receipt for the console was lost. I never really expected to need warranty repairs on the console but unfortunately, the system stopped reading the disks and no games could be played or movies watched.

I attempted to contact Sony multiple times at the number provided in the documentation that came with the console. The first few times the call was disconnected by Sony because the volume of calls was so large that they couldn't handle it.

Finally I got through and was told to expect a 15 minute wait after listening for 5 minutes to things that had no bearing on my problem and which tried to send me to the company website which had sent me to the number after I determined that a solution to my problems was not available on the website.

On the 5th call after a 20+ minute wait, I spoke to a customer service person who had me reset the console to it's factory settings. That was no help and I was told that I could return the PS3 to be exchanged for a new one. Great!!!

Not so great however, as unless you have the receipt, they charge $149 for this "service". What? The console is in warranty. It was purchased in December and given for a Christmas gift. No dice. No receipt, no replacement unless you pay. OK, let me speak to a supervisor.

Supervisor says there can be no exceptions to the policy. Supervisor verified that Sony could tell the date of manufacture and the date sold from the Serial Number of the device but that didn't matter, no receipt, no warranty replacement for free.

How nice that a company of such reputation as Sony won't stand behind it's products and expects consumers who have already forked out a lot of money for a device to pay some more to get repairs under warranty. Unless Sony waives their policy for me, I'm never buying Sony again. What a case of customer "no service"!

Jim
Greenville, Wisconsin
U.S.A.