Don't know what to do.

I bought a Sony Vaio 08/09/07 and it conveniently came to a crash 08/2/08. I got the 1 year warrenty on it. I called Sony's repair center on it immediately and it took them over a week to tell me what I needed to send them to get it repaired. They kept telling me that I wasn't a customer of Sony, and would get hung up on often, believe it or not. So, 08/11/08 it finally got mailed to them, and it took 2 days to arrive in California.

So, waiting another week, and today I receive an e-mail from Sony Styles saying it's going to cost me 699.99$ (I've already paid them 1499.99$ a year ago for the computer.) to have it repaired. I'm wondering since I made my original repair order before my warrenty expired, what could I say or do to get them to work with me on my Warrenty. Is it possible to have it renewed? It seems disgusting to have to pay over 2,000$ for a laptop that's out of date and is considered "Old." already as far as how fast gfx cards are and what not.

I believe what was wrong with my Laptop in the first place is a faulty graphics cards from Nivida. The laptop would crash when I had the GFX card enabled but work fine if it was off. I've read about people with out sony's having the same card as I (pretty similar), and are having the same problem.

I'm being screwed I can feel it, but I'm wondering if anyone knows an option or a place I could call to get them to work with me on this, i'm so angry.

Thanks,
Michelle

 

I also wanted to add that I haven't called them yet and they're not telling me anything about the laptop in the original email they sent me. I'm waiting to know everything before I contest this 700$ charge.

 

Did you keep records of e-mails sent/received from Sony? Did you get names of representatives/times of phone calls made for the repair? You requested the repair within the warranty period and they should honour it. Don't wait for them to send you information. Call them up immediately. Be firm, but polite. Request supervisors if necessary. If they still refuse, report them to the BBB.

 

$700 is outrageous
Call them and tell them that they purposely made you delay sending to them so that the warranty would run out and they could charge you. Tell them that it's their fault that it's broken cause they used defective GPU's. Also say that it wouldn't cost nearly $700 to replace the GPU or the entire mobo.

And if that won't work report them to the BBB

Dell would never do this to you. If you end up with them not fixing the laptop then get a Dell or HP.

 

I don't have names, or times.. But the proof that I called them when I did is in their own computer systems. The times I called to get info from them they always knew who I called before them and what they had to said to me. Only took 9 of them to finally say "Hey, there is something wrong with your account, let me fix it for you." Not to mention getting people I can't even understand because of their accents are too thick.

 

The laptop should be covered under the warranty since it stopped working while under warranty; I think that the fact that it arrived at their repair depot outside the warranty period is irrelevant.

 

Well, I say you should keep records for yourself because if you want to file a claim with the BBB, they require times that you contacted the company and what happened at each time. It makes your case more solid to have tried resolving things with the company and to have kept solid records, so the company won't try anything shady, like say, conveniently losing track of your calls.

Sorry to hear about your awful experience with Sony. I had the same trouble with Comcast. They billed me $70 even after I cancelled my account with them, and they were extremely irritating about a refund until I filed a complaint with the BBB. The check came 2 weeks later.

 

I got a response from them:

There was ashes in the computer and smoke residue (they sent pictures, it looks like there is residue but nothing that's going to break a computer.) and thus voids my warranty because of "Accidental" damage. I'm trying to get him to prove this is why it broke, peoples computers become dirty over time, it's to be expected. Do they screw everyone like this? I even cleaned the PC out completely before I even sent it. Also, why was only my graphics card effected by this? This is some bull@#%!.

 

Also, I really don't think some smoke residue is going to eat away metal/plastic parts in almost a years time. The dang graphics card stopped working, even Nvidia was responding to this happening because of over-heating problems and things melting. BBB? Will the BBB help me with the warranty, do I have to go to court and have some scientist prove that smoke isn't going to eat away a computer in 11 1/2 months?

 

I asked the Sony tech, what was corroded, what broke in my computer, I asked him to be specific.. He replies with this.

"The motherboard doesn’t work due to the damage incurred by the external source damage."

*** does that mean? My motherboard was fine before I mailed it, the graphics card would stop my computer. If I disabled the graphics card my computer ran fine.

 

Thank you for posting this thread. I've been looking into buying a Vaio for a few months and now I know not to buy from Sonystyle after their terrible service to you.