Sony Broke Her Promise of Price Guarantee -- Free Gift No Included

Hi,

I will just want to share my experience so that you may take this into consideration next time you buy a Sony.

I ordered a Sony Vaio FW290 last week. I was worried about that Sony will give better offers after my order, so I expressed my concern to the sale representative and she assured me that Sony has 30-days price guarantee (I didn't ask specifically about free gifts). Then this week, I found that Sony is giving up free Base Station worths $200 (from notebookreview's threads) and how other people got it. So, I started to contact Sony, but was frustrated to I couldn't get contacted with the customer care through 1-800-447-7023, which I was told that should handle this. When I first contact Sony, my laptop has not arrived, meaning that I can cancel the order anytimes. Now, I need to ship it back to Sony on my own cost and wait (nothing for certain with Sony) for the possible refund. So, after endless hours wasted trying to contact Sony through phones, e-mails, chats, finally, I got into the number today and put on hold for ~2 hours to talk to a real person, Jenny.

This is what I got from Jenny:
" Sony's price guarantee does not include free gifts. It only include price drops."
When I pressed that other people in the online forum shared the experience of getting free Base Station, she said that
"This never happened. Sony did not give any free gifts (Base Station) to customers who ordered last week. Those people sharing this only lied about it."

(Not exact words, and I pressed very hard for every details, but these are the statements that she agreed and I told her specially that I will pose these statements in online forum and she still agreed that this is Sony's policy.)

My guest is that those people getting free base station claimed it earlier. Those late people like me, couldn't get the free base station just because we discovered it late and Sony either run out of stock, or decide that this is not a good idea to give free base station. Anyway, Sony broke her own promise!! I might not place the order if the sale representative did not assure me of the price guarantee. And now, I am stuck with the extra cost of returning Sony Vaio and that other good offers from other companies have all expired.

Anyway, just want you to be informed of this possibilty that Sony does not honor the price guarantee next time you order something from Sony.

 

You are not the only guy fooled by sony who is a just promise-breaker.

 

see sony's response for my price matching request, that is ridiculous. it is a completely playing on words

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=329174&page=4

 

well, I hope that I read your post before I committed to buy. And after I bought it and found out about the free gift, I thought of cancelling the order to order a new one. But, unfortunately, their customer care number is ALWAYS engaged and I just couldn't get through (even to cancel the order). Now, I need to bear the extra cost if I want to return and well, all the nice offers (including 50% from Lenovo) have gone. So, no choice but to stick with Sony....

 

excatly, I feel that I have been incaged by Sony.

 

Put me on the list of people who will never deal with Sony directly again.

 

usually the term Price Guarantee usually means one thing - Price guarantee.

usually retailrs like bestbuy or futureshop here state price guarantee or promos that are associated with the item.

I think sony has the upper hand on this since it is stricly Price gaurantee.

 

I guess i wont be getting a free digital frame, and shouldnt even bother calling to argue

 

Throwing in something free isn't technically a better price offer, I think. If they introduced new coupons that would have lowered the final price, compared to the original price - coupons/discounts > old_final_price, then they would price match. My impression was that if the coupons/discounts expire by the time there is a "better" offer, I can't price match unless their new offers make it even lower, so I can't continuously stack more coupons. Or you could call and pretend to order a laptop to see if they add the free base station, assuming you'll get it at the same price, and you can return the current laptop and pay shipping fee, ~$30? So you do not lose much, just the shipping.

 

When I tried to contact them for the price match, I did print out a pdf image of my pretend buy with the free base station. However, I couldn't get in touch with the notorious customer care (all the sale representatives and online chats that I can get in touch refer me there). Then, after 1-2 days, when I tried talking to the sale representatives, they told me I cannot cancel the order already, because my previous ordered laptop has been shipped out. And now when I got in touch with the customer care, the offer has been discontinued, and they don't honor my previous request. The reason they give is that "free gift is not included for price guarantee".

 

Garmin, so supposely we (I presume you ordered it the week of 11/30-12/6) should get a free digital frame? Well, why no one tells me even when I called to order? Sony is really notorious and not honest and consistent in giving offers. It seems that as long as they can avoid it, they will do so, hoping that their customers will not figure that out and will be happy. Well, when the opposite happens, haha, they know what this will do to their image!!!

 

Yeah, they told me that I won't be getting a free base station anymore. I should've asked for a confirmation that first time when they said they would give me one. You live you learn. Always ask for a confirmation number or some sort of email confirmation on a "promise."

At least the LCD screen on the laptop is really pretty. The laptop is really nice. That's something to be thankful for.

 

So they actually told you at one point you will get one and never delivered. This by far has been my worst experience with any company's customer service team but I don't put the full blame on the Sony CS team. I believe a lot of this has to do with the structure of this side of the business.

 

Just wondering, where do you guys get free gift guarantee out of price guarantee?

 

sony's response for my price matching request, does anybody consider that is resonable?

for the $250 ecoupon that is still available, Also the student discount, Anybody who currently order the Z540 CTO will get the whole price benefit, including BOTH $250 ecoupon, the student discount, and currently much cheaper to choose a higher level configure (that worth $300 in my case). why does sony exclude me from the benefits? where is the 30day price matching promise?

 

Agreed my friend had 2 sony vaios and they both broke on him. Im not a big fan of their laptops but they make great cell phones .

 

So my first order for a vaio fw was on a weekend and it got cancelled for some reason, so I had to redo the order the following monday, just when they were starting their free base station deal. Technically I wasnt eligible for it, but I went ahead and tried to get one anyway. I called customer support and they said they couldnt give it to me since my order has already been processed. I got mad and they gave me a $50 credit, so I was like ok whatever. But then I looked up the value of the base station and saw it was way more than that so I got mad and decided to talk to someone through the sony online sales chat thingy on their website instead, like another person who had the same problem did previously. After talking to a rep through chat I was told that an email was going to be sent out with a code to get the base station for free, and a few days later I ended up getting it.

So basically, after randomly cancelling my first order I got $50 off my purchase AND a base station that technically wasnt mine to begin with. A few things I learned from this experience:

1) Sony's different customer support services are not really on the same page - the phone reps didnt know what was going on but the chat reps did. So, if something doesnt work out with the phone reps, try with the chat reps instead.

2) The chat reps tend to be happier and more likely to help you out, most likely because of the impersonal nature of the chat feature allows them to avoid being emotionally drained from annoying customers. Also, they tend to be more knowledgeable since they can just sit back and ask the people around them for any inside info they heard whenever they want instead of being stuck on the phone all the time.

3) Be persistent.

 

Yup, I think dealing with Sony really depends on WHO is on the phone or on the line. If you met someone really helpful, then you can get what you should, and you if didn't, then sorry for that. I just hope that they can make everything more consistent. And they shouldn't give better and better deal each week. That really causes a lot of troubles....

 

IMPORTANT UPDATES: Since I started this thread, I didn't do anything else. However, I received an e-mail today giving me an e-code for FREE base station (including shipping), due to a complaint e-mail that I sent to Sony many days ago. While I am grateful that I got the free base station, it again proves that it really depends on the person who handle your case. If they like it, they give you. If they don't like it, they just don't give you. My honest and sincere suggestion (if any of them is reading this thread) is that it is better if they can make all these more consistent.