Sony System Nightmare, verging on fraud

I am having a Sony nightmare and I just wanted to share it with everyone....I don't know what to do but post it here an I can't figure out how to get it on Digg.com so here it goes...

7/19/07
I am so excited my parents are going to buy me a new FZ190 as a congrats present on a teaching assistantship to grad school. I call Sony and talk to a great girl Katrina. She helps me with my order, we review it and she submits. I am excited!

My brother asks me what system I ordered a few hours later and I log in my mail to show him only to find no confirmation. No biggie, I figure it may take a while so I log into the web site and start configuring a system to show him. Surprisingly the system comes out a few hundred more than what the lovely Katrina (I kept her extension just in case) quoted me. I become concerned and figure I'll call in the morning.

7/20/07
I call on my way to work (45min on old) to find out what mistake the lovely Katrina made. Turns out she entered the wrong configuration along with the incorrect email!! So the customer service lady tells me to log in with the wrong info and change my password. I thank her and hang up.

I try logging in only to realize I never got a password!!! Another 50+min on hold....Eventually I get another rep that changes the email for me and tells me that once the order is placed I cannot change it and I have to cancel it!!! I frantically check my email and the order is in fact wrong. :'( Katrina let me down. I call back......another hour wasted....and the rep puts in a "cancel request". It is explained that within 24hrs the order may or may not be canceled! The rep tries to tell me it cannot be canceled because the laptop is already built so I ask when it will ship out. The lady explains that it will be a week to "finish building" the system then it will ship. I explained to her that either it's built and uncancellable or it's not built and they can cancel it. She pauses and finally tells me it will be canceled and I should know within 24hrs.

7/21/07
I called at lunch to find the status of my order. I am elated to hear that it was canceled and I get the confirmation number!! The guy transfers me to Anica in sales and I order my new (correct) FZ190 and she promises it will be shipped on or before 7/30/07 so I will have it in time for school.....BIG mistake!!!

I get home from work and I check my order status. My first order does not show as canceled!! I call in to tech support and wait a little over 30min and finally get a young man on the phone. He tells me there's no record of the order being canceled (even though I have the confirmation number) and that he will put in an urgent cancellation request. I ask to speak to a manager and he says I will hear from one in 24 hours.....

7/23/07
I wake up to find my system has not only not been canceled but it has moved into production!!! Infuriated I call tech support (30+min on hold) and get a lady on the phone who tells me that my first order was in fact canceled on the 20th and that the web site is just updating wrong....bull. Then I ask her if perhaps they canceled the wrong order, and I wanted to be certain my second laptop will be delivered on time. She tells me that the second one I ordered has been on backorder for a while, the sales rep KNEW about it and she lied to me!! She then tells me it will be at least 3 weeks before it ships!! I am infuriated and ask that a supervisor ACTUALLY call me back this time. She again takes my name and phone number and says I will have a call by the end of the day.

After thinking all morning I decide I've had enough. I call back (another 40+ min on hold) and get Zach at 1:05pm. I tell him to get a supervisor ASAP and that I am tired of getting told it will be 24hrs. He puts me on hold. He comes back 10min or so later and tells me it will be 24-48 hours before a supervisor calls me back. I tell him this is unacceptable and I have been waiting to get a call back. He refuses to budge so I leave my info and hang up.

I realize that my second laptop is still on order so I call right back (yay for 40+ min hold times again) and get Zach...I bet he loves hearing from me by now...and he puts in a cancellation request for my second computer.

After steaming all day I call back to check my order status and I get Beverly at 4:00pm. I ask her to check the status and she says either has actually been canceled and there's no record of a request for my second laptop....surprise surprise. She puts in a request and my cell phone loses its signal. I call back (another wait) and I get Mary Ester who apologizes over and over and says she will take care of it and swears up and down it will be cancelled by opening of business Tuesday...

7/24/07
I wake up on my day off and check my order status to find out both orders have been canceled AND I got email confirmations!!!! I am elated so I start looking into BBB reviews of companies to see who I should order from. After some hours I decide on Lenovo. No company has a perfect record but Lenovo seems to make the biggest effort from what I gather. I order a T61p (I know I know they are on backorder but I don't care I am willing to wait if I get actual customer service.

I talk to Alex and he does a superb job of helping me place my order and get the student discount. I get an email confirmation from him!!! Not [email protected] like Sony, but his actual e-mail!! I also get a toll free AND local number that go directly to him!! In disbelief I call a number and he picks up after only 2 rings!!

I go to sleep knowing I will finally get a quality notebook.

7/25/07
I am fuming right now. Unsure of who to call, the BBB or the state attorney general...I got into work only to have my dad call VERY upset that he is bouncing checks!! I ask what this has to do with me. He tells me Sony charged me THREE TIMES (note I only ordered 2 laptops) this morning and Lenovo charged me as well!! The credit card is through his mutual fund and they had to sell some stock to cover the $7,000+ in charges that got put on in one day.

I immediately called Sony back and got Louise (spelling?) and he apologizes up and down. He says the orders are canceled (they sure say it on the site and in the emails I got) and he has NO IDEA why they charged me 3 times. I demand to speak to a supervisor and he (of course) will not put me through. I tell him that he can handle this today, refund ALL of the charges AND pay any overage fees or I will sue them for the money. He agrees that they are responsible for all of it (I mean seriously, charging for cancelled orders!?!) and says he will talk to a supervisor and call me back.....

I am now awaiting that call and I will update this as everything unfolds. I want to warn consumers out there because this is complete incompetence. Charging for cancelled orders HAS to be against some law (unless they take it off somehow) but I am at my wit’s end. I have wasted hours and hours of time. I had to take a half day off on Monday and I had to leave work today to get this handled and my parents are the ones really getting screwed.

If anyone from Sony is reading this my e-mail is [email protected]. I will be checking it all day.

Update 1:19pm
The BBB told me the new york office handles all of the complaints against Sony and I need to e-file with them for the fastest service. After hearing the story the lady said I had a valid complaint and the BBB would help me hold Sony accountable.

Update 2:11pm
Complaint formally registered with the BBB of New York. Waiting on call back from the bank.

Update 5:47pm
I still had not heard anything from Louise so I decided to put my Vonage to good use and wait on hold again. This time I got put through to Steven Daniels (floor supervisor...I'm impressed...) at 5:44pm. He gave me a reference number and said he would contact the upper management, the sales department and the internal fraud department to see how this happened and how they could fix it. He said there was no phone number on record for me which is why I never got a call back (yeah damn right I left it every time and it's on MY OWN ORDER PAGE) so he took it down and promised he would call me before he left today...

Update 10:01pm
Big suprise, Steven never called me back....guess I get to call in the morning.

7/26/07
I'm tired of calling, I got no calls again today from the BBB or Sony. I will call tomorrow evening if I still don't hear anything. I've never worked with the BBB before so I'm not entirely sure how long Sony has to put togeather a response.


7/27/07
No call still. There was an excess of cash in the account this morning so it's possible the funds were put back but we didn't have a chance to check. I think I'll try calling them again tomorrow to see if Steven really spent 2 nights at the office to keep good on his promise...

8/2/07
Updating this every day with "still nothing" was starting to make my blood boil so I figured I'd wait till something happened. Funds were returned to our checking account (finally) and the BBB just e-mailed me tonight saying it could be up to 6 weeks until Sony gave me my apology and all that I asked for. Basically I have to wait 6 weeks and if I get nothing from Sony by then I contact the BBB again. I'll see this through to completion but my updates will be alot slower in coming. I'll just bump this when I update so you guys don't have to check all the time.


FINAL OUTCOME 10/16/07
Well, the BBB got back to me today for the first time. It turns out Sony has officially lied (at least it's official). In the BBB statement (shown below) Sony outright lies. They say the holds on the funds were released the next day after the request but my dad has a slew of bounced checks and e-mails from Merryl Lynch disputing this. Merryl Lynch did not release the funds until after my BBB complaint was issued. On 7/25 Merryl Lynch (whom we invest with heavily) confirmed that they had gotten no contact from Sony which was why the funds were still unavailable.

Anyways, here is the letter. And shame on Sony for not only lying, but their poor grammar. At least pay attention in an official response with the BBB...

 

BBB is your friend in this case.

 

Wow, I'm sorry to hear all that.

 

seems that the sony you called was run by a bunch of teenagers. I hope you get your T61P from Lenovo very soon, that looks to be a fantastic laptop.

 

Have you read my unresolved battery issue? I should have listened from others complains about this company!

 

It was charged??? Call your credit card company and ask them to do a chargeback.

 

Yes. Dispute the charge with your credit card company immediately. If this card had to "Sell stock" to pay the bill, then it's not really a credit card or you set it up to automatically sell stock to pay the bill. It's not really Sony's fault, imho, that you elected to use a card which has an automatic tie to your stocks. That's a risk you take every time you use your card. You may consider using an actual credit card which doesn't leave you open to these types of inconveniences in case of a mistake. A mistake was made by sony, but you left yourself wide open for this type of problem. That's your fault, not sony's.

 

I never blamed Sony for the fact it was tied to stocks but it IS and that's part of the story so I told it. Sony is also responsible for any financial damages done because of it and they have admitted that. It's like if I hit the car in front of me at a stoplight, if he's driving a pinto tor a ferrari it's my fault for hitting him and I have to pay for all of the damages even if I'm upset cause he was driving a 2mil import. As a consumer it would have been a better decision to use a true credit card however it's still 100% Sony's fault that the situation exists because I was being responsible , staying under the limit, and not spending money I don't have (hence why I don't use a credit card).

 

Hope I NEVER have to deal with Sony like you did.
I feel for you man.

 

I think I concede your analogy and point. But yikes! Don't drive that ferrari in the neighborhoods where it is likely to get hit. I don't even use my debit card anymore because I just don't trust people to not make mistakes where there is REAL MONEY involved. With real money, it's not just the inconvenience of losing some available credit.

Good luck with your new computer, whatever it is. It'll all get sorted out, and the emotions will recede. Soon you'll be chillin at starbucks with your new computer and just loving it.

 

This is definately a learning experience. We have never had a problem before so we didn't realize what the ramafications would be. It's obviously a TERRIBLE decision to use anything but a credit card and I will be changing that ASAP. Anyone that reads this beware, NEVER buy a laptop with anything but a REAL credit card....or any big purchase for that matter. I was proud that I keep my debt to 0 but it turns out putting it on credit then paying it is a MUCH better option.

 

This is a good lesson for you. Never order thru phone.

 

That was the only way to get the student discount and $5 overnight air shipping x(

 

Sony will fix things for you, Im fairly certain. Sorry you have to go through this.

 

This is a lesson for everyone who goes ga ga over Sony's laptops but forgets one very important thing and that is: After sales support and customer service. I too really like Sony's laptops but have kept away because I have read and heard too many complaints regarding their customer care or lack of. Don't get me wrong, I do own a PS3 and absolutely love it, great quality and build.

The OP made a very wise choice by going with Lenovo since I have a Thinkpad too and though it's not even close to being as sleek as a Sony laptop but it works great and most importantly their customer service is very efficient.

 

I'm so sorry to hear that. I heard about Sony's nightmare customer service , but I can't resist the Vaio TZ90. I just got my TZ today and the DVD drive doesn't work. what a surprise? I'm actually live in Japan so, first thing tomorrow morning I'm going to call customer support. I'm going to find out the difference between Sony US and Sony Japan customer support.

anyways, I hope everything goes well.

 

ive been dealing with Sony for over 6yrs both with retail and wholesale divisions in sales and for service.
I highly doubt you were put on hold for 45min, 50mins+, 40mins blah. No one in their right mind would stay on a phone for 50mins+ before being spoken to.
Their service calls do implement the call recording for monitoring quality service.
There 2 sides to a story and im sure their would be diff

 

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't hold for 30+ mins. But YES, Sony CS DOES make you wait 50+ mins. I had to wait 45 mins to speak to customer service after the battery I recieved wouldn't hold a charge. So I sent it back, for an exchange. A few days go by, I hear nothing. I call back to hear that my money was refunded but not exchanged as I requested.

 

I wondered how long it would take for a fanboi to post. If you had 8grand put on your credit card after the orders were canceled how long would you wait on the phone to get it resolved? As long as it takes obviously. I finally took to calling and putting my phone on hold for 30min so I didn't have to hear about that stupid Sony Reader (did you know it's only a half inch thin!!! ::rolls eyes: forever then I took my phone off hold and listened until I got a customer service rep. Now, I could post photocopies of all of my cell phone records for proof but as long as the BBB of NY has them and Sony has them that's ok with me. I'll post the resolution and perhaps a copy of the apology letter (if I ever get it...) as proof enough.

If you do not believe me about the call times feel free to call 1-877-865-SONY at 9:00am or so EST and see how long it takes to get your call answered.

 

I wondered how long it would take for a fanboi to post. If you had 8grand put on your credit card after the orders were canceled how long would you wait on the phone to get it resolved? As long as it takes obviously.

Well said!!

 

Now I'm just picturing your original sales rep, Katrina, blindly going through the rest of her day, making silly mistakes but not caring since it's unlikely the same customer will ever reach her again in their massive cubical maze of 1000 sales reps.

The scary thing is this whole story of blatant incompetence, total disregard of a customer's time and inconvience, and empty promises of the "callback" are commonplace everywhere. (Has ANYONE ever received a callback from a company within the time they were promised??)

Granted, this story with charging a card for 3 orders falls beyond most cases but I don;t think this topic of employee stupidity or lack of training or caring is isolated to sony. Far from it.

 

I've waited that long before. Multiple times.

"Check out The Reader, from Sony..." If you've ever called their support line, you know what I'm talking about.

 

Yes. sometimes they do call back. Check out this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=146051

granted their problem isn't solved--but they did get that call back... it occasionally happens.

which reminds me, i'm still waiting for two people to call back who said they would... perhaps i gotta call them. not sony people--seems friends do this sometimes too!

 

Bro, I feel for you. I bet you can hardly sleep at night, keep worrying about this mess. That is why I haven't bought from sony even though sony sz is my fav laptop but I don't TRUST sony. I really hope it works out. If I were you, I would print out all the evidence you can before they change things. May even consider recording the calls if you do decide to call sony back and etc. Please keep us updated.

 

(Has ANYONE ever received a callback from a company within the time they were promised??)

Lenovo's customer care in my experience has been extremely efficient each time I needed their help and always got a call back when promised. First time when I needed the restore CDs (shipped to me overnight without me even requesting) and when I needed a new powersupply (sent free under warranty). I never once had to go through any sort of a phone maze as Lenovo assigned me an employee's e-mail as well as his personal phone ext.

Of course it's very easy to say every company has problems but the fact remains that certain companies have more problems consistently than other equal sized companies.

 

sonny, there are laws on what you can record without the other party's knowledge. Furthermore, there are laws on what secret recordings (i.e. phone taps) can be used as evidence in court. The OP should check local legislation before doing what you suggested.

 

I already printed everything off and fortunately enough I have a habit of writing down times, names, dates, confirmation numbers and then filing them all. I have never had to use them before but I always have because of horror stories I have read. I'm not sure what all can be posted on the internet so I am not going to post it all but believe me it's all there, there are copies and this month's cell bill will be added to it.

Yeah I do know to record a phone call you have to warn the person and get their permission. I am not recording the phone calls because sony records them (well they say they do) and I havethe confirmation numbers anyways plus emails etc. If it would up in court (which I'm sure it won't) and it all had "vanished" I would have the only evidence and sony would have nothing to defend against it. I have watched enough Judge Judy to know if I have documents and theirs have disappeared I win by default. Go daytime TV junkie!!!

 

Bump for an update.

 

Congratulations on the refund - sorry you had to go through all that.

 

I think the lesson to learn here is that in any transaction where you can't go down and grab someone by the nose that you should use a normal CREDIT CARD.

When problems occur your FIRST step is to file a dispute with your credit card company.

The BBB is fine to contact, but they have NO teeth. They are advisory only.

Your CC co has teeth, they can take the $ back.

In your case, you have additional damages, the BBB may help, but if Sony tells you to piss off, you need to get an attorney. Most states have a treble damages clause for unfair business practices, this normally includes legal fees.

 

bump for final outcome.

 

kudos that you got a apoligize at least the big S just went down a notch in my belt. Too bad im a idiot and will continue to keep buying from them even though they have horrible customer service

 

Well if calling was the only way to receive the student discount then I don't know why you would get concerned in the first place that the configuration on the website was a couple hundred more. I understand you later specify she typed in the wrong configuration. Do you have the paperwork or pictures to show the wrong configuration? It could have just been the wrong e-mail and the right configuration. Which would mean you went through a ton of bull for nothing. Just throwing it out there, I'm curious.

 

I have the e-mails on my home computer as well as screenshots. It was the wrong config. The OS was what was wrong. I'm at school now so I don't havew any of it with me but even Sony admits that.

I was factoring the student discount into my calculations. Once I got the correct e-mail with sony I logged in and it was plain as day the order was incorrect.

 

Got ya, sorry to hear you had this much trouble. I went through some crap with gateway a while back and it was no fun at all.