Sony Vaio FZ 240E - Hard drive wiped/Awful customer service

Hi everyone, I'm new but I've had my laptop since last December and have had a terrible experience over the last 5 weeks.

In October I had left the laptop on and in a hurry used the power button to shut it down. This was the first time I had done and thought nothing of it.
The next morning when I went to start it up, I was welcomed by the the screen that gives options of booting in safe mode. So I chose to start normally, no go Windows never loaded. Chose Safe Mode - no go froze on the drivers loading screen. Called Sony, I didn't make a System Recovery disk and they can't access my partition so I have purchase a disk. Before purchasing the disk I took it into my IT guys at work and Best Buy and they said don't bother, send it in since its under warranty. They didn't think the recovery disk would do much.

So I sent it in. Well the service center in Ottawa, Canada is not so great with speedy customer service. I hassled them for the first 1.5 weeks for a diagnosis and to see if they could recover any files. Finally two weeks later indicated it was a virus and they were having difficulty recovering any files. Well this went on for a total of 3 weeks before I called HQ in Toronto and reemed them out for not giving me a definate answer and taking so long. Anyway after 4 weeks of arguing and wasting a lot of energy the answer was "Your hard drive is essentially empty and must be rebooted. Your bill is $100 + taxes". Because they claim it was a virus now the service is not warranteed. HQ never let me speak to a supervisor or manager, no matter how many times I requested to. Not one single proposed timeline was met. Everytime I called I was told it would be dealt with in x days and then no one called.

Everyone I talk to says that it is rare a virus will completely empty out your hard drive. Also while I realize an anti-virus is not the answer to every problem, I had one that updated at least twice a week and scanned once a week.

I'm just bewildered by two things:
1 - How did I get such an awful virus that wiped out everything? Am I being screwed over and was this an actual hd malfunction?
2 - Sony took 4 weeks to tell me this, I pick up the laptop tomorrow morning which makes it 5 weeks from when I dropped it off.

I'm worried that my hard drive will likely go again in the near future and it will be out of warranty.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? I know on thing, I am never buying a Sony Vaio again.

 

Sounds like you been screwed over.

 

In general, you should ALWAYS assume that if you are sending your computer off for repair, it will come back wiped. Maybe your hard drive is gone, maybe you'll get an idiot tech.

It sounds like a Windows issue. You probably could have fixed this using the recovery CD's, and didn't need to send it in. I ran into a different issue a while back, but basically called them and said yeah I need the disks. They wanted to charge me and I said look, it's under warranty, the computer broke and it wasn't my fault, and you want to charge me to fix it? Send me the disks for free. And he transfered me to a supervisor and they sent them.

 

Are you in the US? Cause for the Canadian HQ they refused to let me speak to a supervisor. I asked on two seperate occasions. They said the speaking to the supervisor was pointless because they had no idea about the details of my problem.

The part that I don't get is how they claim a virus essentially left the hard drive empty and how it took so long to determine this. The difference here too is they are saying it WAS my fault, which is why they want me to pay the $100 basic fee to pick it up from the service center. Oddly enough the service center said they will restore all software to how it was out of the box under the warranty.

 

It's likely that there are terms in the warranty that exclude coverage for software problems, which is why they're charging your account. And the last time I sent Sony my laptop, even though it was for a hardware problem, the customer service rep advised me to back up my hard drive in case they had to wipe it, so it sounds like whoever picked up your case definitely dropped the ball. The virus story sounds really iffy to me too.

If I were you, I would contact the BBB to file a formal complaint for this sort of shoddy service. This site may contain helpful information.

 

So I just called the HQ again to get the dates I had dealt with them on, in order to write a formal complaint (I was thinking along the lines of BBB too and the previous post pushed me more towards it) and all of a sudden got some clarity.

'Dave' says the work order copy he has from the Service Center, does not indicate a virus but looks like a hard drive replacement is required. And he feels that this is under warranty and should be at no cost to me. He said according to him even if it was a virus, standard procedure is:
- Do you want to try and recover files? (assuming for a cost)
- Wipe off drive.
- Reboot.
- Send back to customer as out of the box, no charge.

Anyway he called the Service Center while on the phone with me and as I did, got no straight answer. So he will deal with it on Monday and said hopefully Sony can cover at least up to $120 if the worst case scenario happens and I am still charged. Apparently the work order seems to indicate differently from what the Service Center is telling me.

Interesting how he was so helpful...