Good morning all,
As sony doesn't have a complaints department that you can call I figured that this would be the easiest way to contact them directly and on a more public forum because I have received absolutely disgracefull treatment and I don't want people to experience the same problems I did.
On February 12th 2016 I contacted the sony xperia support centre to alert them that my phone was experiencing problems with not charging, a fairly standard problem and one that I know is easily remedied by this service. I was told that an email would be sent to me regarding the packaging and sending instructions to ship the phone off. This email never arrived, I asked 3 times but it never arrived. When the email arrived to say that due to me waiting too long (for the email instructions to arrive) it had been cancelled and so as I was back in the office for a little while I organised for the courier to come and collect it from me. The courier collected the phone in no packaging so that he could see that the phone was undamaged when he signed his documentation, the phone went away and I dutifully waited to be contacted.
Shortly after that I received an email to say that as the screen on the phone was cracked they could not repair the phone under warranty and I would have to pay £140 for the screen to be repaired before they would repair the phone. As the phone was undamaged when I sent it off I was naturally a little confused as to how this could have occured so I contacted sony and was told that the "Escalations" department would look into it and make a decision as to what should happen. At this point the phone has been out of action for 6 weeks so I'm starting to get a little irritated. Whilst I'm waiting for the escalations department to get back to me I contact DPD (the couriers that Sony use for those that don't know) and get them to send me the documentation that the driver signed to say that the package (i.e. my phone with no packaging) was undamaged so that I could use it should Sony decide that the damage was caused by me.
Shortly after that I was contacted again by the escalations department to say that they were standing by their original decision and that the evidence that I sent in from DPD wasn't enough because, and I quote, "The DPD drive is not a qualified engineer" and therefore could not comment on whether the screen was damaged when he collected the phone. After much arguing with them about how ridiculous this was I was told that there was nothing else I could do and I could either pay to get the phone repaired, pay for the phone to be sent back to me or have the phone recycled for free. What a tough decision!
My faith in Sony's ability totally destroyed I paid the £20 to get the phone shipped back to me so that I could assess it myself. Today the phone has arrived back and it is totally undamaged (as I told them repeatedly). There is some documentation included with it to say how they can't repair the phone because it is damaged. Naturally I immediately contacted the sony suppot department who have now insisted that I need to send evidence that the phone is undamaged and so I have emailed that through to them, I'm now expected to wait 48 hours or more for the email to be received and forwarded onto the correct people.
I am absolutely disgusted that a company such as sony could treat their customers this way and my next call is going to be to trading standards because I don't appreciate being conned.
Let this be a warning to people before you send off your phone to the sony support department, gather as much evidence of the condition of the phone as you can but bear in mind that they apparently do not class a photograph of the phone as enough evidence because, and I quote again, "I could have damaged the phone after the photograph was taken". Personally I have just sent in my latest pictures of the phone in front of the atomic clock because that was all I could think of to do.
I don't enjoy being cynical but its times like this when I get proven correct that I think there is no other way to be.
Regards
Tom Walker
