September 22nd, 2008
How NOT to Run a Recall: Ask Sony
By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
You’ll remember that earlier this month I wrote about Sony’s recall of 19 models in the VAIO TZ series notebooks manufactured between May 2007 and July 2008. Apparently, as the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission said:
Irregularly positioned wires near the computer’s hinge and/or a dislodged screw inside the hinge can cause a short circuit and overheating. Sony has received 15 reports of overheating, including one consumer who suffered a minor burn.
Yeah, well, that’s all well and good (or bad, rather), but here’s how it works (my wife’s Vaio TZ-250 was among the recalled laptops):
Once you submit your information via their web form, Sony will call you and make an appointment for a technician to come out. The technician will come, take your system apart, and re-route the wiring.
They will then put the laptop back together.
Do not let them leave without testing it yourself!
At this point, my wife asked them if the laptop was working as it was when they arrived. They said “yes.” The correct answer would have been “no.”
When I arrived home, the laptop was booting fine, but the following was not:
- Wi-fi
- Bluetooth
- Fingerprint recognition
- Caps lock indicator
- Num lock indicator
- HDD indicator
- Touchpad (they should have picked up on this right away, if they’d bothered to look)
All that broken because he re-wired something? Well, I called into Sony Tech Support and found out a couple of things (it took an hour of my time, though):
- The techs they send out have been contracted for this purpose and have no product knowledge aside from the Sony tells them explicitly to do
- There is one cable under the touchpad that controls everything above
After making another appointment, the tech came out and apparently fixed the cabling. However, wi-fi was not working. I had to (on the phone) help my wife re-enter the security key information, but it still wouldn’t work.
The tech wanted to look at the router which I vetoed as there was nothing wrong with it. The Vaio was seeing the networks (running a draft-n 2.0 router so it sees two SSIDs) but it could not connect.
Finally, my wife told me it gave her a “service not started error.” WTF? I told her to reboot the laptop. After it booted, it was able to connect to either the 2.4 Ghz or 5.0 Ghz network.
Still, it was ridiculous that I had to do this all over the phone. I’m working from memory (since my wife’s laptop is Vista and I only have XP at work), and yet I can figure it out while the tech just stood there helplessly.
At least the laptop didn’t explode (as previously with some Sony batteries), but since the TS person I spoke to told me the odds of a fire from the wiring were extremely low, I feel like I was “taken,” wasting a lot of my time and my wife’s as well.
Good job, Sony.
Sony Blows Chunks! says:
Hey, you got what you paid for when you bought Sony… good marketing, expensive commercials, lots of sponsorships, high priced endorsements, low quality products & non-existent support!
What did you expect from Sony?
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:48 am
Vetman says:
Blame it on the tech company or the tech person. Had mine done last week. Sony sent them a USB stick that they had to boot from and run a utility that tested every button on the computer. It was to be run before and after the modification. The woman who did mine had trouble booting to the USB until she found another place in the bios to enable the USB bootup. Watched her run the utility after the repair checking that everything worked OK. They also upgraded the built in camera and some other small things. If your tech couldn’t figure out the USB bootup he could never run the utility that would have checked all that. My Sony has been fine.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 am
I agree with "Sony Blows Chunks! " says:
Hey Vetman -
You Sony snobs will defend ANY behavior from Sony as acceptable:
“Blame it on the tech company or the tech person”
The Tech company (or person) is hired by Sony to take care of Sony’s problem. They are showing their arrogance & contempt for their customers by sending out incompetent “technicians” (company and/or person) to “solve your problem”.
“The woman who did mine had trouble booting to the USB until she found another place in the bios to enable the USB bootup” - why anybody (allegedly) trained by Sony to work on Sonys would have a problem with such a simple task as booting from a USB device (remember, this “technician” was trained by Sony to work on a Sony) is beyond my comprehension!
Obviously, from the 2 examples listed, they are sending out some unqualified, lowest bidder-type “technicians” with little or no training in what they are being sent out to do.
Sony can only continue this arrogance if people keep buying their crap & putting up with this type of treatment, er, sorry, “Service”…
As “Sony Blows Chunks!” said up above:
“Hey, you got what you paid for when you bought Sony… good marketing, expensive commercials, lots of sponsorships, high priced endorsements, low quality products & non-existent support!
What did you expect from Sony? ”
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
September 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Vetman says:
Geez, take a pill.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:22 am
You can only be taken advantage of if you let it happen, let alone pay for it! says:
Yep Vetman, it’s morons like you that keep Sony in business! They’ll keep dishing it out as long as you keep takin’ it!
September 26th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Alice says:
I have one of these and forget it - no way is Sony coming to my house and messing it up any more than it is.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:51 pm