What’s your problem? A black mark against Sony for losing my camera

Question: I’m having a dispute is with Sony over a repaired camera that they say they shipped back to me but which I never received.

Last year I paid $304 for a Sony Cyber-shot DSCWX5 Silver 12.2 MP 5X Zoom Digital Camera.

A few weeks ago, after black marks began appearing on the images, I filed a warranty repair claim. The LCD screen was defective.

According to Sony’s online records, they completed the repair and shipped the camera back to me. Their website provided me with a FedEx tracking number. But the tracking number appeared invalid as no matching record could be found.

I called Sony and was given a different tracking number, which also confirmed that the camera had been delivered. But it hadn’t.

I checked with FedEx, and it says the package had been left at my front door with no signature requirement. No one had knocked at the door, and besides, how they could ship a $300 camera and not require a signature upon delivery?

The camera has been missing for weeks. Every time I call, Sony says it is “looking into it” and someone will get back to me. When I ask for the call to be escalated, a supervisor suggests I should call FedEx.

Isn’t it the shipper’s responsibility to contact FedEx? My contract was with Sony, not FedEx.

I am so frustrated with this, as it seems I’m just going around and around in circles, and all Sony can do is recite the tracking details back to me. I fear that they won’t call me back, and even if they do, it will just be to tell me the same thing again. Please tell me where I can go from here! — Thomas Hill, Miami

Answer: Sony should have returned your camera by FedEx with a signature required, and when it got lost, it should have taken the matter up with its shipping company — not asked you to pester the shipper for the package.

As far as I can tell, your entire correspondence with Sony took place by phone. I find that problematic. Had you emailed Sony, your request would have been assigned a case number and you would have a clean paper trail (or in your case, an electronic trail) that documented your queries and its responses.

But when you call Sony, only the company has a record of the conversation. That puts you at a disadvantage when you’re trying to resolve the case.

Appealing to a supervisor was a good instinct, but why not ask for the supervisor’s email and get the response in writing as well? Again, when only one side is recording the call for “quality assurance” purposes, it’s your loss.

The only way to stop this game of corporate ping-pong and escalate your case is to start moving up the chain of command at Sony, starting with an email through its site. (Here’s a tip: If your email goes into a black hole, try an electronic chat. You can easily copy the back-and-forth for your own records.)

If that doesn’t work, try sending an email to a supervisor. Here’s a a list of Sony’s executives. Most email formats are firstname_lastname@sony.com (and sometimes they add the division, like @playstation.sony.com).

I contacted Sony on your behalf. The company agreed to send you a replacement camera at no extra cost.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LOCND3JAJL4PGYWJBHUT3HWAZM web/gadget guru

    Sony hates you.
    Yes, you and you too! In fact, they hate *ALL* of their customers! They have proven it time and time again…
    Anybody remember that Sony Rootkit fiasco they had several years ago? And since then, they have taken steps to alienate all of the customers across all of the product lines…
    Avoid Sony at all costs…if you don’t, you’ll only have yourself to blame:

    Sony: The Rootkit of All Evil (2005)

    If you played a CD from Celine Dion, Neil Diamond, or any of two dozen other Sony BMG artists on your computer in the mid-2000s, your PC probably got infected with malware. That’s because Sony had the bright idea of secretly installing a rootkit–a hackers’ tool designed to hide malware–to cloak the existence of its digital rights management software.

    Security researcher Mark Russinovich posted a blog entry detailing the secret Sony rootkit on October 31, 2005. (Security vendor F-Secure later revealed that it had notified Sony of the rootkit weeks before Russinovich spilled the beans.) The company’s response? “Most people don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?” Sony BMG executive Thomas Hesse (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4989260) told NPR.

    On the stupid scale, this was cranking the meter up to 11. Once a rootkit is installed, any smart malware author can take advantage of it (and one did, (http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/breplibot_b.shtml) nine days after Sony’s kit became public). A few days after Russinovich’s post, Sony issued a statement downplaying the risks, and distributed a service pack to remove the rootkit. It didn’t work. Two weeks later, the company vowed to stop distributing CDs with rootkits on them, but by then lawsuits were already being filed. Sony BMG eventually was forced to pay nearly $6 million (http://www.pcworld.com/article/128310/sony_rootkit_settlement_reaches_575m.html) to settle cases brought by 40 states, as well as to pay fines to the FTC.
    Two years later, F-Secure found another rootkit on a Sony product, a biometric-secured USB drive. Once you turn the stupid meter up to 11, it’s hard to turn it back down.

    http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/050311-coverups.html?page=2

  • Sonylistens

    Hello,
    Good afternoon! My name is Sarah Kepler. I am the supervisor for Sony Listens. We handle post-sales support at Sony Electronics. If you are having any issues with our products, you can always email my group at Sonylistens@am.sony.com and we will make sure to work with the customer towards a positive resolution.

    Best Regards,
    Sarah

  • Mohoshe

    i think the point that should be taken from what chris said here and has said before, a phone conversation and information is not worth the paper it’s written on. use e-mails or even registered post. but phone leave no trail which you really need.

  • Jim Zakany

    Absolutely. And the resolution – a new camera – was proper.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LOCND3JAJL4PGYWJBHUT3HWAZM web/gadget guru

    It seems that Sony is running some kind of reputation scanning spider on the internet that tags negative Sony comments with that canned response…If you google “Sarah Kepler” you will see dozens of these replies across many webpages from Sarah and others from the “sony listens” team…
    Sorry Sarah…a little too little, a little too late…Sony has lost 80% of their capitalization since 1990…meaning if you purchased $1000 worth of sony stock in 1990, it would be worth $200 today, yet sony executives are lining their pockets with bonuses and pay raises while the company circles the drain! It might behoove you to leave sony now while you still have some dignity!

  • Durant Imboden

    If they are running “some kind of reputation scanning spider,” that’s great: It means that sharing an account of a bad product experience via the Web is more likely to get results.

  • Durant Imboden

    If they are running “some kind of reputation scanning spider,” that’s great: It means that sharing an account of a bad product experience via the Web is more likely to get results.

  • http://vipsaccess.com Luxury Hotels

    Keep at it, Sony will reimburse you but they’ll make you go out of your mind first. Had similar situation once and when discussing the issue with  customer support supervisors, they gave the impression they were all a bunch of morons with no logic… Otherwise they had to accept guilt and they weren’t about to do that… I never gave up and stayed at it, finally they had no choice but reimburse to keep me from calling them every day…:)

  • Anonymous

    If Sony really listened, they wouldn’t be discontinuing the PSP. Gamers are not happy that the Vita is coming and that UMD games won’t be able to play. Sure, I can download them off the PSN, but I’ve paid for them already so why should I pay again!?!?

    Just sayin’