Sony criticized for defective products, poor services

Edited and translated by People's Daily Online

Two Chinese consumers recently complained on People's Daily Online about Sony's defective products and poor after-sales services.

They said that they bought Sony's T300 digital camera and VPCEG16 I3E laptop because they trusted big brands. However, when they sent the malfunctioned products back for repair, they did not receive convenient and reliable services as Sony previously promised.

A consumer surnamed Zhang said that he bought a Sony T300 camera at a home appliances supermarket in Beijing in 2008. Less than half a year later, the camera began shaking when he was taking pictures, and led to photo blurs, so he sent it to Sony's customer service center for free repair. However, camera shake still occurred frequently in the first year afterward.

He surfed online and found that many T300 buyers met similar problems due to design defects. Zhang took the camera to Sony's customer service center for another repair, where a customer service representative said that he should pay 300 yuan for the repair. Although he argued that many T300 cameras had similar design-related problems, the representative maintained that only T20 and T70 would be repaired for such problems free of charge according to the company's policy.

Zhang said disappointedly, "Originally, I bought a product of the Sony brand because I believed that Sony was a time-honored brand and its products were reliable. I did not know that the company offers only one-time free repair service for such a design defect and the customer has to pay for other repair services. It is unreasonable."