Smile Care (Sony Service Center) — NEGLIGENCE OF THE SERVICE CENTER

The Authorized Officer
Customer Care
Sony India

Dear Sir,
I purchased a SONY VAIO LAPTOP Model VPCEB45FG/B :SL.nO.. 7000362 from your authorized dealer M/S Bhel Associates , 26 E, Rajpur Road, Dehra Dun 0n 12th Feb 2012 vide Invoice no. 7724 for rs.40,000.00.

At the time of purchase, I was told that the battery back up of the system is more than 3 and a half hours but hardly anyday it gave a support of more than 45 mts.

The lap top was very sparingly used , till one day last month when the screen of the Lappy turned blue and it suddenly started writing " "computer crashed....collecting crash dump..........and this crash dump continued to occur repeatedly...every time I logged on my Lappy.

On the advice of your dealer i visited your authorized service center " M/s SMILE CARE, 11, CHAKRATA ROAD, BINDAL SERVICE STATION, DEHRA DUN ON 16.8.2012. My warranty was valid upto 31.3.2012

The engineer on counter diagnosed this as a CRASHED HARDDISC' problem and insisted me on getting this replaced saying that this can not be repaired. since it was from Customer care..I accepted in what he said and agreed to have it replaced..

The harddisc no.18402541 HDD50043 ,was replaced for a cost of Rs. 7503.00 vide bill no. 859 / -- dated 25.08.2012. and the system was handed over to me without installing windows or MS Office.

I told your service center to kindly install the windows from my original backup DVDs which I had got copied at the time of purchase from the dealer but your officer handling the complaint did not do and instead installed with some other windows...which were not functioning well after the delivery.


Within a few days after the said repair the Lappy Screen again started showing "BlUE DUMP ERROR' after the Registered Anti Virus Original QUICK HEAL was being installed, that made me dumb shocked. Another crash in less than a month.

I contacted a local vendor, who diagnosed it a compatibility problem of the Anti Virus with the configuration of the system ...and after a little bit of application of mind , shut downs and restarts, corrected the error and now my Lappy is working fine.

My complaint is not with the machine or SONY VAIO but with the wrong diagnosis of the problem that , besides my mental agony, caused me a loss of Rs.8000/-. The old HDD is also working smooth after encasing with a USB port jacket and used as an external hard Disk..

The shear negligence and lack of knowledge of the customer care and the service center has made me poorer by Rs..8000/-

The battery back up reported at the service center , was also not taken care off.........this a very serious matter.......


The amount of Rs. 8000/- including service charges and taxes , may kindly be paid back to me or I shall be compelled to take the matter to the Consumer Court for the settlements. In case I do not hear from you immediately ...none can stop me from putting this in newspapers also.

An honest and a sincere customer awaits a suitable compensation from you without much hassles.

With best regards


Dr.Vinod Khanna,M.Sc.,Ph.D
Member :IUCN, Switzerland
____________________________________________
Dear Dr.Khanna,

Greetings from Sony India.

We thankyou for patronizing Sony products.

This is in response to your e-mail, we wish to inform you that your Vaio model VPCEB45FG/B bearing serial number 7000362 was reported to Our Authorized Service Center M/S Smile Care with symptom "Blue Dump Error".

Upon inspection of the unit by our engineer, the Hard Disk Drive(HDD) found corrupt and needed replacement, as we have no provisions in Sony to repair the HDD, and the same was replaced upon your approval for Rs.6,023/-.

The services rendered to you were after complete diagnose of the product and charges mentioned above were charged as applicable. We regret to inform you that we may not be able to refund any charges for the above repairs.

If you need any further assistance or clarifications, please contact us at on our tollfree number[protected]Working hours 9.00am to 7.30pm ; All 7 days). we would be delighted to assist you.

Thank you for contacting Sony India.

With Best Regards,
Preeti Chawla
Officer
Customer Relation - North
________________________________________________________
Dear Madam Preeti Chawala:

Thanks for your mail in response to my complaint no. 11398956. dated the 24th September, 2012.
You have shown the same promptness in disposing my query as done by your customer service center.They very quickly identified it as a HDD crash problem and replaced the HDD. And you have very promptly stamped by endorsing what your customer care informed you.

My question is this that when a private vendor can make assessment of the fault by application of IT mind and rectify the same in no time, why the SERVICE CENTER of a company of a repute no less than SONY VAIO can not diagnose it. It was not a question of repair of the HDD. And on the top of it the HDD was not at all crashed, but just a conflict error. The old HDD is still working perfect as an external HDD.
Accept it or not...it is a shear negligence of the duties and lack of knowledge of the engineers at the Service Centre that is putting the reputation of the SONY Vaio at stake.

Ther are a number of dealers and number of companies which make Laptops but it was my trust for SONY that prompted me to go in for a brand and now just shaking your hands by simply saying, " The services rendered to you were after complete diagnose of the product and charges mentioned above were charged as applicable. We regret to inform you that we may not be able to refund any charges for the above repairs",is not acceptable and contrary to my faith with the brand.

Your this answer has annoyed me and I will be compelled to seek redressal through consumer court.
I hope you better reconsider your answer and do the needful, as requested in my original mail.

Regards

Dr.Khanna
Principal, Institute of Technology and Management, Dehraq Dun