[Resolved]  Sony — Sony Xperia U malfunction

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Mumbai City, Maharashtra

Hi I had purchased a Sony Xperia U handset and have been facing problems since the very first month of purchase. Details of my purchase are as follows :– Product- Sony Xperia U Black Pink GSM Handset Model Number – ST25i Date of Purchase- 10th November, 2012 Tax Invoice Number – VPM4/ 31633 Bought from- Magnet – the Electronix Mega Store Shop no. G-122, Prime Mall, Irla, Vile Parle (West) Mumbai – 400056 This mobile phone purchased is riddled with problems and once my 1-year warranty expires on 10th November 2013, I would have to pay for the same repairs and additional problems arising in the months ahead. Dealing with Sony has been very difficult with no help from most of its staff and information available online. It is a faceless management with no one apart from helpline numbers and an email address where issues are far from being resolved. The company has extremely poor consumer redressal management. What kind of service does Sony provide when there is no one answerable to their own customers facing problems using their products? What I fail to understand is that how many times am I supposed to visit service centers to give and take back my phone with problems still persisting, feeling great that I have been getting free service? What happens post warranty? My issues are not getting resolved. However once my warranty expires not only do I continue to battle the basic issues, I also start to shell out money for the same repairs and may be more, which Sony service centers have been trying to deal with unsuccessfully in the past one year. I would like to hereby claim my money for the purchased handset INR 14499/- (original bill available) Additionally, I would also like to claim INR 20, 000/- from the company, for all the complete harassment, the mental torture and unnecessary anxiety undergone these past few months. Due to this on-going mess, I have had to purchase a new phone in less than a year due to this malfunctioning handset. Inspite of having given to the service centers, the problems continue to persist. I had given my phone for servicing to the Magnet Store (store of purchase) on 31st July 2013. Job number- W[protected] The phone is currently in the D.N. Nagar (in Andheri west) Sony service center yet again. It was given on 30th October, 2013 Job number- W[protected] All the issues are listed below in detail Had sent a similar mail to the email address (questions.[protected]@support.sonymobile.com) provided by Sony Service Center staff Sent: 11/09/2013 16:24:12 Hi I am sorry to be writing a mail of such content to an esteemed brand such as yours. However my experience using Sony Xperia U (model number ST25i ) has compelled me to approach Sony service centers, helplines and regional managers This is my last resort. I had purchased the phone in Nov 2012 and since then I have been having erratic issues with this phone leaving me guessing all kinds of problems and solutions. Earlier I thought that it was mostly when I was on roaming, because I travelled soon after my purchase (as written below), but over the months I have come to realize that maybe the phone set itself seems faulty. Nov - Dec 2012 - Calcutta -Delhi- Lucknow (Roaming) 1) Battery seemed be lasting for just about 6 hours in a day without even making phone calls. so it is constantly plugged into any charging point available anywhere through most of the day. 2) When put on charge, the battery indicator would not display the charge percentage correctly. However, just restarting the handset changed display so much so that the battery / charge levels increased by about 20 - 30%!!! So how am I supposed to know whether the battery or the display is malfunctioning? 3) Whatsapp and other chat applications like Gtalk become silent on their own. This can happen at any time in the day/night. Restarting brings back the beep /tone set. The phone decides on its own when it needs to stop buzzing on the working of these apps !! smart phone I guess !! 4) At Delhi airport I had no network, no signal whatsoever. Though hundreds of people around me seemed to be just fine with their networks. Restarting phone only meant re adjusting date and time, umpteen times !!! I was not able to communicate with anyone and spent time restarting and selecting and choosing networks, in hope of being able to get some kind of a signal on my handset 5) Battery heats up really fast. no fixed patterns of being on wifi networks, searching phone networks or using certain apps/games could be traced by me. Jan - 2013 - Mumbai ( NOT roaming) Phone seemed more or less fine. i was just glad to be back and have my battery lasting longer than the 6 hrs!!! Since I am based in Mumbai, I assumed, some problems being resolved meant there could be some roaming issues. However problems # 2 #3 and #5 continued even when in Mumbai. Feb 2013 - Jaipur (roaming) All the issues faced earlier (# 1 #2 #3 #4 again at Delhi airport and #5) were back 6) I also noticed that once I disconnected the phone from charger all applications on the phone just hung!! and the ph got really slow in working. 7) Any SMS (normal text messages) received would take a good -30 seconds to just open in the messaging application 8) Network connectivity was terrible. Others on my network seemed to be having absolutely no issues in this regard. Ironically, I was in Jaipur for a Sony xperia ad- shoot and with a malfunctioning handset, it made things really difficult and minute to minute co-ordination with my unit was thrown out of gear. Finally I was compelled to borrow phone because “phone giving trouble” is hardly reason enough in today’s day and age when we take something like a smartphone for granted as it integrates itself into our lives in more ways than imagined !!! Mar- July 2013- Mumbai ( NOT roaming) Phone faced the above issues off and on. Gave my phone for servicing to Sony service centre and got it back hoping the issues were resolved. The phone was given on 31st July and I received it back on 5th August 2013. Aug- Sept - Calcutta (roaming) This visit to Calcutta did not have the battery issues so guessing they may have been resolved at the service centre. However other problems continued so i realised that the service centre visit would happen again. SEPT 2013 - Mumbai (NOT roaming) 2 days after i am back from Calcutta my phone who is still battling with issues inspite of being checked and "serviced" suddenly seems to have a keypad malfunction A touch screen phone is useless once the screen starts to act up Apart from other issues which persisted all along, this was a new one !!! A repair /replacement would cost me way too much to invest into a phone which cost me nearly 15000/-when i purchased it but has absolutely failed to live up to its expectations. My final visit to the service centre was also useless as they said the only way i could get heard was calling helplines (which are usually a total waste of time) or by mailing at this address, when I had actually wanted to speak to some higher authority who would be available to solve this problem for me which has lasted me almost a year. I was told to give it for servicing yet again and any defect ( eg: touchscreen replacement) would not be charged since the phone is still under warranty. However i decided against giving it for servicing till I met someone in Sony who would help me though this. This is the first time I went ahead to buy a Sony Phone because I wanted something new and different. However I have and I will strongly recommend my friends and family against such a foolish decision. I would be really grateful if someone bothered to respond to this mail. However having been through all of this. I would not be surprised if i am disappointed yet again. An extremely upset angry and dissatisfied customer Shubhra Joshi On 30th October, 2013 - I finally managed to meet met Mr. Ashish Parekh (Western regional manager) after almost 2 months of trying to get in touch with someone from Sony, to help me through. All that he asked me to do was give it into the service center once again for repairs. On 31st October, 2013 – Mr. Parekh calls to inform me that he had spoken to the service center and all problems would be solved by replacing the touch screen. He has also said that my warranty would be extended by the number of days my phone stays at the service centre. However I refuse to deal with a handset that has given me so much trouble all these months and want to be compensated for the same. I have been told by Mr Ashish Parekh (Western regional manager) that it is not a company policy to be refunded As an esteemed company, this behaviour from Sony and its employees has been extremely annoying. Within a brief span of 15minutes at the service center, I have witnessed other dissatisfied customers as well, being provided with answers which are just random !! I am glad I am not the only one. Hence now left with no options I would like to complain against Sony and expect matters to be dealt with firmly and resolved at the earliest. Thanking you. Shubhra Joshi