Reply to: Thinking of taking Sony to small claims court, if I lose will I be liable to pay....

[Incognito]

You can never beat Sony in court. The law is rigged.

Complete and utter bollocks.

To the OP, useful link for you.

As you're dealing business to business, you cannot request a repair or replacement. You are entitled to sue them for damages though, however to do so you will need to pay for the repair yourself then claim the repair costs back through the small claims. When you pay the repair costs preferably send a cheque in along with a letter recorded delivery advising them you reject their claim of cause of damage and are paying the repair costs under protest. If you can't pay by cheque / postal order then ensure you advise them by phone when paying the same message and then send a letter recorded delivery to their registered address (on the website).

Alternatively contact your local Trading Standards with your complaint along with links (or print outs) of examples of this problem being quite common.

As for the small claims, for a claim of £400 it will cost you £50 to issue the claim and £55 for the hearing fee. These costs are recoverable if you win. You can also claim reasonable expenses, i.e. postage costs, etc. Neither you or Sony are able to claim for legal costs. The only time these type of costs will be awarded in the small claims is if the claim is vexatious (i.e. you know you have no chance of winning and are doing it for annoyance) or if one or either party doesn't turn up at court.

The most important thing to realise about the small claims is that for small claims like these, it is far cheaper for a company to settle than argue and win the case as they are left with the burden of paying their own legal costs.

[minsky1]

You can never beat Sony in court. The law is rigged. Better off badmouthing them in all possible web forums. Make sure you use anon proxies from Iran. Legal disclaimer: of course I would never do that...

yep, the judge would be very unresponsive to going against them, thats what happened with me taking on Honda.

[petergriffin]

You can never beat Sony in court. The law is rigged. Better off badmouthing them in all possible web forums. Make sure you use anon proxies from Iran. Legal disclaimer: of course I would never do that...

[BlasterBates]

This is a tricky one isn't it. I sent a Laptop in for repair a year ago, never again, they broke it when they opened it up and made a real hash of the repair. Basically they simply f***ed it up completely putting in a new Mother board which probably wasn't compatible with something, so it started crashing until it became completely unusable.

Anyway you have my sympathy I can well imagine some hamfisted repair bod broke your screen as well.

Difficult to prove though, the video helps. I just gave up to be honest, I bought a new cheap one.

Probably a good idea to use a repair shop round the corner run by someone you can talk to and let them handle it. I think these repair centres employ badly paid staff who can't be bothered.

[sbakoola]

Did you buy it direct from Sony or from a retailer?

Bought it direct from the Sony Vaio website uk. Of course the item was assembled to order in Asia and shipped over. As stated before this is the 2nd time the screen has developed markings.

[Old Greg]

Did you buy it direct from Sony or from a retailer?

[mudskipper]

Let me google that for you

Sounds like it's been a problem for a while. I'd get twattering about how useless it is.

[NotAllThere]

You're just going to have to work the system. So far you're just talking to drones. You need to get to the level where people actually have the power to make the decision.

...Pop along to the flagship store on a Saturday afternoon... and tell them to take their tulip back...

This is probably the best approach. Demand to see the manager, show him the video and photos. Do not be fobbed off and do not leave until you've got either a new laptop or a promise to repair without charge. You can complain loudly in the store about the awful build quality.

While Sony laptops look lovely, my experience is that the build quality lacks. I stick now to Acers that last forever (and if they don't are usually easy to repair yourself).

...I hope video evidence is admissible in a small claims court and the jpegs that they e-mailed me with the damage that they created when the laptop was in their possession.
...

Put the video onto black and white 35mm film so it can be projected, and print the jpegs onto sepia photographic paper.

[sbakoola]

sony complaint service
citizens advice
trading standards
sony's forums
other consumer boards
watchdog

Most of those above just give you advice on how to go about complaining, they won't do it for you. I am tempted to go via the route of Small Claims Court having proved to the Judge that I have exhausted all possibilities with Sony.

Its going to be a long process, although I'm worried about what happened with the guy in this thread with Honda. I hope video evidence is admissible in a small claims court and the jpegs that they e-mailed me with the damage that they created when the laptop was in their possession.

thanks for the advice everyone. The worst thing is dealing with random Sony Representatives who I think are based in a Morroco call centre. Some tell you anything to fob you off, they are hard to understand sometimes with their spoken English.

Teleplan in the UK do the actual repair work for Sony and I think they are based down south somewhere, when asked to give a report on the damage they just send screen shots with the words pressure marks on them, I ask for more detail and they give nothing. they just give a stock answer using a clause/catchphrase that makes the component problem look to be out of the scope of warranty.

[Freamon]

You might get your £400 but youll never work in the laptop repair business again.

[vetran]

sony complaint service
citizens advice
trading standards
sony's forums
other consumer boards
watchdog

[chef]

Have you told them you have the video? Stick it on youtube. And start a facebook page.

What doodab said, tell them you have a video of it, you know it's a known fault (if it is that is) and that you will be looking at legal action if they do not honour the warranty..

[minsky1]

Costs are recoverable for the plaintiff but not for the defendant in the small claims court. So basically, your safe, go ahead.

However, its doubtful you'll win, judges take a pretty dim view of the bull in a china shop approach.

Better to persue it through sony's internal processes if you want a satisfactory outcome.

I know from experience, tried to take honda to court once.

[Spacecadet]

If well executed, potential PR damage is worth a lot more to them than you or your laptop.
Find out if this is a known issue with that particular model and read up on the chatter.

WHS

Pop along to the flagship store on a Saturday afternoon, smash the laptop down on the counter and tell them to take their tulip back
Even if you don't get a refund, it will probably be a lot more satisfying

[rambaugh]

Isn't there a consumer affairs ombudsman that handles these kinds of things?

I would lodge a complaint and/or seek their advise on your rights as a consumer.