A number of years ago I bought a Sony DVD player for my parents for about $500 (it was when they first came out). About two years later, it started to not recognise disks in the trays. Not all the time but about 50%. The warranty I had with the unit expired. I did not want to add another peice to the basement "electronics graveyard". You know...in some unseen part of the house filled with old TV's, speakers, computer stuff, radios, etc...
At the time, you could get a comperable DVD player for about $200. So I was thinking I could get it serviced for a few bucks. I called a number or repair shops and they all said they wouldnt even work on it. I tried sonys service center and they told me it would be $175 just to look at it, plus the cost of the repair, plus shipping
. This This made me furious because...why not just buy a new one for $200!!! Until that time I had bought a number of sony products and was happy with most of them. I mentioned that the the service rep hoping to get some kind of customer loyalty discount, trade in/up option, product cost from manufacturer, or something to recognise brand loyalty. The service rep just gave me a chuckle and told me it was not cost effective to repair the product and I should buy a new one.
I am sure that was sony's policy and It wasn't cost effective to repair. I know most companies have similar policies. I also know the unit would have cost less than $30 to fix. It just really pi$$ed m off that I had to conceed and purchase a new peice of equipment when this one could have been fixed for pennies on the dollar. But what REALLY CHAPPED MY A$$...The condesending tone the service rep gave me. It made me feel like i was being crazy to even think i could save a few bucks and have something fixed.
Its not the end of the world and I got a new one...Samsung. In the corporate game...they won that battle...and I lost
I will say, That is the last time I bought ANYTHING sony!
I know my personal boycot wont even show up as a fart on their bottom line.....but it makes me feel better!
Have a good day, Sony...you are hated!