I purchased a new Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray ST18i from Flipkart.com, a renowned internet retailer and official online retailer for many brands, including Sony. The order was delivered in seeming pristine condition on the 23rd November, 2012. The phone stopped functioning on the 5th of December, 2012 while in the middle of a call. The invoice provided by Flipkart had the wrong service centre listed. The service centre listed (also a Sony-affiliated centre) directed me to Accel Frontline Limited which (as it turned out) was an official service centre affiliated for Sony Xperia issues in the area. Accel accepted the device on the 6th of December, 2012 and produced a Service Job Sheet with Job ID 12120601579. They also put in the condition of the device as being “Scratched”, despite there being no scratches. The representative told me that this was “normal”.
Then, for over a month, the service centre was either unreachable over the only phone line they had listed on the sheet or were unavailable to comment on the nature of the repair being carried out. The customer support line (reachable at 1800-3000-2800), operated (as per my research on the internet) by a company called B2X Care Solutions GMBH, informed me that the motherboard – the primary component of an advanced electronic device such as a phone – was defective and would be replaced within 3 – 4 days “guaranteed”. However, the 3 – 4 days kept extending further and further away. Gauging the delay and fearing the worst possible reason in such a purchase – that the device is either flawed or far too complex to be repaired in anything less than a fully-fledged manufacturing facility – I repeatedly requested that they replace my phone. They refused to do so, stating that their policy did not allow it. They did not specify whose policy, Sony’s or their own. Repeated inquiries finally resulted in the stated escalation of the issue to Ashish Parekh, the Regional Head of Repairs for B2X Care Solutions in the Maharashtra region and I was told by other staff that the repair was now being made on a “priority” basis.
On the 15th of January, 2013, I was told that the motherboard has reached the facility and is being fitted into the phone. I was told to reach the service centre the next day. I went over in the morning (skipping work for over two hours) and was told to return in the evening, near their closing time. (Since over a week prior, the service centre’s phones had stopped working). I went over again in the evening (skipping work for another two hours) after being informed beforehand by the customer support helpline that the phone was tested and found to be “OK”. The service centre said the same thing and handed me my phone. The phone refused to start up and I refused to officially accept the phone. The service centre said that they will check. The next day, i.e., the 16th of January 2013, the service centre determined that the new motherboard was faulty and had to be replaced again. The customer service helpline promised to look into this at the highest level (i.e. by Ashish Parekh) and call back before 11AM the next day, i.e. the 17th of January 2013. They never did. A reminder at noon on the 17th yielded no result. I was simply informed that Ashish Parekh is in a meeting.
Another call made in the evening had one Kanchan insist that the phone was ready and that I was to go over and collect the phone. I went over at 6:00PM where the service centre said that the phone was not ready and they had placed an order for yet another motherboard. Throughout this episode, Amit Gautam – the Head of Repair at the service center – was largely unreachable over his cellphone (the number for which I was provided by the customer support line upon repeated complaints being made that the service centre no longer had a functioning phone line) save for one instance on the 14th of January. On another instance, i.e. the day after the failure of the new motherboard, Amit Gautam simply picked up the call, told me that my calls are disturbing him and that he will call back. He never did. Subsequent phone calls made to customer support helpline resulted in promises being made by Senior staff that they will call back within specified time limits. They never called back. Two emails sent to Sony Mobile Support resulted in generic assurances of expedited service delivery with no determinable result. I thus stated my refusal to accept delivery. My motivation behind doing so is three-fold:
- The repeated early failure implies a structural/design fault in the manufacturing process the device underwent that could prevent this particular phone from ever working
- The delay over the servicing of a phone is inordinately high, given the fact that the phone is on the higher end of the price spectrum and is a sophisticated product.
- I began to perceive that the customer service helpline and the service centre were working separately to suppress the right of a customer to seek the level of service that is commensurate with the high price of the product, just so that they can unfairly leverage the maximum possible financial benefit for themselves, either via commissions earned for maintaining “low levels of escalated incident frequency” or via the pay they would receive by virtue of working on a problem for extended periods of time as billable hours.
After preparing the requisite complaint document to go to court, I emailed Sony, the service center and the aftersales support team copies of the complaint (as was the norm) and announced my intention to file suit on the 22nd. An Assistant Manager called Dhiraj Joshi called on the 21st and assured that I would have a resolution by 22nd at 6PM. Come 7:3PM and I was told that Ashish Parekh would resolve the ENIRE matter by 8:30PM. Ashish Parekh calls at 8PM and mumbled something about taking care of it at 12PM (which I doubt since he neither sounded sincere nor committal, like everybody at Sony Xperia Support I've spoken to).
Thus, I have decided to file suit against Sony Mobile at the court here in Mumbai shortly after noon today, the 23rd of January, 2013.
