Sony Service

A

Armstrongfilms

Active member
Just sent my EX-1 back to Sony for various issues to be fixed before my warranty is up. Paint on back plate wearing off
Top Zoom control "sticks"
Top handle cracked under viewfinder
Firmware update

Any Consistent service times out there? am i looking at a week-10 days or more like a month? any previous experience u have with Sony Service would be great.

Thanks
 
In January, I sent my EX1 for an firmware upgrade and to get the battery drain issue fixed. They also replaced the back plate even thou I didn't request it. From the day I requested the order, to picking up the EX1 off my front porch was 22 days. I live it Colorado and had it shipped to San Jose, CA. Overall, I was pretty happy with the service.
 
I sent my EX1 to San Jose last November for rear panel replacement, battery drain board replacement. They got it on a Monday morning and it was back in UPS's hands on Wednesday morning. The remainder of the 2 weeks I was cameraless was transit time to and from Kansas.

I was satisfied. :)

Pete
 
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I am about to pick up my EX1 for the fix for the well known issues of the first few unit. I had 1.11 and they said they upgraded the firmware so perhaps it is 1.12 but as we know that really doesn't mean anything (PS: although they said I requested the FW I hadn't).

What will be really interesting to see is this one. I provided a series of still prints from IR contaminated scenes asking for it to be fixed, they said

"We've covered the issues you requested including Firmware update, replacing rear panel, replacing power boards to eliminate battery draining issue, and performing overall alignments etc...to improve the colour reproduction regarding the photo's you supplied. Along with the Firmware update this colour issue should all be resolved."

I won't be holding my breath that suddenly the IR contamination will be gone...
 
Yeah I'm just about to send mine in before the warrenty expires. It's a real nail bite-er for me since I don't really trust UPS or FedEx... Oh Well. At least it doesn't seem like they generally take a month to do the upgrades.
 
Mine only took a bit over a week, fortunately I am within driving distance to the service centre. I am not sure who physically did the the service but about a year ago I contacted this same service centre told me they couldn't do the service, it had to go to Sydney (Australia), but now they happily accepted it (in Melbourne).
 
anyone else have problems trying to login to SonyService? no matter what i do , it says it can't find an account with the info i input, but its all correct, directly from the email communications ive had so far with them.....uugh
 
Okay, after owning Canon, and Panasonic cameras, and recently dealing with Nikon, I have a few things to say about my customer experiences with them so far. In a word, EXCELLENT!. Especially Panasonic, which, in my opinion, has the absolute BEST customer service for both their prosumer and professional line of products. Everyone i have ever dealt with there was professional, and treated me as a professional as well. Keep in mind this is simply talking about their service, nevermind their product line, which, for the time being, is far more "durable" than any other company's, and thats speaking with over 12 years of experience dealing with them, not 2-3.
Hell, Panasonic even makes sure to hit the forums with a few reps (thanks Jan). Even the all mighty Jannard himself makes himself available to his customers, and lets not forget the awesome 3rd party product manufacturers that frequent here as well. they are all models of what it is to listen to your consumer and not b.s. them in the process.


Now on to Sony......
one word here.......PITIFUL! or maybe awful, laughable, or downright nasty would work as well. lets start with their website....you can go to the service status tab and fill out your information to see your status right? well, sort of. even if you fill out the information correctly, you have to do it all over again on the next page. in fact, if you just enter your notification # and nothing else, your login will fail and your notification # ends up in the phone # slot, as if you were dumb enough to put it there, nope, you're smart (theoretically) and its Sony's website thats dumb. Oh, and this dosen't happen ALL the time, just like 8 of 10. nice repeatability. Once you do login right, you get a tiny lil box at the bottom with your status which starts as "received for repair" and goes from there. you get the email and phone # to the service center and thats it. after my status changed to "waiting for customer action" which i had to find out for myself, no email from them, or call. so i decided to call them up so the big bad Sony was no longer "waiting" for lil ole me. Once i waited on hold for a few minutes, i got a customer service rep who said "oh that status was just changed 10 minutes ago, you should be getting an email with the estimate from the engineer in a few hours, max" so i wait a day. nothing. wait another half day. nothing. call them up again, this time it was "yeah i think the status change was done early and it should be ready now for you to approve the repairs needed, let me try to connect you with the tech" a few min goes by and....phone disconnect, after some funky transfer noise from their phone system. so i call back, and get the same person, who tells me that the tech is unavailable and she will have him call or email me within 24 hours. greeeeeaaaaat. ill keep my fingers crossed.......so another day and a half goes by. nothing. finally this morning i spoke with a rep, and told her that i was not going anywhere until i spoke with the tech, i dont care if he dosent come in until friday, ill hold. the tech was actually a nice guy (doug) and i have no complaints about him personally. he told me that a few of the problems will be covered under warranty, and a few will not, and he has no idea when he can get the parts to fix it, or how much they cost, or how long it will take him to fix the camera once he can get the parts, because he had at least 10 other ex-1's and a bunch of the xdcam optical cameras, and some decks, etc, etc. needless to say, my lil service order was not exactly a priority to them. i understand the tech is guided by management as to where to spend his time, so i did not take it out on him.

now for the status of the camera itself ALL EX-1 OWNERS READ THIS!!!!!!

i treat my cameras like arricams, even when i get aggressive with them, theyre always in a pelican case or padded backpack, or some other protective, secure place, whenever theyre not used. sometimes i do alot of run n gun and can get rough at times, which to me, is like getting a tiny little mark on the sunshade, or tearing the lil headphone jack cover, etc. so you can gauge what i mean when i say this. on the floor at NAB, i had this conversation with the Sony reps, and i actually lined out specific damage that could occur if i purchased an EX-series camera, based on my shooting experiences with different cameras/enviroments. I was assured that any "minor" physical damage would "absolutely be covered, and fixed, under warranty. just dont break the lens, glass, microphone, you know, but yeah, its covered. full warranty." he said
now they want to charge me to replace the cracked top handle, which is cracked right where the screw is under the viewfinder, and happened when i swiftly flipped the viewfinder down. nice plastic.
this is perhaps the most disturbing part.........
The tech said "your camera got wet"
Me "huh"??
tech "yep theres corrosion all underneath the camera, and some on top, looks like it was in a heavy rain or underwater"
Me "listen, man, this thing has NEVER been anywhere close to underwater or even in a light sprinkle before its covered, i could count on one hand the amount of raindrops that have hit my camera"
tech "well all i can tell you is its there"
me "well i live in Florida, could this be a humidity issue?
tech "yeah could be, its alot for it to be humidity though, but yeah, it could be"

Are you effing kidding me>???@#$%$ humidity corroding my camera thats less than a year old and has actually been used more OUT of florida than IN, and for the record, i have only taken it to the beach once, the first day i had it, thats it. THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM and Sony better recognize.

I may be just a lil production company in Tampa Bay, but like you all, everyday without my camera means lost $$, and these days its even more important to have a company that stands behind you. its more apparent than ever nowadays that the big corporations can just do things their way, and we all have to pay for it. imagine if the smaller companies handled their customers that way, can you see them existing for more than a few years? i couldnt exist in this business if i treated my clients that way.

way to drop the ball, Sony.
 
Armstrongfilms said:
Okay, after owning Canon, and Panasonic cameras, and recently dealing with Nikon, I have a few things to say about my customer experiences with them so far. In a word, EXCELLENT!. Especially Panasonic, which, in my opinion, has the absolute BEST customer service for both their prosumer and professional line of products. Everyone i have ever dealt with there was professional, and treated me as a professional as well. Keep in mind this is simply talking about their service, nevermind their product line, which, for the time being, is far more "durable" than any other company's, and thats speaking with over 12 years of experience dealing with them, not 2-3.
Hell, Panasonic even makes sure to hit the forums with a few reps (thanks Jan). Even the all mighty Jannard himself makes himself available to his customers, and lets not forget the awesome 3rd party product manufacturers that frequent here as well. they are all models of what it is to listen to your consumer and not b.s. them in the process.


Now on to Sony......
one word here.......PITIFUL! or maybe awful, laughable, or downright nasty would work as well. lets start with their website....you can go to the service status tab and fill out your information to see your status right? well, sort of. even if you fill out the information correctly, you have to do it all over again on the next page. in fact, if you just enter your notification # and nothing else, your login will fail and your notification # ends up in the phone # slot, as if you were dumb enough to put it there, nope, you're smart (theoretically) and its Sony's website thats dumb. Oh, and this dosen't happen ALL the time, just like 8 of 10. nice repeatability. Once you do login right, you get a tiny lil box at the bottom with your status which starts as "received for repair" and goes from there. you get the email and phone # to the service center and thats it. after my status changed to "waiting for customer action" which i had to find out for myself, no email from them, or call. so i decided to call them up so the big bad Sony was no longer "waiting" for lil ole me. Once i waited on hold for a few minutes, i got a customer service rep who said "oh that status was just changed 10 minutes ago, you should be getting an email with the estimate from the engineer in a few hours, max" so i wait a day. nothing. wait another half day. nothing. call them up again, this time it was "yeah i think the status change was done early and it should be ready now for you to approve the repairs needed, let me try to connect you with the tech" a few min goes by and....phone disconnect, after some funky transfer noise from their phone system. so i call back, and get the same person, who tells me that the tech is unavailable and she will have him call or email me within 24 hours. greeeeeaaaaat. ill keep my fingers crossed.......so another day and a half goes by. nothing. finally this morning i spoke with a rep, and told her that i was not going anywhere until i spoke with the tech, i dont care if he dosent come in until friday, ill hold. the tech was actually a nice guy (doug) and i have no complaints about him personally. he told me that a few of the problems will be covered under warranty, and a few will not, and he has no idea when he can get the parts to fix it, or how much they cost, or how long it will take him to fix the camera once he can get the parts, because he had at least 10 other ex-1's and a bunch of the xdcam optical cameras, and some decks, etc, etc. needless to say, my lil service order was not exactly a priority to them. i understand the tech is guided by management as to where to spend his time, so i did not take it out on him.

now for the status of the camera itself ALL EX-1 OWNERS READ THIS!!!!!!

i treat my cameras like arricams, even when i get aggressive with them, theyre always in a pelican case or padded backpack, or some other protective, secure place, whenever theyre not used. sometimes i do alot of run n gun and can get rough at times, which to me, is like getting a tiny little mark on the sunshade, or tearing the lil headphone jack cover, etc. so you can gauge what i mean when i say this. on the floor at NAB, i had this conversation with the Sony reps, and i actually lined out specific damage that could occur if i purchased an EX-series camera, based on my shooting experiences with different cameras/enviroments. I was assured that any "minor" physical damage would "absolutely be covered, and fixed, under warranty. just dont break the lens, glass, microphone, you know, but yeah, its covered. full warranty." he said
now they want to charge me to replace the cracked top handle, which is cracked right where the screw is under the viewfinder, and happened when i swiftly flipped the viewfinder down. nice plastic.
this is perhaps the most disturbing part.........
The tech said "your camera got wet"
Me "huh"??
tech "yep theres corrosion all underneath the camera, and some on top, looks like it was in a heavy rain or underwater"
Me "listen, man, this thing has NEVER been anywhere close to underwater or even in a light sprinkle before its covered, i could count on one hand the amount of raindrops that have hit my camera"
tech "well all i can tell you is its there"
me "well i live in Florida, could this be a humidity issue?
tech "yeah could be, its alot for it to be humidity though, but yeah, it could be"

Are you effing kidding me>???@#$%$ humidity corroding my camera thats less than a year old and has actually been used more OUT of florida than IN, and for the record, i have only taken it to the beach once, the first day i had it, thats it. THIS IS A MAJOR PROBLEM and Sony better recognize.

I may be just a lil production company in Tampa Bay, but like you all, everyday without my camera means lost $$, and these days its even more important to have a company that stands behind you. its more apparent than ever nowadays that the big corporations can just do things their way, and we all have to pay for it. imagine if the smaller companies handled their customers that way, can you see them existing for more than a few years? i couldnt exist in this business if i treated my clients that way.

way to drop the ball, Sony.
Click to expand...

This is my story exactly!![apart from it being in Florida, unfortunately] I currently have a fault with my EX1. Infact there is another thread detailing this on the forum(but also that the LCD no longer works). I got an email from Sony Prime Support informing me that they had found ' water contamination' within the unit and they constitute this as physical damage, so my warranty doesn't cover the repair. I quzzed them on it and asked them to detail how the water caused the problem. They have yet to give me this information and have ignored it twice in two previous emails. I even asked them to tell me where the water is on the unit in relation to the picture they sent me of the 'damage' - ignored that too. They have however kindly offered me a free repair quote(how good of them).Now I can say without a doubt that I have never been reckless with my camera. I have never dropped or submerged it in water. If it has ever been in rain,( I can't remember an instance) or any chance of rain it's covered with a £200 [give or take] cover. The only way I can think that it may have possibly have got 'water contamination' is via condensation through humidity and apparently the well documented vignette issue that you get with EX1, in my unit, was caused by this too. So basically if you buy an Ex1 don't get Prime Support, it's usless, just make sure you get insurance instead. Either that, or only use it in a dry environment, but you factor in that all air has some form of moisture in it then that's not possible either. The only option if you choose to buy Prime support seems to be, don't use your camera to its full potential, use it indoors and only inside a vacuum whilst wearing an oxygen mask - one trace of water of any kind and they'll claim your warranty void.

Fault 1 of 3 http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=178465
 
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There must be a way to sue Sony for poor service. They accept your money what you worked hard for, but service, no way. It looks like they see it as an anoyance when you call. My ex3 lens is malfunctioning and I never got an answer from them. If the head office was here in Suriname they would have known what it is to sell you something for a lot of money and not given the service one expects.
My advice to every body who ask me is not to buy a Sony camera if you want good service, but to go for Panasonic even if theire P2 is a ripp-off imo.
I have send my EX3 in to day and I will keep you informed.
 
Sony came back with a quote of £2046.

Apparently the slight water damage means I need the following replaced:

Prism Block
Lens
LCD

I think I'm being lied to.

Does anyone know where I can obtain information about the Prism block? Sony still haven't detailed to me what the problems are, just what needs replacing.
 
buhce said:
Sony came back with a quote of £2046.

Apparently the slight water damage means I need the following replaced:

Prism Block
Lens
LCD

I think I'm being lied to.

Does anyone know where I can obtain information about the Prism block? Sony still haven't detailed to me what the problems are, just what needs replacing.
Click to expand...
This is crazy! 1/3 of the cost price. It makes me mad to be so powerless.
One should take action to break this policy down. This is feeling like a criminal act that is legalized.
It is hanging over the head of all the owners of this camera.
 
I'm not going to pay it. I'll probably buy a Panasonic instead and sell the Sony for parts. Unless I can get this sorted. I don't quite know what to do next.
 
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buhce said:
I'm not going to pay it. I'll probably buy a Panasonic instead and sell the Sony for parts. Unless I can get this sorted. I don't quite know what to do next.
Click to expand...
Write to the Headquarters in japan, perhaps they are in for reason.
You can start a email rally to tell the world about it if they are not in for reason.
I hope that all the owners of this camera understand that this can happen to any body. It is a form of misconduct; ripping your customers off.
 
I've always treated my ex1's like they were my babies, transported them in solid Kata backpacks, never had rain on them, never put any physical stress on them. But for now, I've got three ex1's, all of them damaged the exact same way (handle cracked under the viewfinder), and don't know what to do next. I feel very depressed when reading your posts about the poor response from Sony repair. Why don't they just take the responsibility of a very obvious design flaw!? The plastic they use is so bad that it could crack by its own time, it's like a ticking time bomb :(

ex1vauriot.jpg
 
Hey Buhce,

Paypal me some gas money and I'll take a special trip to New Jersey and give Sony some "words of advice" in-person on your behalf. LOL! And I'll record it with my EX1 as proof.
 
adamr316 said:
Hey Buhce,

Paypal me some gas money and I'll take a special trip to New Jersey and give Sony some "words of advice" in-person on your behalf. LOL! And I'll record it with my EX1 as proof.
Click to expand...


Hey, thanks.lol. If I thought it'd do any good I would. I phoned them up yesterday and had a 45 minute debate about the problem. I knew before I even picked up the phone, that really, no matter what I said, whoever would be taking my call would not back down. This did not deter me, so like I said for 45 minutes I debated with this guy. He said that one possible explanation for my cracked prism ( about a 2inch piece of glass) could be that 5 months ago, I got water on it and that got inside it and it then spread to the prism causing pressure and over time caused it to crack. Where this is possible under the laws of physics, it's not really plausible. For a start such a problem would easily leave traces on and around the prism I haven't been shown such pictures.Neither have I had described to me what the technician believes are the actual problems e.g 'the prism has cracked' or 'you have a vignette problem', I said. No, I just get a list of things that I have to pay for in a quote.
He then proceeded to tell me how I'm not being singled out and that my case is one of the rare cases using a percentage that he got from God knows where. then he continued about how he doesn't believe the service has been bad and I had to disagree. I continued to tell him about how I've asked in about 3 emails to detail to me the problems and no one has given me an answer. His reply was ' No, sir, I specifically gave you an answer' and quoted what he said in an email which something like ' The initial problem caused by the liquid contamination, has caused secondary problems' (I'm paraphrasing.) That's not specific, that's more vague, I said and then quoted to him the last email I sent 5 days ago which asked him to define the 'initial problem' to which I never got an answer to. I said I understood that it has been a weeked but that's still three days where I have been ignored and just slapped with a bill, by another member of his team and this whole time, all I've been hearing is, not actual real information about the state or problems with my camera, it's about how my warranty is void and that's the only thing people seem to be concerned with. In the end I explained to him, I understood that there is no way he or Sony will see it from my point of view, even if I had the most water tight case( no pun intended, unlike the EX1 itself....buh bum..and so on...) but that now the only thing I was concerned with was, should I even bother buying Sony again. Since the technicians don't seem thorough enough and are only interesed in voiding warranties,the terms in which a product is void is vague and the products, even from using his own example as a reference point, must be made out of flimsy materials. Obviously he tried to reassure me that wasn't the case. In the end he did promise to to find more information out about my camera's problems and send them to me and he was rather pleasant throughout the conversation it has to be said. I did feel like a bit of an asshole and felt a little sorry for him, but in the end I think I was well within my rights,made a good objective case and never got angry, even when I was perhaps justified in doing so.

I can provide emails to prove most of what was said here. I was going to record our conversation over the phone but figured that was going too far.heh. I know how some people on forums just like to vent and as a result publish unreliable information.
 
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I can provide emails to prove most of what was said here. I was going to record our conversation over the phone but figured that was going too far.heh. I know how some people on forums just like to vent and as a result publish unreliable information.[/quote]

Just go for it and record the conversation and place it on a website.
Let the world know what kind of criminals(imo) they are.
You have two kinds of criminals:
Those that use force and those that rip you off with the aid of the law.
In the end you are the loosing party and they can live a good life at your expense.

If Sony is selling you a professional camera as they say, than one may expect the camera to be used professionally. That means in all kinds of weather conditions with normal precautions. A litle rain or some swet may not be of any problem if the camera is designed well. If it cannot have it, it is definitely not a professional camera and should be priced much much lower.
Wake up Sony and repair this camera at no cost whatsoever.
 
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