Sony KDL46W4500 dead after 2 days

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I ordered a Sony KDL46W4500 from Redcoon (www.redcoon.nl) on 9 Feb. I even paid extra for the 5 year warranty option. I finally received it on 13th. It worked beautifully for 2 days and then died a horrible death. It clicks on and off and the screen is blank.

I called Sony. They arranged a service person from 'Manpower Business Solutions E2E' to visit my house, under the guarantee. After many more days wait, he came, today. He failed to fix it and told me to contact Redcoon, which I did. They say it will be weeks before I can get my money back or a replacement and they can't offer me a temporary replacement.

I called Sony. They failed to even take responsibility for the faulty set and told me they couldn't help. Surely not too good for their reputation!

I am now in trouble, because the set is for giving tutorials to customers and my business is suffering. Does anyone have any advice for me, as to how I can solve this big problem, which originated with Sony and is compounded, now, by Redcoon.

[asfaloth_arwen]

You should contact Redcoon. If they can't help you in a timely fashion, and it is business critical, you will need to arange something yourself, I'm afraid there is not much more you can do. They will fix this, because you have warranty, but you don't have next business day/24 hours service!

Contact opnemen met Redcoon, en als deze je niet op tijd kunnen helpen zelf actie ondernemen. Als het zakelijk is zul je wel moeten. Redcoon zal uiteindelijk wel alles fixen (garantie), maar zijn niet verplicht dit binnen 24 uur ofzo te doen, aangezien je waarschijnlijk geen extra service contract hebt maar alleen garantie.

[ Voor 35% gewijzigd door asfaloth_arwen op 20-02-2009 16:38 ]

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Fair enough, but I wasn't asking for 24 hours service. Just something better than weeks! I really thought that a guarantee meant something more than it apparently does. After all I did everything correctly - even bought the extended warranty. Now I don't even know if my best option is to ask for my money back or a replacement (which may not be in stock, anyway).

OTOH Recently, I called Logitech, because my mouse/keyboard set was malfunctioning. They told me that there is a 5 year guarantee on the product and had a replacement in my hands, from Germany, within 24 hours. Now THAT's a guarantee worth something.

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Here's a very strange development: I just got a call from Ritmo (the delivery company for Redcoon). They simply asked when they can deliver my TV, Tuesday or Thursday. I thought that there was a language mix up and they meant 'collect', not 'deliver'. But they really did mean that there is a set to be delivered to me on Tuesday. They seemed to know nothing about collecting a set, but did say that this could be possibly so. Perhaps it is a replacement.

This is very good news. If so, Redcoon have acted exactly correctly, in the end, and deserve all praise from me - and they shall get it, right here, at least.

I wait for Tuesday, to see if this is all as promised and will keep this forum informed, then.

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As expected! The delivery of a new TV was BS! Ritmo just came to collect the broken TV but no new one to be delivered. Now I have to go through the long long wait to get my money back! I think that this is a total cock-up by both Sony & Redcoon (& now also some guy called Anthony, at Ritmo, who gave me the BS on Friday, over the phone).

If a company is worth investing hard-earned money in, then its customers should always be treated with respect and concern. Faulty goods happen, sometimes, but when they do, they should be replaced as a priority. They should not leave the paying customer in the lurch. No wonder the state of European economics is in such a mess! This purchase is over 1500 Euros, so it is a major piece of money to be tied up, for weeks. That doesn't even account for the inconvenience, stress and concern that this story may get worse, in the long run.

[asfaloth_arwen]

A few things:
- mentioning names of people on public forums isn't really polite, even if you are frustrated
- a TV is normally not something you cannot live without. If you use it in a business environment, you have to keep in mind it is a consumer product and have a backup plan.
- almost no company nowadays actually repairs this stuff theirself, so it will take time wherever you buy your tv, all you can do is wait
- if you are not pleased with the way Redcoon handled everything, contact them, or contact Sony once again and explain.
- did you return the TV for repair or did you return it and want your money back?

By the way, we once had a broken JVC TV, which was also away for weaks, in the mean time we did get a replacement. This replacement was a few (price/size/quality) classes lower though.

[ Voor 31% gewijzigd door asfaloth_arwen op 24-02-2009 16:39 ]

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Buy your stuff in a regular store the next time!

[Brad Pitt]

Agree completely!

First of all Sony doesn't have to do *anything* as the guarantee has to be handled by the company you did your business with: Redcoon. You also wanted to pay a very low price, hence you bought from them.

So: good luck with your problems but

a) quit whining about Sony
b) pay a bit more next time and buy from a regular, reputable, store
c) your tone of voice is very aggressive and unpleasant

[ Voor 16% gewijzigd door Brad Pitt op 24-02-2009 17:42 ]

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I wasn't going to even reply, but, on reflection, why not?

Brad Pitt:

a) it's true that Sony are not actually officially involved, but they did make and release the defective set. Sony do charge a premium price and some of that is to get better quality control. OTOH These things do happen once in a while and I guess I was just unlucky (again!).

b) ah! it's the first time I have ordered something like this online, so I shall learn from my mistakes. I never had any problem before with the (smaller) Internet purchases I have made, in the past.

c) it's certainly not aggressive to anyone on this forum! Yes, i was publicly airing my frustrations, but I thought that that was the point of forums. I told no lies, so what's wrong?

asfaloth_arwen:

I only mentioned the guy's first name, not the full name, so I was not really impolite, Also, FYI, I did ask for my money back, in the end, but I would have been very happy with a replacement for the set, also. I am just not happy with having to wait weeks, for it. It was their fault, not mine. It took many days before an engineer was sent to look at it and he couldn't fix it. The set was so faulty! This is causing me & my business losses - and shouldn't be.

I guess that the reason that the consumer is so poorly looked after, here, is that the public (typically represented by the last posts), simply accept the poor service and not only do they not complain about it, but flame anyone who does!

All I can say is that it's a good thing that I love almost everything else about this country & its people. The dire state of the service industries becomes not so very important, in the long run. But it is truly bad, here. OTOH there are some few companies in Nederland who give great service, proving it can be done, with some effort.

Far better (no, not perfect, but better) is service in neighboring countries, such as Germany, France, Switzerland, Scandinavia - even the UK. As a general reality, the consumers, there, simply do not put up with such poor consumer service, so they don't generally get it. In the US, most retailers would have instantly replaced the faulty set with a new one, in fear of losing future custom, not only from me, but from everyone I may tell the story to (including consumer forums). That's how consumer sales works. e.g. Because of the service from Logitech (in Germany), mentioned above, they get huge amounts of free, very valuable word of mouth advertisement, as I mention the good service, here and in other forums - and to all my friends & colleagues.

IMHO It's all a question of taking responsibility for one's mistakes. If my customers were unhappy, at the end, with my services, I would instantly jump to apologize and do anything I can to fix the problem. Failing that, they would instantly get their money back. I have happily, in the past, given lots of free time to fix any issues that originated with my work. This is not good service; this is normal service, when I take someone's money, in exchange for my products!!

[mr.paaJ]

People don't really care about customer service from stores like this because they are the cheapest. Normally stuff does not break, so many of them use it happily for the next coming years. If something does break, the shop sends it to the manufacturer for replacement and that takes a while.

A shop like this does not really care about service because they know people don't visit their site for this reason, but because it is the cheapest.
If you go to a normal store, the first two weeks chances are much bigger you get an immediate replacement (when in stock)

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You make a fair point, mr.paaJ. I won't be repeating that error again. It's a good point to note, for anyone thinking of buying large, expensive things, online, so at least writing of my experiences may do some good, somewhere along the line. :-)

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Buying online is no problem, even for a bigscreen.
The problem is that not all shops sell dutch models,

I almost bought my pana plasma from redcoon but decided not to because of these guarantee issues that you have now. You get the guarantee from Redcoon and NOT from, in your case, Sony
So then I bought it from viptronics, a bit more expensive but guarantee issues go through Panasonic (E-care homeservice.) Like It would be when you buy in a regular store.
A good thing because my plasma had a faulty image line, so e-care came to my house and fixed the problem.

By the way I cancelled my order at redcoon and got my money back in a week...

[ Voor 19% gewijzigd door Verwijderd op 01-03-2009 10:17 ]

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Cylon:

Tnx very much for the post. This was the sort of feedback I was hoping to get. 1) because your wise decision is now public, so others can learn lessons. 2) because it makes the lessons I have to learn, from my mistake, clearer. 3) Finally, knowing that Redcoon gave you your money back, without hassle is very uplifting, for me, in my case. The concern that I may get hassles, instead of my money back, is a lot ameliorated, by your story.

Of course, my case is different, because I had already received the set and it died after 2 days (just after I had given the old set away). The engineer couldn't fix it, muttering something about a faulty built-in controller, that cannot be easily fixed. As far as I understood, the set has to be replaced, rather than repaired. That is one of the reasons I decided to ask for my money back. My chosen product may not even be in stock, now.

I figure that it is better to start again, with the whole process of choosing and buying a set, to include the sort of knowledge that I have learned here. After all, by the time I actually do get my money back, the market may well have changed a lot.

It will probably be more than a week (almost a week already). OTOH I do understand that the set has to be checked, to see that it wasn't anything I did wrong, that caused the problem, for example (I did nothing abnormal, BTW).

I just hope it won't drag on, because, since I am not informed about what the status is, I am unable to take action to rectify the problem myself. I don't need to have the money back, to buy a different set, but I do need to know that the money will certainly be returned, without hassle, in a reasonable amount of time, before I can take any action. In the meantime, I'm stuck without any set, causing all sorts of knock-on problems.

I just feel that the selling and manufacturing companies would do better to take really good care of their customers, taking full responsibility for faults and looking after the customer, fully. IMHO In the current economic climate, this is crucial for them - and for us consumers. I speak as someone on both sides of this fence.

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Well, I now have a number of important points to make.

1) I received a brand new replacement set, yesterday. So far, it is brilliant & I am extremely happy, again. :-)

2) I now realize, with personal experience, that ordering from the cheapest retailer is not necessarily the wrong option. Redcoon did come through, in the end, so they can, indeed be relied upon to do the right thing, if a little slowly.

3) The whole process, from ordering to getting a usable set was about one month. Now, given my bad luck to lose the working set after only 2 days, I suppose that's not all that bad.

4) However, I have calculated that if all 3 parties in the chain, Sony, Redcoon & Ritmo had taken this sale and the faulty set issue seriously enough, the entire process could easily have been less than half that time. Sony is in the frame, because their quality control failed and they refused to take any responsibility. Redcoon for promising a maximum 4 days delivery time, when I got the first (faulty) set after 7 days. Ritmo for calling me each time to tell me that the delivery time would be 3-4 days later and that I had to wait in for up to a day, for the delivery.

Anyway, all of these faults are quite minor issues - the sort of thing one has to put up with, in life, stoically if possible - compared to the possibility that buying such an expensive item, online, was a mistake that I would seriously regret. This was, thankfully, NOT true and I humbly apologize for being so paranoid.

I shall consider buying expensive stuff online again, one day (carefully!!) and I shall also consider buying from Redcoon again, in future - with more confidence, this time. :-)

I've learned from this thread and I hope others picked up on something also. Thanks for all the posts - en m'n excuses voor het gebruik van mijn moedertaal, Engels.

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He man good to hear it worked out for you..
Enjoy your tv,