Sony refuses to repair USB hard drive within warranty

[ugni.rao]

I bought Sony external hard drive - HD-E1 - 1 TB - in January 2013. It has a 3 year warranty. It stopped working in Nov 2013. Rang customer services and was told to take it to Sony service center which is an hour drive away. Rang service center to confirm. They asked to bring the drive along with the proof of purchase. I cannot find the receipt or invoice for the drive. Sony refuse to repair/replace the drive. The sticker on the drive has its manufacturing date as 201301.

Both Seagate and Western Digital require no proof of purchase. They only ask for the serial number of the drive to check if it is under warranty. If it is, you can post the drive to them and they will replace it with a new one.

I can not think of any reason why Sony would not deal with their faulty drive in the same way as other manufacturers do. It seems their rule is just to give them an excuse not to honour their warranty.

Lesson - Buy Seagate / WD drives

[ugni.rao]

http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/HD-E1/specifications

[jumpsuit]

Hi there and welcome to the Community.

Just out of interest did you buy it from a store on online?

(Either way if you used a bank / credit card have you checked your bank / card statements that will show the date of purchase?)

[ugni.rao]

Bought from a store outside UK. Paid in cash. Can not get a copy of the invoice. Also, can not see a reason why I should have to possess a piece of paper to prove that the warranty is valid. The drive is manufactured by Sony. It has 3 years warranty and a manufacturing date of Jan 2013. It is not as if I am asking them to repair a XBox or Nexus or Ipad.

[jumpsuit]

Which country did you buy it in?

Have you been back in touch with customer services there / here and tried again? (Spoken to a manager etc.)

I assume you have already explained the manufacture date on it.

If so I suppose all you can do is write to Sony at:

Sony UK Limited

The Heights

Brooklands

Weybridge

Surrey

KT13 0XW

[ugni.rao]

This is how I resolved it. When the drive was plugged into a USB port, I could hear it spinning. Hard drives are fairly reliable. So I took out the actual drive from its casing and used a docking station to plug it into a computer. It was working, but had lost all the data. I formatted it and then did a surface check. It was fine. It is a Samsung drive manufactured by Seagate. I ordered a HDD enclosure from eBay for £5.79. Lesson - Buy Seagate or Western Digital drives, who together have 90% market share.

Sony lost all my future business for the sake of £5.79.