Another reason why Sony sucks...

I keeping with the real reason that I set up this blog, I would like to vent my hatred of a company. Guess which one (hint, it is mentioned in the Title...)

In case there was any doubt left in anybody's mind as to how awesome Sony is, I have a another tidbit to add. After purchasing a camcorder a few years ago, I started having trouble with it. Namely, the screen was black. Which is fine for most of the things I wanted to record, like the inside of a dark box, and the back of the lens cap. However, there were a few other uses that required color and light. So, I went about the process of determining if the camera could be repaired. I was told by Sony, that for the low low price of $279 (plus shipping) I could have it repaired!

The camera had cost $400 the year before, what savings! Anywho, it turns out I didn't want to pay as much as it would cost to get a new camera, to get the old one fixed. And fortunately, I was able to copy previously recorded tapes onto my computer, so no big deal. I bought a new camcorder (not a Sony). Fast-forward 2 months from that time, and Sony (only due to a class action lawsuit) admits that there was a manufacturing problem with these cameras (and about 1,000,000 other models) and (as in all class action settlements) admitted no fault, but agreed to repair those cameras that already had the "symptoms" of a black screen, free of charge! Well great, except 2 months too late! Anywho, I sent it in to get fixed, even though I had a new camcorder (I should have put feces or anthrax or something in it to tell Sony how I felt about their business practices, but I didn't). So, when I got the camera back, it worked fine, except outdoors. No matter how dark I turn down the brightness, everything is washed out. At least it worked in situations with some light and color though.

Unfortunately, I used it more, and recorded some more "precious moments" to "cherish" using that camera. Big mistake. About a month ago, the camcorder started giving me an error whenever I put a tape in. This was the obvious C:31:22 error. It meant "Error". Not only did it not work this time, but since I couldn't get it to read a tape, it meant everything I had on tape, was basically garbage. I would either have to buy another camera to read them, or just suck it up and move on. I checked the manual... it said "remove the battery" and "turn the camera on and off". Now, do you really think I hadn't thought to try that at this point? Well, I had, and it did nothing. So, I checked google to see if there was any insight... I didn't find anything too helpful, so I turned to my last resort... Sony customer service. I learned previously that this would be a nightmarish bit of time spent to wait on hold listening to yanni for 2 hours in order to have some teenage phone center kid tell me to do what it said in the manual, and walk me through each step of pressing a button. But I did it anyway... after the wait, and the condescension, I was told, send it in for repair... only $279! I told him that I could buy a new better camera for that money, and he politely said, "yeah, you should probably do that... your camera is old. Sony has some nice new cameras here: ". (The sony webpage doesn't work if you use Safari on a mac btw). Great, thanks for the advice! You earn your $6.45 an hour!

Well, this last weekend, I decided to buy a new camera from Sony, use it to get my memories off the tapes, and then return it for a full refund. When determining if it would cost a fortune to return it (or a restocking fee, etc.) I decided it would be worth it to do regardless, to stick it to the man. However, this time when I tried googling the error code, I found an interesting page. As it turns out, this page had advice on my error, and a number of similar errors, on the same line of camcorders made by Sony. Well, it started as a comment of someone asking for advice about an error. One of the first responses said "just hit it on the side, and it will start working again". Hmm I thought, well, the camera is worthless anyway, might as well try. Well, what I (and hundreds of others that had found and posted about it on this site) discovered was that, indeed, giving it the smack down, made the error go away (at least temporarily). So, if in less than 2 years, a page can accumulate probably over 300 posts about people with the same problem, most of which can be solved by smacking the beast, do you want to trust a company that charges $279 for that fix???

Oh, I forgot to mention that Sony also:
Violates Copyright licenses
Installs root-kits on your computer
Steals ideas that make them a fortune (ever heard of the Walkman?)
Make crappy stuff
Had millions of laptop batteries recalled because they can explode and start fires.
Had to recall millions of adapters, because they could start fires.

Even maddox agrees...

Thanks for your time.