This video is not about the person. He came to do his job, and he did what Sony's process asked of him. What you see is the process: a warranty decided from a phone photo, with no test, no report and no proof. That is the point, and that is all this video is about.
Question one
How do you diagnose a television from a photograph?
Not our television. Any television. Name the test, name the instrument, name the standard. If there is an answer, it fits in one sentence and it should have arrived nine weeks ago.
A warranty claim was refused from photographs sent on WhatsApp. No test was named, no instrument was used, and no report was ever written. Nine weeks later that is still true. Owners in India and in other markets describe the same sequence, in the same words, with the same proof missing. So we have stopped defending ourselves and started asking.
An independent consumer account of one owner's Sony BRAVIA warranty claim. Not affiliated with Sony. Corrections published on request.
The demand
Publish the number.
How many warranty claims have been refused as physical or external damage without giving the customer a written technical report? Sony India, for the last three financial years. Sony Corporation, for every market it sells televisions in. Published, not emailed to us.
One number. Either it is small, in which case this is a mistake Sony can fix this week, or it is large, in which case it is a practice, and every customer Sony sells to is entitled to know before they buy.
Not one of them asks for anything confidential. Not one of them asks Sony to admit anything. Every one of them has an answer that Sony already holds, and every one of them is still open.
A photograph shows a broken picture. It does not show who broke it, or when, or how. Sony's verdict says that it does.
Which test establishes that a display panel was damaged from outside? Name the test.
What instrument was used on our panel? A phone camera is not an instrument.
Can a photograph tell a panel that failed on its own from a panel that was struck? If it can, publish the method.
Does Sony's written procedure allow a finding of external damage when nobody has physically examined the panel?
Who made the finding on our set, and what is their engineering qualification? We asked on camera and got no answer.
Does this photograph-based procedure operate outside India? In which markets, and approved by whom at Sony Corporation?
Sony India knows these figures exactly. They sit in its own service system. We are asking for them in public.
How many warranty claims did Sony India refuse in the last three financial years?
How many of those were refused as physical damage or external damage?
In how many of those was a written technical report given to the customer before the repair estimate?
How many were decided from photographs alone, with no physical examination of the panel?
How many customers asked for that report afterwards, and how many received one?
The same five figures again for every other market Sony sells televisions in, not India alone.
There is a verdict, a bill and a deadline. There is no visible way to challenge any of the three.
What is the appeal route when a customer disputes the finding? Who reviews it, and within how many days?
Why is a service request closed as “customer has not confirmed” when the customer disputed it twice in writing?
Before external damage is recorded, is anything done to rule out a manufacturing or component failure? Name that step, or confirm there is none.
We asked for a written technical report. What arrived was a demand for $500,000 (₹5 crore) and an apology within seven days.
How many other Sony customers who published their case have received a legal notice?
What has come back so far
In nine weeks Sony India has sent us a verdict, an estimate, a closure notice, an automatic acknowledgement and a legal notice. It has not sent one photograph of the damage it says we caused.
The offer, still open
Every question on this page is open. Answer any one of them at we-sucks@sonybravia.com and the answer goes up here, unedited, within 72 hours. That offer has been on this site since the day it went live.
we-sucks@sonybravia.comWe started with one set and one bill in one country. Then owners began writing in, and the forums turned out to be full of the same story in several markets: a panel that failed on its own, a verdict reached without a test, and a customer asked to pay. We are not claiming to know how many. That is precisely the number we are asking Sony to publish.
In January 2010 Sony India published a warranty extension for the display panel of one BRAVIA LCD model, gave the cause it had found, and offered free repair until October 2012. Different model, different decade, and nothing to do with our claim. It is here for one reason: it shows Sony investigating a panel, stating a cause, and putting it in writing. We are asking for the same thing.
Sony India support notice, Jan 2010Forum threads describe BRAVIA sets developing vertical lines across an otherwise working picture, widely put down to a panel or T-Con failure. The pattern is old enough to have a nickname among owners.
What Hi-Fi? forumLines inside the cover period, a charge simply to look at the set, and a decision whose working the owner never gets to see. One owner reported it at about fifteen months.
AVForumsIf a Sony warranty claim was refused on you without a written technical report, in any country and on any Sony product, we want your case on this page. Send it in and we publish it exactly as you allow, or keep it on file if you would rather not be named. Tell us the market you bought in, because that is part of the answer.
Send us your caseJournalists, consumer groups, lawyers, and anyone from Sony who would finally like to show us the damage: this inbox is open. If you are an owner with a refused claim of your own, there is a template waiting for you in send us your case.
Email us at
we-sucks@sonybravia.comWe read every message, and we answer the ones that need an answer. There is no form, no ticket number and nobody here will ask you to send a photograph on WhatsApp.
