I had bought the Sony Bravia 26 inch LCD TV from Adishwar Electronics, Inner Ring Road, Bangalore, in July 2007 paying a premium price of Rs 38,000 ( costlier than even 32" TVs of many popular brands such as Philips ). I selected this TV because I was told that the picture quality and long term reliability of SONY is the best and it is a " life time " investment. When this TV was installed by the Sony service engineer he insisted for a voltage stabilizer and a spike buster. I had accordingly fixed both these items while installing the TV. To my horror just after three years I find a major defect i.e., 4 to 5 short vertical bars/pixel bars right in the center of the LCD screen.


I filed a complaint ( complaint# 5956248 ) to Sony Service Center Bangalore and they promised to send a service engineer within 48 hours. The service engineer turned up on 14th Sept 2010 evening and again to my horror I found out that he was not a service engineer, but a technician who did not have any qualification nor he could communicate properly in any language. He also was quite ignorant about TV electronics. His level of education can easily be made out from his written entries in the service receipt. I do not think the technician was more than a primary school pass. He was not able to answer any of my questions nor he could give me any answer why the vertical lines have appeared on the TV. All that he said was he would open up the TV and look for any loose connection and if there were no loose connection he could not do anything. He opened up the 4 screws at the back of the TV that secures the circuit board/motherboard, just had a look and quickly assembled it back without understanding anything. Finally he said that nothing can be done and the LCD screen needs to be replaced. In fact after the technician reassembled the TV, a new problem has crept up, i.e., my screen goes blank (black ) for a few seconds very frequently while viewing a program.


My dissatisfaction/grievances on poor quality of product and service of SONY are as follows :


1) I feel disappointed that an unqualified technician was sent by SONY who did not know the job, charged me Rs 250 without doing anything and created a new problem of screen going blank frequently.
2) If really the LCD screen needs replacement just within three years of purchase then what is the credibility of SONY of claiming life long reliability and life time investment. If I knew that after paying a hefty price of Rs 38000 for a 26 inch TV of Sony, I have to face this problem in just 3 years, I could have purchased a Philips TV of a bigger size at a cheaper cost ( Rs 32000 ) which would have been probably more reliable and given me better value for money.
3) Going by Sony's name and promise of long term reliability, I have purchased a premium Hi-Fi music system MHC-GZR88D again paying a high price of Rs 24,500 and I am worried that this investment will also be a mistake going by poor quality of product and service that I have encountered.


Kindly reconcile.


Best Regards
Debashis Dutta
+91 9901144557