Letter to Sony

I hate Sony. So I wrote them the following letter:

Daniel N. Fishman
[Address Censored for Privacy Retention Purposes - Nosy Bastards!]
Boston, MA 02115

September 19, 2007

Sony Electronics Inc.
12451 Gateway Blvd.
Fort Meyers, FL 33913

To Whom It May Concern:

I purchased a pair of Sony earbud headphones (MDR-EX71SLA) in January of this year. Four months later, 30 days after the manufacturer’s warranty had expired, the headphones stopped working (the right earbud no longer produced sound). I took the headphones into the Sony Style store in Copley Place Mall in Boston, Mass., where I had purchased them four months prior. The manager gave me a new pair without my receipt or the box in which they came, no additional questions asked. Great, I thought.
Four months later, 30 days after the new manufacturer’s warranty had expired on the new headphones, the right earbud stopped working in the exact same manner in which the previous pair had. I went back into the store, on September 18, 2007, and spoke to Nick Hiatt, manager on duty for the evening. The staff was not helpful in the least; I waited 15 minutes for Mr. Hiatt to hurriedly tell me that there was nothing he could do for me – even though I had purchased an obviously faulty product designed to break down just past the warranty deadline. Even with the receipt and the original packaging (which I was sure to keep the second time around) in which the headphones came, I was denied satisfaction.
Mr. Hiatt commented that I should have purchased the extended care program when I first purchased the product (insurance on a $50 pair of headphones!) Typically, these programs are a scam, designed to earn the manufacturer a lot of extra money while costing them very little in turn. Usually, the offer of a service plan means that the product is of high quality and the insurance is unnecessary (and thus profitable), or that it’s a faulty product and the insurance provides an endless line of inferior headphones to replace each broken pair – I trusted that coming from a familiar brand, supposedly known for its quality, that the extended service plan was merely a safety net for higher-end products of much greater value.
I figured there was no way the headphones would stop functioning so quickly outside the manufacturer’s warranty under normal use. I was wrong.
I will gladly pay more money for a more reliable brand that believes in a quality product and the utmost customer satisfaction. More often than not, however, those competing brands are even less expensive than Sony.
It is dishonest to operate as a company that relies on the ignorance of the consumer to spend money on a Sony product that is inferior, just because of name recognition.
I assumed Sony to be a company worthy of trust, and blindly (see: ignorantly) went to the Sony store looking for a moderately-priced, quality product without any prior research.
I refuse to make the same mistake of being an uninformed consumer again. After reading several reviews from magazines, websites, and consumers, I made an informed purchase from a competing brand that makes similar products of a much higher quality. Not on a single one of those reviews did I see a Sony product rated in the top 5, or even top 10.
I see which direction the Sony Corporation has gone in, and it disappoints me greatly. The basis of running a business is to respect the customer; it is nice to see that Sony has left the consumer behind in the name of cost cutting. Congratulations!
I will never purchase a Sony product again – not for myself; not for my business; not for my friends, family, or even my enemies (as punishment). Never.
Good luck in years to come – your business will surely continue to thrive with its ever-dissolving customer base.

Sincerely,



Daniel N. Fishman