whiile in Viet Nam...

[lsanderson]

I broke one of the clasps on the Sony laptop. When I bought the laptop at BestBuy, I also bought the service contract, because, as the IT guys at work keep saying, there's too much that can go wrong on a laptop. Anyway, I took it in to BestBuy and they shipped it off to Sony. I also complained that the battery does not hold a charge for very long, and they tagged that and Sony claimed that they exchanged something. Since the service contract provides one battery a year, they suggested I ask for a new one, which I did. They printed out a long form, gave it to me, and said to call this number and give them this information. Eventually, I did, and the person on the phone said that they no longer stocked that battery and I should go back to the store and ask them to order in through Sony. Yesterday, I went to the store to do that. They, of course, didn't believe me and called the same number I'd called to ensure that I had faithfully fulfilled the ritual. The guy behind the counter handed the phone to me as the guy on the phone was looking up the service number just to fully perform the ritual, which I assume they thought I'd skipped over. I must confess I got a little sarcastic with the guy on the phone when lo and behold, his computer also told him that they no longer stocked the battery. I would hear this same phrase repeated in various incarnations for the next few minutes as we went from one "manager" to another "manager", none of which had ever heard of this problem. One finally took a copy of the paper and told me he'd call me back when he too had heard the mysterious message from the guy on the phone. Then, since BestBuy does not sell garage doors, I wandered off in search of air conditioners for the bat cave and a sub-woofer.

Comments

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

So.... the battery your months-old laptop requires is no longer made? Did I get that right? So you have to like, throw the thing away when the battery wears out?

Let me know if the service contract turns out to have been worthwhile. I'm considering buying a laptop, and wondering whether the service contract is likely to pay for itself. It rarely does on any other product.

Not quite...

[(Anonymous)]

BestBuy no longer stocks the battery, but it's still available through Sony. The store has to order it and it's being shipped to my house.

It gives me a new battery a year... so I'll find out by the end.