I have one of those expensive sony TV that has design problems. The TV overheats and damages components inside. I called sony and they asked me to call TV Unlimited for the problem. TVUnlimited is one of the authorized repair shops. I did not have good experience with them. On the first call, the person on the phone was most concerned that my TV was out of warranty. FYI, sony had extended the warranty for a couple problems specific to the TV. I had to argue with them that I knew about the extension from the internet before they accepted that the TV might still be in warranty. Even so they demanded the original purchase receipt even when they knew the purchase date was no longer relevant in my case. On the second call, sony had requested TVUnlimited to schedule an appointment with me. TVUnlimited refused to set the time of the day for the appointment until I told them that that was not the way business is done with other companies. You should be able to set a time window for the repair person to come. On the third encounter, which was the 'service call'. The repairment came to my house with an ugly look. He asked me what was wrong with the TV, with a bad attitude. I told him that there was 5 blinking red lights, and then I left him to work alone, giving him time to discover the burnt lamp. Overheating of the lamp compartment was one of the design problems with the sony TV. The repairman finished the job, and told me that the lamp was broken and need to be replaced, and that was it. I told him that the 5 blinking lights meant that more was broken, not just the lamp, most likely the power ballast was broken too. After explaining to him that if only the lamp was broken, another set of light would be blinking, he agreed that it was possible that there was more than 1 problem. He did not do anything to try to figure out the 'real problem' and he did not mention anything about the overheating problem. He just said his supervisor will decide what to do about it. I was baffled, that why wouldn't an authorized sony repairman bring a working lamp with them on their job. It is a common item, and it is handy for diagnosing problems beyond a broken lamp. I was baffled also by the fact that he was so sure that the problem was just a broken lamp problem to start with. Aren't these people supposed to know about Sony TVs? When I asked him whether he saw the melted plastic, he screamed at me and asked me where the melted plastic was. I did not clearly understand his question because of his not so good english, and he screamed more. I pointed at the melted plastic and then he said the melting was normal...which I did not think it was. Actually I was not even sure that he opened the lamp compartment and took the lamp out to examine it. If he had done that, he would have seen the melted plastic. He claimed that he did, and he might had. I should be there to watch him so that I know, but I was busy doing something else while he was looking at the TV. I am disappointed by sony selling defective products to customers, and that their authorized repair service, may be only this particular repair servce, do not treat their customer right.
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