SONY Can You Hear Me, Pt II

When we last visited SONY-land, I planned to send to the company’s refurbishment/exchange center in Plano, TX my #3 son’s broken pair of MDR-NC60 headphones. My goal was to see if SONY would send me a new, comparable pair (preferably the NC200D), versus a refurbished, now discontinued NC60s.

On Tuesday afternoon, an email from Laredo LEC Estimates popped on my desktop: “Good Morning Mr. Dillon.” (Mr. Dillon?) It instructed me to call a number and provide a work order #. I called and the person on the receiving end spent more than 10 minutes trying to find me in the system. At one point, he asked if I had a tracking number of the item I returned for repair or exchange. I did not.

We finally figured it all out at which point he informed me that I would not be receiving a comparable replacement pair of headphones. Groan. Rather, I would receive the same headphones, but fixed. It would cost me $83.63 plus tax, a different price than the $76.63 including tax originally quoted me. Another 10 minutes rolled passed as the SONY rep tried to resolve the cost differential with some higher authority. They acquiesced.

A refurbished pair of my # son’s headphones would arrive back here in 3-5 business days. Whoopee. (Not) Still, as any gadget guy/early adopter will attest to, having now seen the NC200D’s, I had to have them for my son. After all, I rationalized, it’s his birthday January 23. I’ll just use the refurbished model myself at $76, a good deal IMHO. I called the SONY Online Store to purchase the NC200D’s at the 25% discount offered when I spoke to them on Friday. The price equalled the credit I was receiving from AMEX for the extended warranty on the NC60's.

A salesperson Alex informed me that the NC200D’s were not part of the 25% sales promotion. Huh? The sales rep then said she could offer me a 15% discount. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She put me on hold for 18 minutes, then came back and said the supervisor would not speak with me and that she was also mistaken about the 15%. WTF! I insisted on speaking with a supervisor and she transferred me to a voice recording that eventually lead to Customer Service.

Customer Service told me that sales is out of their realm and suggested I speak again to the salesperson with whom I just spend 45 minutes on the phone. He asked for the sales phone # and put me on hold for 5 minutes during which time he tried (unsuccessfully) to get a headphone sales person to take his call.

I finally threw my hands up and called Cyrus, my designated SONY concierge. He explained that there are certain items that are never marked down anywhere. The NC200Ds are on the list. Also, he informed me that the headphones were on back order, but he might be able to find a pair. He’ll throw in overnight shipping. He did, and the headphones arrived today at my #3 son’s college.

Epilogue: #3 asked if he could buy the Bose headphones. Huh??? He said the SONY headphones arrived, thanked me, but said they are not fully “over-the-ear” like the old pair. They are smaller, “more like the Quincy Jones model” I use at the gym each morning. By happenstance, my Q headphones suddenly stopped working this week. Net net: the NC200Ds are destined for my ears, and my son would get his tried and true headphones back, a mutually beneficial arrangement with which we’re both happy.

EPILOGUE 2: My #3 son’s refurbished headphones arrived two weeks ago, and a week later, no sound in one of the ears. SONY agreed to take them back and swap them for the comparable over-the-ear pair - the MDR-NC500 D’s (pictured below). Lucky guy! Case closed.