I have just contacted SE, Turkey to arrange the upgrade to R1d. To my amazement they have refused and say that they will only support phones that have been bought in Turkey!
I thought that any service centre worldwide was obligated to carry out this upgrade free of charge.
Am I right or wrong?
Maybe different countries have different policies. Here in my country, SE does the upgrade for free for those phones bought from authorized dealers, while charging a fee of $10 for those bought overseas or from gray markets
Here in Hong Kong they (SE Hong Kong) do not allow repair or upgrading if it was not bought from a authorized dealer or if it does not have a Hong Kong warranty. That is why I am not planning to get the available import P800's that are available here.
The same is true for the Netherlands, SE Centres will only upgrade phones bought in the Netherlands, Phones bought outside the Netherlands will not be supported.
Looking at the various replies it looks like this is the world wide policy.
Well honestly I think that this really sucks because it is still their product, quite a dumb policy...
Just incredible. A global enterprise which is sectorising its market into (problably) a hundred different insular parts (countries) instead of acting globally. Very 1900's.
As I bought the phone in Dubai, it's going to be very expensive travelling there to get an upgrade 😞 Is there anything else that I can do?
Any suggestions?
Jch,
If you are in the UK what I would do is contact SE service centre for an upgrade.
If they refuse (especially if you are on revision B), then I would attempt to reject the goods under the sale of goods act asking for a full refund due to it not being fit for purpose. This may work if the product was sold with a european warranty.
I believe that under EU law any item sold within the EU with a warranty should offer EU-wide coverage. This is the case with manufacturers warranties only and is why you may only get a 2 year warranty on a car, etc. sourced outside your home country wheras within your country you whould get 3 years (the last year is offered by the dealer).
With phones I would guess that the 1 year warranty is offered by SE (a European company) so they would have to honour it.
Not much help in Turkey I know.
Actually, one other thing... how will they know? Do they check the serial number against a database? Do they know you bought it outside Turkey because it is not yet available in Turkey? This would be the case in the UK, but I guess once it becomes generally available there will be so many kicking around it will be difficult to tell where they came from...
I'm British but now live in Turkey and won't be back in the UK for some time.
The phone will be released in Turkey this week; or so SE told me :roll:
Good point about them knowing where it was bought, just a couple of worries:
1. I guess that they will only release R1d phones and mine is R1b.
2. They may ask for proof of purchase.
This should serve as a warning for all the people that are buying (or proposing to buy) from Hong Kong, Singapore etc. 😮
Tell you you are a software developer and got a pre-release P800. If you bought a P800 dev kit you were given a very early firmware version with the promise of full upgrade support when the production version became available.
It's sad when a company like SonyEricsson makes it's customers lie to get decent customer service... 😞
I've just e-mailed SE Turkey with the question of upgrade so that I can get something in writing. Maybe they will not be so quick to refuse support when they have to put it in writing!
Time will tell !
Tell them you need it to show to your legal representatives 😃
I agree with Tony. A global company with a localized policy. There goes globalization. It sucks!
I asked SE USA before i bought my import from Singapore and they said they would honor both the waranty and upgrades. Weird!
Is SE a truly global company or do the different regions operate as a kind of Franchise?
Instead of the traditional "Think globally, act locally!", perhaps SE should introduce their own slogan: "Act globally, think locally!"
SE Support in the US, as first helped me with a few problems, now they are saying they cannot even assist me, and that the Service Centers might in a month or two be able to help upgrade. I have not even gotten far enough to see if they will throw the 'bought in USA' at me.
OldGuyPhillip, this could be because you are obviously using an import since the phone hasn't been released there yet. Wait until it is officially out in the US and wait for the inital glut of defective P800s to die down and I'm sure they will happily upgrade / provide support.