SonyEricsson unprofessional

I have been a long term user of Ericsson mobile phones. I have previously bought four of them and also use an Ericsson satellite phone. I travel extensively and need a reliable phone. If it fails, I need to get it repaired, regardless of which country I am in at the time. However, a recent experience with the SonyEricsson customer service center has shown me that their worldwide network of repair centers is an illusion for anyone away from the country where they originally bought the phone.

I recently bought a T68i phone in the Dubai Airport Duty Free shop and it appeared to work fine. However on my return to Jakarta I tried to use it on the Indosat M3 GSM1800 network and discovered that it would not work on this frequency band.

I took it to a SonyEricsson repair center in Roxy Mas and they confirmed that it was faulty, as the GSM1800 transmitter circuit was not working. And, the service center say they are unable to repair it, a series of excuses were given :

1. We do not have the part... So I said I will wait..., up comes the second excuse:

2. We are unable to fix it -- not surprising, considering the manufacturing complexity, with surface mounting and ball soldering.

3. "Give us a copy of your passport, original warranty and overseas SIM chip and we may be able to replace it". I gave them a passport copy, the original warranty showing serial and IMEI number and could have provided a Pakistan, Singapore and UK SIM chip. This was overridden by SonyEricsson HQ in Jakarta! Who obviously do not care about their customers once they have sold the phone.

The warranty lists an Indonesian number, but this warranty is not worth the paper it is written on. It states "return to original retailer or contact local customer service center."

You are wasting your time contacting the local center, the complexity of GSM phones nowadays is too high for repair if it is a non-trivial fault. It is a case of bin it and replace. (They were willing to replace it for 2 million rupiah, more than half the cost of the original phone! (This is a phone which was one week old when the fault was discovered).

So beware, the warranty and global network of repair centers is a sham, certainly do not buy your phone from an airport duty free shop, where it may be difficult to "return to original retailer". If you think this does not apply to you, because you bought your phone in Indonesia, what do you do if your phone fails while you are overseas? Don't bet on a positive response from the local service center.

MARTIN MULOT

Jakarta