Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Today I took the Sony Vaio laptop computer that I bought in 2002 back to Best Buy for service.

This is the third time I’ve given this computer to Best Buy for repair of the same problem.

The problem is that the computer fails, on an intermittent basis, to draw AC electric power. I get warning messages that the battery is critically low even when the computer is plugged into a wall outlet. In other words, the computer can’t draw power from the AC source and runs on its battery despite being plugged in to an AC outlet. 

When the problem first began it was more annoying than crippling.

The computer would "find" the AC power when I pressed or jiggled the AC adapter connection on the back of the computer

But over time things got progressively worse. I had to touch the AC adapter connection more often.

Later, I sometimes had to keep constant pressure on the AC connection in order to charge the computer. Eventually even this wouldn’t work reliably. That meant I sometimes had no way to run the computer when the battery ran out of power. I decided to stop trying to cope with the problem and took it to Best Buy for service.

I paid Best Buy $200 for a three-year service contract when I bought the computer. That equaled 10% of the price of the computer!

Best Buy is very eager to sell service contracts. I imagine they make more on service contracts than they do selling computers. Competition keeps margins very low on computers. But once a customer is in the store and has decided to buy a computer, there is no spot market for warranty extension insurance.

The value proposition of insurance depends on the insurer actually performing according to the contract when you have a legitimate claim. In my experience Best Buy markets its insurance aggressively but is awful at performing when there is a claim.

Despite my "investment," in a Best Buy service contract, the computer has been in Best Buy’s hands for almost two months of the 29 months I have owned it (and it was in Sony’s repair shop another week, as explained below).

My computer had a problem shortly after I bought it (an omen of things to come). When I took it back to Best Buy for repair, their clerk said it could take "at least" a month before it could be fixed. He further said that there was "no guarantee" that it would be fixed within any time schedule. I needed the computer; I didn’t have a back-up home system. Waiting a month or longer was unacceptable.

Fortunately, at that time the Sony warranty was still in force, so I walked out of Best Buy and called Sony. They repaired the computer within a week, including shipping.

The idea that Best Buy had taken my money for a promise to repair my computer "but not on any time schedule" angered me so much that I wrote a letter to the Maryland attorney general. I urged him to investigate these so-called service contracts for fraud. I sent copies of my letter to a plaintiff’s class action law firm and to Best Buy’s corporate headquarters. In response I got a long, apologetic voice mail from Best Buy.

After the Sony repair the computer worked fine for a while. I used it to write my first law review article. Unfortunately, when the power problem manifest itself Sony’s warranty had expired. So I was stuck with Best Buy.

I reluctantly went back to the Best Buy where I bought the computer. I explained the problem, showed them my service contract and handed the computer over for repairs. The turn-around was better than I feared; they kept the computer about 3 weeks. But there was a problem: they returned the computer to me with absolutely no changes.

Of course, I had thoroughly explained the problem to the Best Buy clerk, but apparently the clerk only typed about two words—something like "no power"—on Best Buy’s repair request form. Whomever actually worked on the computer just got this shockingly amputated "no power" account. Consequently, when the technician saw that the computer could power up (as I said, the problem is intermittent) he or she evidently assumed that the computer is just fine and shipped it back to me. As if someone would send their laptop in for repairs that could take weeks for no reason!

Predictably, when I got the un-repaired unit back, its power problems continued.

When I sent the computer back for the second time I wrote out an explanation of the problem myself and sent it in with the computer. My note made it clear that I was sending the unit back for a second time. I also made it clear that the problem was intermittent.

In round two Best Buy kept my computer about twice as long before sending it back. They kept it about a month, then again shipped it back to me without having made a repair.

It was returned to me with a form indicating the problem was with the AC adapter (but not bothering to give me a new one!). I’ve since tried three different Sony AC adapters with the computer. None of them charged the computer. Conversely, all of them–including the original one from the Vaio in question–work with other computers that I own. Clearly the AC adapter is not the problem.

For round three I did not carry the computer back to the Best Buy in Laurel, Maryland where I bought it. Instead I drove to Rockville, Maryland, hoping the staff there might be more competent. The young man at the "Geek Squad" counter (I want to say "Fraud Squad" or "Incompetent Squad") was polite, but when I asked that Best Buy let me exchange the computer for a new one he said only a technician could "junk it out."

He put down on the service request form that I request that the computer be "junked out." However, he said Best Buy requires "three physical repairs" before they will do that, and he said it seemed I’d not had that many. It sounds to me like fraud if Best Buy 1) doesn’t "physically" fix my computer when I send it in for repairs but then 2) refuses to replace it because they won’t do so until they’ve made three "physical repairs."

Fixing the computer will mollify me somewhat, though it won’t erase the fact that I’ve now sent the computer in for repair four times (three times to Best Buy, once to Sony) and that Best Buy has not yet preformed its service contract obligations in a competent, satisfactory manner, or that I have as a consequence of these problems been deprived of the use of the computer for almost two months of the 29-months that I’ve owned it (just calculating the time it has been out of my hands for repairs, not including the time I’ve had it but couldn’t use it because of the power problem).

The best thing Best Buy could do is give me $2,000 credit (the original purchase price) towards a new laptop. That would make me relatively happy. As a matter of principle I won’t ever again buy a major item from the Laurel, Maryland Best Buy, and I doubt I’ll ever buy a warranty contract from Best Buy again, but if they let me have a replacement computer I could at least cease my personal boycott of the Best Buy corporation.

Incidentally, since this problem arose I have bought four computers—an NEC Versa LitePad, a  HP iPAQ 4700 Pocket PC, the Sony Vaio U750 and most recently a Toshiba Satellite M45. For each of these new computers I also spent a lot on peripherals and software. In total I’ve spent more than $10,000 on IT products during the last five months. But because of their failure to repair the power problem, none of those purchases were made at Best Buy.

If they will not "junk out" my lemon, they must at least fix it. Then I can give it to someone else. Or sell it on eBay.