[muscat]

When I bought my Sony KD32DS60, I decided to take out the extended warranty offered by Sony which is in fact an insurance policy with Domestic & General Insurance. Under the policy terms, the television is due to be repaired or replaced if repair is not possible.

The TV developed a fault at the beginning of August and was collected for repair on 06/08/02. Over ten weeks later, it has still not been returned. The repairer has admitted that they do not know how to fix it but Domestic & General refuse to either get another repairer involved or replace the TV. I asked Domestic & General customer services how long I was expected to wait and was told indefinitely; the supervisor told me that "we could still be having this conversation in ten years time". Letters to Domestic & General remain unanswered and I don't know when or if my TV will ever be returned.

Has anyone else had problems with these warranties and is there anything I can do to force Domestic & General to take some action?

That is unbelievable, get yourself down to the Citizens Advice Bureau a.s.a.p.

[lynx]

Shocking state of affairs.Hope you got the supervisors name.Have you let Sony know about this ?

10 weeks without the tv!, id have been suing by the 2nd week ;-).

Thats shocking m8 get a letter off to them giving them 7 days to sort it, after 7 days you are then entitled to make your own arrangments for a replacement set

Contact Sony and tell them about this. It is an absolute disgrace. I was thinking about taking out a 5 year extended guarantee with D&G but no way after reading this.

Originally posted by alim
I was thinking about taking out a 5 year extended guarantee with D&G but no way after reading this.

They are almost always a complete and utter waste of money, unless you are very unfortunate with the individual product you buy.

It's like any form of insurance, if it made sense for the consumer generally then there would be nobody offering the service as they'd simply lose money. By definition, an insurance policy tells you that the high chances are you'll never make a claim that gets paid.

My philosphy in life is to only insure items that:

a) I am legally obliged to (i.e. my car)
b) I could not afford to loose without compromising mine or my partners financial security (i.e. my home and my life )

Anything else is - on balance - a complete waste of money.

Do what I do: Instead of giving the salesman £200 (or whatever he wants), stick it in a savings account. Do this with all the consumer items you ever buy and I can almost guarantee that after 10 years you'll have some money to do something useful with.

Remember, insurance companies only exist to make money - by taking your money.

Ian

[anothergo]

My 28FQ75 developed a fault that could not be fixed, after many phone calls to the repair company and D&G and 3 months later it was concluded the fault could not be fixed. D&G paid for a replacement set. A little slow as they needed to check with the repair agent but they paid in the end. This should give you hope.

[muscat]

I have had a call from D&G today offering to replace my TV. I'm not quite sure what brought about the change, maybe my letter to the Managing Director promising to write to the Financial Service Ombudsman (which I have actually done as well as to Sony).

My saga is still not over, however, as they offered to replace my Sony with a Panasonic TX32PB50C. Nothing against the Panasonic, but I don't think it is a fair replacement for my Sony IDTV and I told them so. It was apparantly one of their "experts" who decided an analogue TV was a proper replacement for an IDTV!

I will speak to them again tomorrow. There is no direct replacement for the Sony DS60 so I am thinking about a Sony DX100 instead although I'm not sure whether to stick with Sony. I have a Denon 3802 so on-board sound is irrelevant but would like another IDTV as my analogue reception is not great. Picture quality and connectivity are my main criteria and any suggestions for a replacement would be welcome.

Originally posted by muscat
as they offered to replace my Sony with a Panasonic TX32PB50C.

Which simply means they have a deal with Panny, or a supplier of Panny kit.

Tell the you want 'like for like' and nothing else.

Insurance companies, they should be outlawed. They are nothing but criminals. In the few instances where they DO help it's only by accident (literally) and despite their best efforts not to.

Muscat

You must get Sony involved in this. I had an experience similar to yours and Sony were very good about helping. My original model was unrepairable and after the engineer wrote a report to Sony explaining his efforts, they offered to replace my set with one of comparable value or greater. The choice was mine. I also had a policy with Domestic and General and didn't even involve them.

Don

Originally posted by Donald
they offered to replace my set with one of comparable value or greater.

I find that very hard to believe... the part about 'greater' value anyway. In insurance parlance that would be referred to as 'betterment' and the first rule of insurance is to NEVER allow that.

Seriously, you speak to an insurance company and mention the word 'betterment'. Their reaction will have you rolling around laughing for days.

Juboy

I really don't understand your comment. What I am saying is fact. Domestic and General were not involved in the situation. They were left footing the bill for the attempted repair. The offer to replace by set was made by Sony and not D&G.

The reason the offer of a set of greater value was made was because my particular model was no longer available. Obviously, I had to contribute to the difference in cost, but took the opportunity to go for a much better set because all the costs being quoted were trade.

Originally posted by Donald
Domestic and General were not involved in the situation. They were left footing the bill for the attempted repair. The offer to replace by set was made by Sony and not D&G.

Donald, my apologies to you, I thought it was D&G who had made the offer. I should have read your post more carefully.

Does go someway to backing up my point about insurance companies though. Sure, Sony have an interest in keeping you happy and fair play to them for doing so... your experiences would have been different were they solely related to D&G however.

[muscat]

D&G have agreed that the Panasonic is not an adequate replacement and I am going to get a Sony NX100 instead. I have a confirmed delivery with Comet so this ordeal should soon be over.

Thanks for your comments.

[muscat]

I thought it was too good to be true. Yesterday I was due to take delivery of my KD32NX100 from Comet and I took a day off work.

Comet did turn up on schedule but the first problem was when the delivery man asked where I was going to put the TV. I pointed to the space where it was going to go but he said that they only had the TV but no stand as D&G had not ordered a stand. I asked them to take the TV in anyway to see if there was anywhere I could put it on temporarily. The next problem was when they took the TV in and I noticed immediately that it was not a NX100 but was instead a DX100. So not only had D&G failed to order a stand, they also ordered the wrong TV despite the fact that they sent me a letter specifically stating that I was receiving an NX100.

I called Comet who said that they did not have a NX100 in stock and would not be getting any as Sony had discontinued production. I asked whether they had an NX200 instead but they had never heard of this TV despite the fact that it was shown in Comet's own Christmas brochure. The DX100 was too big for my old stand so Comet had to take it back with them.

I then contacted D&G who, after several telephone calls, eventually said that they could get an NX100 from their other preferred supplier (Home Electrical Direct) and someone would call to arrange delivery. Unsurprisingly I am still waiting for a telephone call.

It is now exactly 13 weeks since I reported the fault in my original TV. The level of sheer incompetence at D&G is astounding. It took 11 weeks for them to recognise that my original TV was irreparable and even then they could not even order a replacement TV properly. I still don't know when I will receive a new TV.

Regarding the Sony (Domestic and General Services) Extended Warranty - has anyone been in the situation of having a Sony-approved Refurbished TV that they want to cover?

I bought my refurb KV28DX20 last year for a pretty reasonable £550. I'm guessing that since it's a refurb, most other insurers will just refuse to cover it by default. I'd also assume that if it did break completely, D&GS would most likely replace it with a new model... and if I didn't take out any insurance, I'm guessing it'd cost me a lot more to replace it myself...

Nonetheless - can anyone recommend an alternative company for decent insurance at a decent price? I'm thinking of getting a quote and taking it back to D&GS, so apply a bit of pressure and see whether they can match it?

Thanks in advance!


Damian