Wall of Sony goes silent

Following up on Customer service horror story #9456434: Going on the second week now, the email below has been left unanswered by Sony representatives. I tried hard to convince the utter foolishment of their customer hostile position to Sony, but finally gave up a couple of days ago and ordered a new Fujitsu harddisk. I don't expect an answer ever to arrive.

Sony's best offer:

What we would suggest is that you arrange for the unit to be collected and diagnosed, to determine whether a repair to the unit is necessary. If no repair is needed, we will then review the case to decide whether the flat fee can be waived.

Unimpressed reply by me:

That brings me exactly no closer to avoid gambling the price of a new harddrive on your definition of what constitues a loud noise. I'm willing to do much but take this gamble.

Have your technicians describe your definition of loud in a measurable format, such as dBa. It would be fairly easy, and without risk, to compare the noise of my noise to that of a known source (such as the
cooler in my desktop machine, which runs at 21 dBa).

Or I could record the noise in a digital format (.wav or .mp3) along with normal speech to give you an idea.

For the record, I find this situation very unfortunate and unreasonable cumbersome. I've always been a big Sony fan, refusing to buy anything else in TVs, game consoles, or laptops. This affair is rapidly changing that attitude. You're well into the process of turning a long-time Sony advocate into the opposite. This is not meant as snide or wise-guy influencing, but statements of fact.

The total support cost, involving four phone calls to your customer service center, and your time dealing with this issue has already surpassed any cost a pick-up. Factor in my newly minted negative
perception of Sony, and followed reduced inventive to chose a Sony branded product in the future, and this conversation is starting to look very silly indeed.

"A satisfied customer, on the average, tells three people about a good experience, while a dissatisfied one gripes to eleven.", AMA quote from Business Week

Bed-time reading: Information is Power (on customer satisfaction), http://www.prsa.org/prc/BPCCCustomer.html