How to contact Sony re a problem with a boxed set?

[mjzee]

I have an irritating little problem currently with ImportCDs - not a deal breaker, just dopey. I bought the Sony Vivarte classical box from them. It arrived shrink-wrapped and in OK condition, but I found, after going through all 60 discs, that one disc was missing and another one was duplicated. So not ImportCDs' error, but Sony's. I contacted ImportCDs, and they're sending me a shipping label to return the entire box, which they'll then replace with a fresh box. I said to them, why not just swap out the disc? But they said I had to return the entire box. It's just the wastefulness of this that's bugging me. Does anyone know a phone # or email address for some dept. at Sony that would allow me to swap out discs? I remember Amazon had Sony contact info listed for the big Bob Dylan box that had a defective disc, but they don't show it there anymore.

[JSngry]

Not encouraging regarding defective product, but here is something: http://hub.sonymusic.com/about/feedback.php

[mjzee]

Thanks.

[JSngry]

Hey, I'm with you on the wakefulness, something abut that just offends my congenital sense of metaphysical balance (my actual physical balance really sucks). Maybe they've done the math and it comes out ok to do it their way, but geez....

[mjzee]

On ImportCDs' part, it probably has to do with security. My guess is that employees don't have the freedom to go into inventory and pull a shrink-wrapped item and open it.

[king ubu]

I got in touch with Sony Classical Germany twice ... there seems to be no equivalent over here, but I got most kind replies (and got the correct replacement disc for the Toscanini shoebox shipped within a few weeks after my first inquiry, which was about that disc ... folks in the local shoppe where I bought it had of course never heard of the error). This may just be the one guy working there though ... you never really know. Had a few nice exchanges with EMI folks too (they sent me missing recording date infos for some of their UK jumbo boxes, the "Collector's Editions" by Elgar and Vaughan Williams).

So in my experience, there still are some actual human beings around, kind ones, too! - and hence it pays off to try (though of course I've no idea if the archivist at EMI's is still around, now that it's Warner, corporations tend to fire those that aren't "generating revenue" and such crap, so ...)

Both times I used whatever contact option I found on the websites ... just thought I'd give it a shot.

[cih]

jeez - Sony - ridiculous. I've had a similar problem in the past with a Tompkins Square set, a Revenant box and a Bear Family box - in each case they just posted out a replacement cd, didn't ask for anything from me.. they just rightly assumed I wasn't a thief I guess.

[king ubu]

well, this is not Sony, it's the vendors, and it always the policy of such vendors to replace the whole thing, no matter if that makes sense or not ... it how the corporate world works, I guess ...

[Brad]

I've had this happen in other spheres and the whole thing gets replaced. Can't remember what it was but it's not a corporate world mentality. It's called quality control.

[king ubu]

Well, in my case it was one disc of the huge Ciccolini box ... I'd made my way through 40 or so until there was one that was totally unplayable.

Now, would I have sent that thing back, I'd have had no clue if the first 40 discs of the replacement were okay until I'd played them all again ... it's called common sense

[Bigshot]

You're not going to get anywhere with trying to return bits and pieces. It's all or nothing.

[king ubu]

Not with the Toscanini box. I got the correct disc in the mail. With the Ciccolini box (one disc visually perfect but unplayable) I got a second copy and after telling them (big evil a) how much the return would cost (about the same as I'd paid), I was told to keep it. The Meyer box (one disc missing) I did return - and had a rather hard time getting reimbursed for the by comparison again ridiculously high shipping costs ... hope that was my share of defective/incomplete boxes for a while ...

[ejp626]

You're not going to get anywhere with trying to return bits and pieces. It's all or nothing.

Well, usually, but they did mail out just the fix of the one defective CD in the Toscanini set (as Ubu said). Also I vaguely remember being able to exchange one CD from the Jazz in Paris set. (I can't remember the details but I think I was sent a box with 2 of one CD but missing another one.) I actually mailed it off to some corporate address in France!

[mjzee]

I've been slowly listening to the discs in the Vivarte box. Sure enough, disc 13 is defective (skips on both my CD machines). The disc I returned to ImportCDs in my initial box played fine, per my iTunes rip. If I could have just swapped out the one problem disc from the box I originally received, I wouldn't have had this new problem. Grrrr.