Sony Ericsson is among the world's top five Mobile phone makers. But, their after sales service seems to be not at that standard. I have experienced the better service than this from other small players. Myself and my friend had the bitter experience of their after sales service standard recently at their authorised service centre Compcare Services, Jayanagar, Bangalore.

My SE T630 was intermittently giving charging problem for past 6 months. Once in a while, it was not getting charged and apparently it was appearing to be a loose contact problem. I took the phone to the SE service centre Compcare sometime during July-07. The service engineer heard the complaint, checked the phone & charger and advised me to replace the charger saying that the problem is with the charger. I bought a new charger at a cost of around Rs.900/-. But, the problem still remained. When I complained this to Compcare again, the service engineer brushed the contact points and said, it is OK. And the phone did work for next 3 months without any problem. So, I unnecessarily spent Rs.900/- due to the improper analysis of their service engineer.

Again during Oct-07, the problem re-occurred. The phone was again intermittently not getting charged. Once again I took the phone to same SE Service centre, Compcare. Compcare collected the phone for repair. I was told that the phone will be ready in two days. When there was no response for next 4 days, I contacted Compcare. I was told that an IC has to be replaced and it would cost me Rs.450/- and service charges will be another Rs.250/-. I agreed for the terms. When I went to collect the phone next week, I was told that the phone is not repairable. I was charged Rs.150/- towards handling charges and the phone was returned stating that they are unable to repair it.

When I took the phone home and tried charging, the phone just was not getting charged at all. Remember, when I gave the phone for service, it was intermittently getting charged.

Everything is not transparent at Compcare. The bill and the delivery challan given to me were not in the name of Compcare Services, they were in the name of Smartcare Services!

When I narrated this experience to my friends, I was surprised to know from a colleague of mine that he too had a similar experience with his brand new, under warrantee K750i phone at Compcare Bangalore. An under warrantee phone was accidentally exposed to slight moisture and it started giving the same intermittently charging/not charging problem. He gave the phone to Compcare for repair. Compcare told him that the warrantee is void due to moisture exposure and he would be charged for both service charges and for the replacements for which he agreed. Compcare retained the phone for a month and later returned saying that the motherboard need to be replaced to rectify the problem which would cost almost the same rate of a new phone.

To his shock, the so returned phone was just not getting charged though earlier it was intermittently getting charged when it was given for service.

SE's own customer care system is no better. I posted my above complaint on SE web site. My case (numbered 71589872) was registered and duly acknowledged through an auto reply mail saying that their call centre would contact me. But, nothing was heard for next two days. I called up their customer care contact number. I was told by their telephone support that, they are not in a position to tell me the status of my case since it was booked through e-mail/web and I was advised to contact through e-mail only. So, I followed up with an e-mail with all the details and supporting attachments. After next 2 days, I got a mail from their customer care thanking me for registering a case, again asking for Service tag No and phone's IMIE No. which I had already submitted through my e-mail.

I have provided these details again to SE and hoping for SE Customer support to come back. At the pace, SE is responding, makes me feel that I may need to post the developments again in this forum.

Due to these bad experiences, I advice SE mobile phone users at Bangalore to avoid Compcare, Jayanagar, Bangalore, since Compcare’s "daal mein kuch kaala hain".