International Vs Local warranty

[mahnaz]

In our local market, the resellers ask the customers whether they want local or international warranty and they charge high price for local warranty and comparitively low price for international warranty. I wana know that do you have any such policy? Are our local resellers authorized to offer local warranty? What is the differernce between International and Local Warranty?

[Blencogo]

Hi mahnaz.

It is possible that your local resellers are just trying to sell you an additional guarantee to boost their profits.  Sometimes these third party warranties do cover additional risks but it would be up to you to check this. The Vaios may already have a full local and international warranty from Sony.

If the Vaios do not already have a Local Sony Warranty then it is likely that they are grey imports from a country where they are very much cheaper to buy or less than legal for another reason.

The most obvious country is the USA where Vaios are much cheaper to buy and have an English Operating System - but they could come from many other countries where they are priced more cheaply than here.

Sony offer a full Warranty in the places they are offered for sale by Sony or their official resellers.  So a Vaio sold in Europe will have a full warranty in Europe but only an International Warranty outside Europe.  As models are different in differing countries, it means that a European Vaio may need to be returned to Europe for repair under the International Warranty even if you are in Australia at the time.

The danger of buying a grey import from say the USA is that you have no local warranty in Europe and to qualify for the International Warranty, your Vaio must be registered to you at an address in the USA - the International Warranty only covers you for temporary relocation abroad.  So if you buy one of these, you will have NO warranty or at best, you may have to return your Vaio to the USA for repair.

To get round this, some resellers will sell you their own warranty - nothing to do with Sony - which is an expensive insurance policy arranged by the reseller to cover you for what the local warranty would normally cover.

This is a sad result of us in Europe being ripped off by the electronics companies who sell more expensively here.  Even taking into account VAT and US sales tax, we are still being suckered.  To camoflage this difference, the equipment will have a slightly different specification.  There is nothing wrong with the Vaios apart from the warranty/support issues and the need for a cheap plug adapter.

Next time you are there, take a note of the Vaio Model and post it here.  We can then tell its country of origin.