All,

I just want to give a heads up to everyone here at Sony TR World Forum regarding my experience with the importer, JapanRush and my terrible experience with them.

I purchased and received a brand new Sony TR2/B, January of 2004 from JapanRush. My system was running fine a month before I decided at the time that I wanted to upgrade my system to WinXP Pro. After reformatting/repartitioning the drive, I realized I was missing the drives and that JapanRush said they will ship a set of their Recovery DVDs with the package. After 3-4 weeks of calling and hassling them and not having received the DVDs yet, I gave up and started looking on this forum for assistance. It took me no more than 2 days to obtain these drivers from this forum and everything went smoothly for the next 4 months.

This issue wasn’t really of much problems for me that JapanRush couldn’t provide me with the set of drivers.

The real issue is this:

Now, 6 months into when I purchased the Sony TR2/B. I had a slight accident with my DVDROM where it malfunctioned. The DVDROM would not play any CDs or DVDs, and the drive could only be ejected if done by inserting a pin into the Manual Eject Button. So I called up JapanRush and told them about the situation. The CEO, Jae Lee, told me that I will have to ship the laptop by to their company where they will analyze the system for 1-2 days to see if they can fix it in the office, if not they will ship it to Japan to have it serviced. I was told that this procedure would take at most 3 weeks.

I thought, well if it’s 3 weeks then alright. I’ll be able to live without a laptop for that long. So 3 weeks past and I received no response from them. I contacted them approximately twice a week to find the status. Each time I asked to speak to a “Technical Support” individual I was transfered to the same individual.

I was told at that time that my laptop was sent to EUROPE to be repaired. Of all the places, why did they need to send it to EUROPE!?!?!? It was absolutely ridiculous! The “Technical Support” person told me, that it is too costly to replace the CD/DVDROM Combo Drive. Why the heck will the cost matter for them if the laptop is still under warranty!?!?!? I could care less what it will cost JapanRush to replace the DVDROM, as long as I got my laptop back with the DVDROM fully functional again.

What was ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS was how I could have put up with their S**T.  Each time I contacted them, they told me Jae Lee wasn’t available and they weren’t sure when he will be in the office.

Now I kept hassling them until January 2005. So from October 2004 -> January 2005. They had my precious Sony TR2/B. Finally in the first week of January, the “Technical Support” person told me that the laptop could not be repaired and that the DVDROM had to be replace. They told me that the laptop was sent back to them from “NEW YORK!”

What the heck!?!? They first said EUROPE and now it is in NEW YORK? and were they that ignorant to have not listened to what I told them in the first place and to have the DVDROM replaced?

So the “Technical Support” person told me that they have ordered the part (Panasonic UJDA-755) from Sony Japan and that it has been shipped and will be there within a week.

After 2 weeks, the part did not arrive to their office. I finally managed to get a hold of Mr. Jae Lee after countless number of phone calls to their company. He told me this: “I have ordered the part, but for some reason Sony Japan isn’t shipping the part. The Sony TR2/B unit is obsolete and obtaining parts for it is difficult.”

He told me what could be done was that he could buy the Sony TR2/B unit back from me and give me a brand new Sony T Laptop. At the end I decided alright, send me back the laptop so I can backup all my files on my laptop and send me a Sony T Laptop. He said alright!

So I had my hopes up in receiving a brand new Sony laptop. Now I received my Sony TR2/B Laptop back from them mid-February. If you do the math they held my laptop for 4.5 months!

Now, once I received my laptop I tried calling them countless number of times. I spent 2 weeks trying to get a hold of Mr. Jae Lee with NO LUCK! :evil:

I finally gave up! I continued looking through these forums for a resolution and immediately I found one. It again took me 2-3 days to find the right part number and locate a part in Canada. I ended up ordering the part directly from one of Sony’s Repair Center since I could not place an order through Sony Direct Accessories and Parts. Within a week after I placed my order, I received the UJDA755 CD/DVDROM Drive and installed it the same day.

I was soo happy! The CD/DVDROM was working once again!

It was ABSOLUTELY BS that JapanRush (Jae Lee) could not obtain the part!

I later found out that this “Technical Support” individual was just a Shipper/Receiver who had no Technical Experience at all.  What is even worst was that Mr. Jae Lee had told this “Technical Support” person to say all of this.  :evil:  :evil:  :evil:

I just want to notify everyone here at Sony TR regarding my experience with JapanRush and hope that none of you will every have to go through in dealing with this company ever! I hope people will purchase their systems through other Importers.

That really sucks. This was what I was afraid would happen to me if I had a problem, which was my biggest hold out. Luckily I delt with iCube on a smaller purchase first, which made me comfortable on a much larger purchase. Thanks for the heads up for others out there.

Erik

I can also confirm that I have heard other horror stories dealing with JapanRush. They have been very unprofessional and pretty shady.

Sorry to hear about the trouble that you went through with JapanRush Erik.
I havent purchased anything from them, but back in 2002 i purchased a brand new C1MSX off ebay and though everything was converted into English not everything worked properly. No recovery cds were provided.
On the old Sony Picturebook forums i remember Jae Lee had offered a few people copies of the recovery cds for free (They were $200 on the site).
I emailed him asking if i could have them and he kindly shipped them via FedEx. When i got them one of the cds wasnt working, so i called up explaining this and he sent another one out to me.

My experience was cool. But i guess its different when you purchase something. Ive noticed there site hasnt been updated for a very long time.

But that was crap that Jae Lee had told his employee to tell you all that mumbo jumbo.

I never dealt with the company, it was Rockman.

Erik

Oops my bad, i apologise.
I think its cos when i finished reading the post by Rockman, your post was next and all i saw was Homer Simpson. lol

Zak

[quote author=“BritGuy79”]Oops my bad, i apologise.
I think its cos when i finished reading the post by Rockman, your post was next and all i saw was Homer Simpson. lol

Zak

No problem, I was just pointing it out before it got out of hand. Sometimes people don’t read all posts…just the last one.

Erik

Yeah, this story is a good example of the dangers of importing electronics goods. You really need to know what you’re getting yourself into when you buy things. Some times, paying a little more has its benefits if you’re dealing with a well respected place like iCube or Dynamism which have proven track records and good customer support.

Good advice in any retail transaction. I bought a table the other day, and the store is dicking me around after they told me the piece I wanted was no longer being made. At least I have the credit card company in my corner…

Agreed! The last thing I’ll ever have to do is to continuously bug the tech support people. Its just a waste of time. (Somehow or rather, the tech support people aren’t really techies… I wonder how they landed the jobs…hmmm… :wink: )

Figured that time is worth more than a few hundred dollars extra that I will have to pay if I ship from a reputable seller.