Big-Screen Fan’s Not-So-Good Buy Prompts Sony’s Goodbye

In any tussle between a corporation and the little guy, it’s smart to bet on the corporation.Unless that little guy happens to be Mike Scott, who lives in Newport Beach, owns a car wash in Fullerton and likes big-screen TVs. When it came to his viewing pleasure, he always considered himself a Sony man. Technically, he’s still a Sony man, because the small living room in his beachfront home is dominated by one of its 55-inch models.

How long he stays in the fold, however, provides the punch line for today’s slice of life in this wacky world of ours.

Sad to say, but Scott, 59, and Sony have had a falling-out that looks permanent. Scott says his TV developed some quirky habits that should have been covered by a one-year warranty.

Sony denies the TV was defective, but with Scott refusing to budge and ready to go to court, the electronics giant paid him $4,500 (the approximate cost of the TV) following a settlement conference.

Here’s the fun part: The company insisted on including this language in the settlement: “[Mr. Scott] agrees that he will not purchase or otherwise obtain or receive a Sony product of any type in the future.”

Wow. A lifetime Sony ban. Luckily for Scott, the ban doesn’t include watching or listening to anything on a Sony.

Or, maybe the company just forgot to add that.

I translate Sony’s legalese as, “Nyaah-nyaah, you can’t buy any more of our stuff never, ever, ever again!”

If it sounds like the two had a history, they did.

This is Scott’s third big-screen Sony in the last few years. It’s also the third he’s said had a defect.

The first two go-arounds, the sets were replaced under a five-year warranty he bought from the dealer. When he bought his current set, the dealer wouldn’t sell him the warranty, so he was covered only by Sony’s one-year arrangement. Within a few months, Scott says, the new TV was acting up. This time, Sony refused to replace it.

The problem with the sets appears to be the salt air at Scott’s small beachfront home, which has done a number on everything from Scott’s blinds to the legs on his bar stools. He says a Sony-authorized repairman told him there was corrosion inside the set. On one visit, Scott says, the repairman used a blow-dryer to get the TV working again.

It’s pretty obvious Sony is fed up with Scott. Sony’s lawyer once asked him if he was pouring saltwater on the TV’s parts.

“They said [the TV’s problem] was an act of God,” Scott says. “Act of God, because I live next to a beach? God destroyed my TV? Lightning, a storm, stuff like that, that’s an act of God. I don’t consider air an act of God.”

I asked Laura Citrano, Scott’s attorney, if someone can be banned from buying a product. “That’s a good question,” she says. “Originally, they wanted to waive the warranty. That’s unenforceable, so they tried to go at it another way by saying he can’t buy another of their products. But I don’t think they’ll have somebody following Mike around seeing what he’s purchasing.”

Jilana Miller, Sony’s lawyer in the case, says she can’t comment. A Sony spokeswoman said she wasn’t familiar enough with the settlement to comment.

Under the agreement it reached with Scott, the company denies the set is defective.

You are still watching it, I say to Scott. Yes, he says, but he leaves it on 24 hours a day, switching over to a radio component during the night or when he’s not watching TV.

Why? “When I turn it off, it never comes back on,” he says. “To me, that’s kind of abnormal.”

Sony may think Scott is scamming them, but I don’t buy that. He and Citrano say his attorney fees could be $10,000 and rising if he went to court.That’s twice what a new TV would have cost him.

I think Sony simply ran into a buzz saw with Scott, not thinking he’d push things as far as he did. He says he pursued matters because he felt bullied and, as a businessman, objected to Sony’s treatment.

Still, he agreed to the lifetime ban. I ask how he felt about that.

“I guess it’s their coup de grace,” he says. “They think they win if they can tell me I can never buy another one of their products. As if I would.”

*

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.