I bought a Sony DCR-HC20 Sony Camcorder on my last trip to Boston in May this year. I was happily filming away on it for about a month until it suddenly refused to charge my battery. Thinking that there was a problem with the battery I took the camcorder to ‘Siedles’ the local Sony agent in Sri Lanka but this was the first time they had seen a DCR-HC20.

I then took it to another dealer where we switched batteries and tried but with the same problem. These guys then pointed out to me that another Sony camcorder that they had recently sold was returned with exactly the same problem and that they were sending it back to Singapore. Looking up Google Groups I found that I wasn’t the only person with the same problem.

But since my camcorder was bought in the US I had to ship it all the way back there, luckily Dhammika was making a trip to Atlanta and he agreed to ship it for me from there. The next day I get a mail from Sony asking me to pay $216 (for a $475 camera) as labor charges, I hit the roof and politely told them that I had used the camera for just 1 month and wasn’t going to pay another $200 and boy was I happy when they said they’d extend the warranty and do the repair free of charge for me.

I just got a mail from UPS that my camcorder is on it’s way to my return address Boston, I’ll now need to find someone to bring it back to Sri Lanka for me (sigh).