Black marks appearing on TV

stoofa · 16 Jul 2018 at 19:44

I came to use my XE93 this evening when I noticed what I initially thought was a "bug" on the screen. I went to get a cloth to remove it, but alas it didn't shift. It is instead a small black mark on the screen. On further investigation I can see three such marks at various points on the screen. (sorry for poor quality - but you get the idea)

I'm about to drop John Lewis an email and follow up with a phone call tomorrow. Any idea what might have caused these marks to appear?

stoofa · 16 Jul 2018 at 19:55

Just the way the pictures have appeared. I'm guessing the camera is trying too hard to take a good picture

The screen looks fine, however there are these three black marks on the screen which I hadn't noticed before this evening.

stoofa · 16 Jul 2018 at 20:04

Ah, cool, top stuff. That's the TV buggered then. As if this week hadn't been bad enough already. Cheers.

stoofa · 17 Jul 2018 at 13:20

I'm waiting to hear back from JL - there is anecdotal evidence of TV's being replaced for this issue before as the manufacturer agrees they shouldn't get in there.
I'll give JL the rest of today and then I'll contact Sony direct and see what they have to say.
I do hope that my TV is securely attached to the wall, I mean, I did do a good job of securing, but I've heard plenty of stories of things attached and then all of a sudden, months later, they fall to the floor.

Oh and before anyone who has read me in the past wants to post. The irony hasn't been lost on me at all.

stoofa · 19 Jul 2018 at 09:56

5punk3monk3y said:
I had this exact issue with my old Sony TV, I called Sony and they replaced the TV under the 5 year warranty, they even offered the newer equivalent of the model I had as it was EOL.

How old is the TV?

5 months old.
JL haven't got back in touch after I emailed their tech support people.
I was going to chase JL this morning, think it might be worth chasing Sony directly?

stoofa · 19 Jul 2018 at 16:51

5punk3monk3y said:
Yep, mine was a year old from RS but I just called Sony support directly and emailed the images of the little blighter stuck in the screen to them

I only had one in the top right corner and as said I called Sony support, sent them the details and they were willing to replace the TV. No Faff other than an email with a jpg attachment. As long as your TV is covered by the Sony 5 year warranty go for it.

Funnily enough that little bug eventually (after 6 months of faffing about) bagged me a full refund which I used against the LG OLED in my sig.

Cheers for that. I'm not entirely sure where my full warranty is with. It was purchased from JL so has a 5yr warranty anyway, if that is only through JL or if there is an underlying Sony warranty there too I don't know. However at 5 months old it is definitely inside a 1yr warranty that Sony would have had to include.
I'm a little undecided at the moment on what to do.
The blighters are far less noticeable than I feared, 55" TV and I'm sitting a good distance away. Once they die they should either fall to the bottom or go completely transparent.
Should I involve Sony and they offer a replacement, if they do have any XE9305 left then I'll be swapping my 5 month old TV for a refurb. If they don't, then the XF9005 is an inferior model.

I'll have to have a think on this, but thank you for your update on the process you used.

stoofa · 20 Jul 2018 at 21:21

I spoke with Sony this afternoon and they were quite receptive to the issue. I even called them "bugs/stormflies" when I was describing the issue, the chap at the other end said "We'll just list these as black marks at the moment".
They wanted me to go through some basic troubleshooting - reset display settings, reset TV, make sure certain settings were turned off. They offered to do it all remotely, but I wasn't at home to give them access.
They also listed all the pictures they wanted from me, which I've subsequently taken and emailed over. They only work Monday - Friday, so I won't hear back until at least Monday.

What I was quite surprised about was the actual age of the TV. I've had it for just under 4 months. When I spoke to Sony they asked me when I bought it and asked if I could include a copy of the VAT receipt with my pictures. I said no problem at all. They explained that currently the TV was showing as out of warranty. From their end not a problem as the warranty begins when I purchased, so the receipt will solve that. However what that means is that it was sat in a John Lewis warehouse for at least 8 months. That sounds like terrible stock rotation!

stoofa · 23 Jul 2018 at 23:15

I'm still awaiting a call back from Sony, however as I only emailed over all my pictures on Friday I'm giving them until end of play tomorrow before I chase.
We've lived in this house for about 11 years. In that time 2 Samsung's (one of which is still here) and 1 Panasonic have been used. 2 Iiyama monitors and a current Dell - never had a bug under a panel before.
So whereas I'm 99% sure that is what has happened, I'm chalking this down to "manufacturing defect" and I'll chase it all the way

stoofa · 25 Jul 2018 at 09:35

I just wanted to make a quick update to this.
Spoke with Sony last week who asked for pictures etc.
On receiving them they asked me to switch the TV off and make the room "as bright as possible" for a number of hours. I'm guessing they wanted to see if the bugs might "move to the light" so to speak. However there was no sign of movement in the 8hrs I actually did this for.
Sony called me up this morning and they are going to arrange a swap-out for me.
It will be a "factory certified" unit, however I'm not too worried as I've still got the rest of the John Lewis 5yr warranty to back me up.

Gotta admit Sony were a lot easier to deal with than stories and threads on other forums made me believe.