Austrian/German Customer service issue with Xperia 1 VII

[drloutr]

Hello all,

My 1 VII arrived in july, when it released but it had the problem of rebooting, which is well known. Through the free replacement program my phone was replaced. Unfortunately, my new phone had the same problem, although the IMEI Checker said it was not affected. The austrian customer service agreed to give me the money back, as I moved to a different country and was unable to receive a new phone in Austria. Since they only ship to Austria when the product is bought in Austria they agreed to take the phone (+case + preorder bonus) back and return the full amount, but I had to send it back myself to a provided address, which I did.

The phone arrived in the warehouse on October 1st 2025 and I still did not get the money back. They keep saying that they cannot find the package, but it arrived, which is proven by the tracking ID I provided to the customer service. 

My entire conversation with the customer service is VERY frustrating, to say the least. I don't go into full detail about it, but what I will say is when I was asking for a phone number or to talk to a higher level customer support (escalation), I was simply ignored and I have no other contacts at Sony. I somehow managed to get a phone number, but when calling, my requests get forgotten. Getting no response for weeks is also very common.

The current state is "They cannot find the package inside the warehouse" and therefore won't give me my money back. I don't see where this is my problem though, the part of which I took responsibility (shipping) is complete.

I would have really loved using the phone but the whole customer service experience is horrible and now I am missing my money AND the phone.

Posting to the community forum is my way of escalation, as I am stuck in this situation.

Can somebody please provide more information/help me with the issue?

Thanks.