a6500 Mode Dial markings erased

[Single Element Lens]

About 4 months after purchasing my a6500 new in 2016, I used it to cover the Portland (Oregon) Waterfront Blues Festival where I have been official photographer for years. And please, I've been a photojournalist since I was 14 in school, 1960. This experience with my a6500 is uniquely disappointing.

On the second day, I noticed that most of the markings on the Mode Dial had disappeared, there were no longer S-A-P-M designations to show how the camera was set. There had been no rough handling, there were no other marks on the camera, it appeared that some kind of chemical had eradicated the markings. The camera functioned then and now, like new, but I had to paint the markings back with a white enamel pin and it's ugly and off-putting.

I have seen one other a6500 with the same affliction, the painted designations on the Mode Dial must be easily dissolved lacquer or decal. They are not recessed as they are with almost all my other (many) cameras which seems surprising cost-cutting step by Sony on a camera that does cost enough, one might think, to have more durable design. The only similarly disappointing quality control issue I have experienced was in the first batch of Nikon FEs, which had horrible mechanical design, jammed constantly, and were quickly, quietly replaced by FEs with much better specs.

I called Sony warranty support not long after the ruin of my Mode Dial settings. A younger sounding man there laughed, consulted his manager and told me that "It is only a cosmetic blemish, we won't cover it." That was almost 7 years ago now, obviously the camera is long since out of warranty, but it remains perplexing that an otherwise fine little camera would have such a cheap vulnerability in a vital part, and that Sony would blow it off as they did. 

Anyone else have this experience?