So 3 years ago during purchase of new HDTV, sales clerk sold me warranty that promised to "if you don't use your warranty, we will automatically refund your money 3 years later". 3 years later, I called to find out about that promise. And told that no such thing exist and were given a complaint number. Wonderful! They lied to me and pretty much stole 300$ since I never buy useless warranties.... no more sears for me that's for sure. Epic fail.

You didn't check up on what the sales person said at the time?

I wish I got the money back from my insurance since I didn't make an claims.

I hate that.

i find it hard to pay for extended warranties , once burnt...

"... warranty - got lied and had money stolen"

Hmm, sounds as if you had bought any product.

You buy it, you are being cheated since the product does not do what it should, or breaks down and "oh no in this case no warranty" - and your money is gone.
From cars to TV or HiFi, all the same.

Nevermind that sometimes even the warranty is less than useful. I had a major brand LCD monitor fail under warranty, and they serviced it. Great... except that it failed again the same way just after the warranty expired.

I finally repaired it myself with better quality parts, rather than trash it.

Since expensive man-hours have been engineered and out-sourced out of most of modern manufacturing, the local repairman bill increases the incentive to simply discard failed products. But the cost is sometimes worthwhile.

It did sounded too good to be true. I actually said that and reconfirmed. I really should have listened to my gut feeling.

NEVER take a sales kid's word for something on warranties. Always ask to see where it's specified in the warranty policy.

Most of these sales places give essentially no training to their sales staff about what the policies really cover, then ride the staff to sale more warranties... you can figure out the result.

I'm sure stuff like this is one of the many reasons why Sears has been going down the toilet for years and has been closing stores.

Extended warranties are pushed for a reason: they make TONS of money on them. I NEVER buy extended warranty coverage on anything. I simply try to find a product that has a decent warranty to start with.

correct, its just an addon sale mostly.

Not to be a jerk, but didn't that sound just a little too good to be true? At the very least I'd have gone to customer service to verify. If I didn't have a receipt stating emphatically that I'd get the money back I'd have not bought it or asked for refund. I buy 3 - 5 year warantees on video cameras all the time. I'd be suspicious if I was told I'd get the money back.

You're right about that. Many moons ago I worked part time at a Radio Shack and management pushed the extended warranties hard. In fact I can remember the commission rates I got for sales. I got 1% for any merchandise I sold but I got 15% for any extended warranties I sold.

No one offers a refund on an unused warranty. No one.



The Jedi Master

Extended/accidental damage protection type warranties are worthwhile IMO for things like a laptop or smartphone that will be carried around, are likely to be dropped or otherwise damaged, and are expensive to replace. It's very rare to find a manufacturer warranty that covers anything other than factory defects (and even then, you often have to fight to prove that it wasn't something you did...).

Interestingly, some of the best warranty coverage stories that I've heard about have been from gun manufacturers.

On topic:
I would go to Sears and exactly tell them what happened, even (or better: especially) if this seller does not work there anymore. If you think of the Internet and how stories spread i think in Germany they would give you a refund even if they were not convinced of your case.
It is just good company politics not to threaten away other customers by stories of bad company behaviour bei8ng spread. One bad case neutralizes 10 good ones, at least.
And it is them who have a reputation to lose.


Off topic:


I am sure you mean the hand grenade and parachute departments of said companies ?

Greetings,
Catfish

I've been lucky in that the two extended warranties I've had turned out to be a good thing, but I don't buy them 99% of the time.

The first one I bought was for a CRT-projection TV, and I got it because I'd heard they could need a lot of maintenance. I got it from Best Buy years ago, and it was a 4-year warranty, and 3 years into owning the set, it developed a problem they couldn't fix, so I got the full original purchase price that I could apply to any TV I wanted, and of course TVs had come down in three years, so I got a better set for the same money. I'm not sure it was Best Buy, but somebody lost money on that deal.

The second one I got was a home warranty, which was part of the purchase contract (paid for by the sellers out of the profit from the sale). I think the cost was a little over $500, but they've had to fix plumbing, fix a dishwasher, and replace my furnace, so I'm pretty sure they lost money on that, too.

But for everyone like me, there must be thousands that pay the premium but never use it, otherwise they'd go out of business.

Best Buy in fact used to offer a good warranty. I went through 3 CRTs off of one warranty in the late 90's - early 2000.

Now however once the warranty is used to replace an item, you have to buy a whole new warranty to protect the old item's replacement! I think that's a crock, as the warranty should provide unlimited replacement for the original item until it has expired. It's not my fault the original product was crappy and had to be replaced. Why should I have to pay more for another warranty when the original warranty still has life left?

Also, Best Buy used to refund you a prorated amount if you didn't use the warranty within the period (You had to do it before it expired though). I'm not sure if they still do that.

I can see extended warranties being worth the money for big ticket fragile items like laptops, HD tv's, iPads and monitors but it's not worth it for lower cost sturdy items IMHO.

Not worth it. Back in college I worked for a tv/appliance store and we were supposed to offer them. Most sales people did, there was a lot of money to be made on them. Overpriced and ridiculous. You could count on one hand the number of claims we heard of in a year--and that was back in the day of huge cabinet rear projection tv's that got out of alignment easily and expensive but crappy and fragile VHS and 8mm video cameras.
Total up all the times you could buy a warranty for a product and the cost of those warranties. Compare it to the cost of items that actually failed on you in that short coverage period of a warranty. You could pay for those items many times over with the savings by not buying the warranties.
Best thing you can do is put some of that cost into buying a better product.

As for this case, I wouldn't blame Sears. That was a salesperson that either didn't know what he/she was talking about, or more likely telling you what you needed to hear to sell the thing, knowing they wouldn't be there in 3 years to have to worry about it. Happens everywhere. These stores also put a ridiculous amount of pressure on people to sell the stupid things.

When I worked at Circuit City briefly in the mid-90s we also were pushed and pushed and PUSHED to sell those. It was so irritating.



The Jedi Master

It's ok. Now all of those pushy Circuit City managers are all gone!

Who knows where they work now, pushing the same thing?

I wonder when drug dealers will start offering drug-related health insurance. Pure profit!!


The Jedi Master