I never buy them because I buy a lot of tech stuff and I’m careful with it. Even if a gadget does break and it’s not covered I’m still ahead of the game because every warranty extension fee that I have turned down more than compensates for the cost of a new gadget.

Ian, I’m sorry to hear that you had such a horrible experience, and I know exactly the type of person you’re talking about, because I see them here and there at my work too, I work with them! There are those people where the warranties will come in handy, particularly accidental plan ones if you’re the clumsy type. My roommate spilled a cocktail on her laptop on accident and they replaced her mac with a brand new one in about a week when she went to Best Buy. However, if people are certain that they won’t need it because they know they can actually take care of their things, then I don’t try to push the sale past two or three no’s. Being an employee that works there, my personal goal is to make sure you do know that it’s offered and the advantages it has over the manufacture warranty, etc. Whether or not you go for it and get it, it’s your choice. But if something happens to it later on I just would want you to know that it was offered to you, and hope that it stays fine.

Unfortunately my PS3 just died from a power failure so I’m going to have to take it to get repaired. Hopefully I won’t have to buy a new one. But because of how long it lasted (4-5 years without being faulty until now), I probably wouldn’t get an extended warranty. I think the warranties stand for certain people under certain circumstances, but so long as that was offered to you, can’t say I didn’t try! Hopefully your future experiences will have more understanding sales people that don’t try to pry at you.

As for them trying to not get fired, it is true. A lot of the times my supervisors tell me to push sales on customers until they get mad at me, which astonished me that that would even be insisted. Here’s just another employee that wants to make sure you have a good experience so you keep coming back.

As to your claim on contacting the manufacturer, I have a story for you. The original Xbox 360 was notorious for breaking down. A friend of mine had a best buy extended warranty and it took 6 weeks to get it back. I did not have an extended warranty and dealt directly with Microsoft. They express shipped me a box, I sent it back and I had my new Xbox back in less than a week, which a year later broke again and I went through the whole process one more time. If you don’t buy junky brands, they are usually pretty good to deal with, they have a reputation to hold up. Apple is also another very good company to deal with although they push Apple care, because again, it’s a big win for them.

You should Google Consumer Reports and extended warranties, they have written a lot about it and say it’s a gamble at best. Don’t get angry at people because they don’t want to throw their money away. I had a camera break after the 1 year warranty, yes it sucked and I didn’t have an overpriced protection plan, but guess what, cameras are about half the price from when I bought that one, so we just got a new one. I highly doubt any warranty would have protected it since it was kind of my fault it broke, and the newest camera was 130 dollars, about a 3rd of the old one. Does a 130 dollar camera really need a 45 dollar extended warranty? I mean come on, that same camera will probably be half that price in 6 months. If I were to add up all the times I could have bought an extended warranty on televisions, computers, laptops, cameras and video game consoles, I could have easily paid for replacements for the occasional breakdown that may happen once in 15 years and have.

Being rude to sales people is wrong, I realize it’s their job to sell these, but it’s also their job not to be an aggressive jerk when the customer says no.

You make it seem like its an absolute scheme, when on the contrary it simply is not. A store is not just taking your money. They are offering protection for the product as well as customer service for that particular product for a given amount of time in EXCHANGE for your money. Understand the difference? Have you ever tried calling a manufacturer for service on your technology. Have fun holding! If you would have honestly gone in there with an open mind and actually listened to the salesperson you may have learned these things. However, you utterly failed in being respectful and keeping an open mind to save yourself a bit of money. I’ve witnessed multiple customers come back within a couple of months time to say that their pc is broken and they can’t get in touch with the manufacturer in East Guam and ask to get their money back without a service plan. Well that is certainly tough luck at that point. Those that have actually purchased the plan will feel at ease when they know that their computer is being taken care of by being fixed, replaced, or that they are given a cash card for the amount paid at date of purchase. You claim that you would just purchase another computer if anything ever happens to it. Well I’d like to see how you really feel if it ever happens to you. Enjoy the dent in your wallet!

Point is, in that situation you should listen to someone who is giving you information and not completely block them out. Ask questions and get involved in what your purchasing, then make your decision then. Sales people become annoying only when you let them become annoying by giving them the cold shoulder. If you really aren’t interested they will get the picture….and guess what….you can achieve this without behaving like a total jerk =]

I’ve already argued the merits of extended warranties, if people want to waste their money they are entitled too, my peace of mind does not come from wasting my money. Also, if my product fails in the 3rd year it’s probably obsolete by then anyway or I could by a new one for less than the price of the warranty. We are talking tech here, how much does a laptop from 3 years ago cost today? Anyway you look at it, it’s win win for the store and not the consumer.

As for extended warranties, most of them are a very profitable scam anyway. Tech items, as I mentioned, if defective usually break down within the first few months, usually a year is covered by the manufacturers warranty. After this point it may be many years before they succumb to time and wear and tear. The extended warranties cover a period of time that an item is least likely to break. These warranties are not out of the goodness of the corporations heart, they make a killing off of them, otherwise they wouldn’t bother to sell them. The worst part is, they protect themselves in pages legal jargon and when something actually does break it’s either not covered by your expensive extended warranty or it takes way longer to fix than the manufacturer would take. To me this is what’s really wrong, but that’s another story, and hey if you can sell an extended warranty to someone who really doesn’t need it, why not, I have no objections there.

Also you are right, they are told to push these, but it’s also a sales persons duty to make a customers visit pleasant and to be helpful. This sales person did neither, and if I was his boss I would have reprimanded him for being such a dork. It was obvious there was no extra sale going to happen, so give it up already. A bit of common sense would go a long way in these scenarios.

For the record this post is 3 years old and to my knowledge the laptop is still working just fine.