I think I’m usually a pretty nice guy, but the other night I got snappy with a sales person. I’ve been doing laptop research for the past few weeks and I finally picked the HP Artists Edition Laptop which was on sale at Future Shop. I know, everything is always on sale there and if it’s not, you’re probably paying too much for it. That said, I was picking it up for someone else and we had pretty much settled on which one we wanted.

So the salesman saw us eyeing the one we wanted and I said to him, I think I want this one. I asked a few questions about the ports on it, asked about the weight and the processor and two of these questions he answered incorrectly, but maybe he just didn’t know.

So, the moment of reckoning, I decide we want the laptop and say yes I’d like to pick up this one. I know I am going to get the extended warranty speech and hear about how the horrors of not purchasing it could leave me in a bad situation. Future Shop is owned by Best Buy, and both these stores are a nightmare to deal with.

So I listen to the spiel and then I say no thank you I’m not interested, I’d just like the laptop. He goes into how much each part costs and how if one breaks this one will cost 60 dollars and this will cost 200 and if the keyboard breaks the whole thing has to be replaced yada yada. He tells me how often certain parts break and by now I’m thinking if this thing really is as much of a piece of junk as he’s claiming, maybe I shouldn’t buy it at all.

Again I say no thank you, I’ve heard of, and had bad experiences with extended warranties. He then asks me what happened and I tell him about manufacturing time to fix something verses the time Best Buy took to do the same thing. He starts trying to tell me something about it being after one year and by then I phased out. I should also add that I am very tired by now, it is after work, I haven’t had dinner yet and I just want to go home with this laptop. Again, I say no I’m really not interested, I would just like the laptop please.

This is where I am starting to get agitated, he stops, pauses and then points to the power plug and says, if this breaks, that’s 60 bucks. I finally interrupt him and say “What’s with the hard sell? Do you want me to buy this laptop or not? I just want the laptop, should I go somewhere else and get it?” He realizes he’s gone to far and says no sir and grabs the keys and unlocks the shelf with the boxed laptops. Once I’m at the cash I say to him, something like I’m sorry, I’m really tired and I haven’t eaten yet and we want to get out of here. I don’t even know if he deserved the apology, but I always feel bad when I do stuff like that.

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story and the tip to take away is to resist hard sells. The very first thing I found when searching the title of my own post was an article on the CBC website Should you buy an extended warranty? Basically what the extended Warranty covers is the 2nd and 3rd years. If an electronic product is defective it usually breaks long before the first year is up, otherwise it lasts 5 or more years. I have a TV from 10 years ago that is still going strong and a DVD that broke after 8 years. The extended warranty covers the time period where something is least likely to go wrong. I know Future Shop and Best Buy make a lot of money off of Extended warranties, but at what cost? After this experience I don’t know if I want to shop at these places anymore. On the bright side, the laptop is great and looks really cool.