Best Buy's extended warranty is 4.8 stars over 1700 reviews?!

[JEDI]

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/reviews/2-year-accidental-geek-squad-replacement/6418939

looks like the extended warranty is 15% of the item's regular price.
ie: doesnt go down if the item is on sale

knowledgeable people know extended warranties are a rip off.
someone explain the 4.8 stars this gets?!

 

[ultimatebob]

Maybe they had a "give us a 5 star review, and get a free warranty extension" deal?

I've seen some shady used car dealers do something like that.

 

[Captante]

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/reviews/2-year-accidental-geek-squad-replacement/6418939

looks like the extended warranty is 15% of the item's regular price.
ie: doesnt go down if the item is on sale

knowledgeable people know extended warranties are a rip off.
someone explain the 4.8 stars this gets?!

I've never purchased an extended warranty from Best Buy but from what I understand they do honor the written terms without much hassle most of the time hence the good rating.

Some extended warranties are worth it but the majority as stated are nothing but a money-grab and/or make you jump through PITA hoops to actually use them.

I have however had good luck using Squaretrade (they replaced a dead Keurig for example no questions asked) and believe it or not with Staples on their suspect-quality office furniture which tends to peel nearly every time, so those plans are almost a no-brainer.

 

[pete6032]

Most places will cover an extended warranty without any hassle to the customer. I have claimed extended warranties through American Express and they don't even ask for the damaged item and I get refunds within 72 hrs. These extended warranty programs make a lot of money so it's not worth them trying to screw a customer making a claim.

 

[Captante]

Most places will cover an extended warranty without any hassle to the customer. I have claimed extended warranties through American Express and they don't even ask for the damaged item and I get refunds within 72 hrs. These extended warranty programs make a lot of money so it's not worth them trying to screw a customer making a claim.

Back in the day when I sold refurbished printing equipment online for a living we also offered extended "warranties".

Good luck getting the company that provided them to actually pay one thin dime even on obviously legit claims. (I personally refused to even discuss them with my customers)

 

[JEDI]

Staples on their suspect-quality office furniture which tends to peel nearly every time, so those plans are almost a no-brainer.

peel furniture?
explain?

 

[pete6032]

Back in the day when I sold refurbished printing equipment online for a living we also offered extended "warranties".

Good luck getting the company that provided them to actually pay one thin dime even on obviously legit claims. (I personally refused to even discuss them with my customers)

I imagine there is some math in decision whether or not to honor a warranty. It costs the warranty processor a certain amount to resist issuing a refund or replacing the item. If that amount is even remotely close to the value of the item they should just replace it and move on. If it's a bigger ticket item then it would make more sense to attempt to deny the claim.

 

[Captante]

peel furniture?
explain?

Never owned a piece of cheapish "pleather" furniture?

Since a pic truly IS worth 1000 words!

 

[pmv]

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/reviews/2-year-accidental-geek-squad-replacement/6418939

looks like the extended warranty is 15% of the item's regular price.
ie: doesnt go down if the item is on sale

knowledgeable people know extended warranties are a rip off.
someone explain the 4.8 stars this gets?!

Maybe the only people who bothered to rate it are the few who needed to claim on it, and having done so, found it worked out for them, i.e. a self-selected-sample effect.

The main reason why extended warranties are a rip-off is that it's extremely rare you'd ever need to, and be able to, claim on one. Either you can rely on your default legal rights for the item to be fit for use, or the thing won't go wrong till its long out of extended-warranty, or the fault would be cheaper to just pay to fix than the cost of the warranty.

Presumably all those who paid for the warranty but never claimed on it, didn't bother to leave a review for it.

 

[pmv]

Never owned a piece of cheapish "pleather" furniture?

Since a pic truly IS worth 1000 words!

Dunno about furniture, but I have had a few over-ear headphones with ear-cushions that have gone that way!

 

[Captante]

Presumably all those who paid for the warranty but never claimed on it, didn't bother to leave a review for it

Ahhh yes ... the old Achilles-heel of the online review!

Have to always factor in that 99.999% of legit satisfied customers are off happily using their stuff not writing reviews of warranty-service.

 

[ultimatebob]

Never owned a piece of cheapish "pleather" furniture?

Since a pic truly IS worth 1000 words!

Yup... that's why I spent the extra $500 on a genuine leather couch vs a "bonded leather" one.

I have a 20 year old vinyl office chair from Staples that thankfully never did that, though.

 

[Brainonska511]

Never owned a piece of cheapish "pleather" furniture?

Since a pic truly IS worth 1000 words!

Haha, I had this thing happen to a Staples office chair I had a few years ago; started about 4 years into it's use. Granted, I got the chair for $50 when I was a grad student, so it was more of an annoyance than anything else.

 

[Captante]

Haha, I had this thing happen to a Staples office chair I had a few years ago; started about 4 years into it's use. Granted, I got the chair for $50 when I was a grad student, so it was more of an annoyance than anything else.

Hence the FIVE year service plan lol!

Would have run you $5.99 on a $50 chair and they would have given you a new one or your money back... hard to go wrong.

 

[Brainonska511]

Hence the FIVE year service plan lol!

Would have run you $5.99 on a $50 chair and they would have given you a new one or your money back... hard to go wrong.

Eh. It wasn't the most comfortable chair - bought it when I was on a much stricter budget, and long term would want something better. I continued to use it in it's peeling condition for 2 more years, then tossed it in the trash when I moved out of an apartment.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Because you get 25 BB points / review lol

 

[BoomerD]

My Best Buy Geek Squad extended warranty was so awesome that the item never broke down!

 

[Captante]

Because you get 25 BB points / review lol

You get the same 25 points for a negative review or even a review of a product you end up returning as you do for a positive one so not really relevant.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Most people dont get the extended warranty.
If you don't pay for the warranty, then you don't have the warranty, so you don't review it.

Otherwise, 90% of the reviews would be "i did not get this warranty because it is a bad value for the money since the product is not likely to be defective and need RMA after the original manufacturer warranty period"

 

[Chapbass]

I'm not sure if this is still their policy, and its a big YMMV, but when I worked there (mid to late 2000's), there was a clause that was basically "if its beyond repair we will replace it for a like model". Now, this worked in two directions. If you had a basic run of the mill laptop (lets say dual core and 4gb of memory, 15" screen, at the time) and 2 years had passed, you'd get a machine with similar specs (not similar price to what you paid, which is what most people wanted).

HOWEVER, if you had something unique / rare about the thing you bought and they *didn't have* something with similar specs, they would refund your money. *The amount you paid, not the equivalent value*.

This worked in my favor two times. I had a 24" monitor that had a TV Tuner card and a bunch of inputs (RCA, coax, etc). I bought it used from a friend for like $200, and some board went out on it like a year later. I sent it to service and they deemed it needed to be replaced, so I got $600 in bby store credit.

The other time was I had a high end 13" sony vaio laptop with a ton of rare features (switchable graphics, 3g LTE modem, bluetooth, all rare at the time). It had a cracked screen about 2.5 years into it (a total accident, my ditz of a girlfriend at the time put it on the ground to clean the table and promptly stepped on it). Sent it to service, got a cool $2300 in store credit.

5 stars from me .