Reality Check 1: Warranties

raff — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:55:43 +0000

This is the start of my “Reality Check” series, where I poke a little fun at the inconsistencies that grease the wheels of everyday life. For our first little example, I recently purchased a small microphone for my ipod touch on eBay. Being that I purchased the microphone from a “power seller” (read: “robot”), I immediately got an email from a company, BuyShield, whose sole purpose, it seems, is to try to get unsuspecting consumers to purchase warranties for products they just purchased. I’ll get to why everyone should avoid these warranties shortly, but for now just be satisfied at the following quote I received:

So – I can pay $5.95 to get a warranty for a product I paid $4.75 for. Additionally, if you go to the main page of BuyShield, you will be greeted with a statistic:

Laptops have a failure rate of 22% and a repair rate of 43% within the first 3 years of ownership.

While I won’t question that statistic, it doesn’t jive with the fact that SquareTrade offers a 3-year warranty that is less than 22% of the cost of the laptop computer. So there’s something amiss.

Don’t buy third-party electronics warranties. It can only end up in pain.

Paul Raff » reality check

Reality Check 1: Warranties