this is why you don't get extended warranties at Best Buy

tunis5000 · Post by **tunis5000** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:27 pm

I bought a Canon digicam back in April '08 and a few weeks ago the LCD died, it's still under warranty and I paid $50 for a 4 yr extended, so no worries right? Well they say they have to send it to their repair depot (usually I just get a replacement?) and they tell me it costs $350 to repair (a $150 camera mind you, WTF?!?!)

They say there is corrosion on the board and that's deemed water damage so it's not covered under warranty. I didn't get this thing wet, so I dunno WTF. I'm at least demanding the extended warranty money back or I'm not buying shit from them again.

So now I have to decide if I want to spend the money on a better camera and risk the same crap happening again or just get a cheaper one and it becomes disposable...

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 11:30 pm

I bought an Equalizer there once & it broke. It was out of manufacture & they didn't have a similar one anymore, so they sent it for repair. Got it back & it worked for a day. Sent it back. Got it back & it worked for a few days. Sent it back again. Got it back. Worked for maybe a week. Finally sent it in last time & the sent it back saying it was water damaged. I checked the circuit board & saw absolutely no evidence of water damage & can't imagine how it could have been anyhow since it was in my dash board. IMO, the just couldn't fix it or it was costing to much to do so.

renovation · Post by **renovation** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 12:32 am

i got screwed by them years ago to .little diffrent do i bought a computer and it had problems. they had me deal with hp and hp replaced the unit. came to find out the ex warrienty was voided becouse hp exchanged the unit so i was screwed on any use of the warrienty. they said it covered the orginal unit but not the replacement that hp covered under the first year factory warrienty.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:21 am

Extended warranties are not worth it. If Best Buy won't honor it, it should still be under the manufacturer's warranty since you bought it less than a year ago.

CaterpillarAssassin · Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:25 am

sounds fishy. Especially the equalizer story. I've had a few things break under extended warranty and if they don't have the exact model, they always give me a store credit for original purchase price or the amount for a comparable product with similar specs. It is VERY store dependant and if the customer service people want to help. It also has alot to do with how you approach them about it. Usually acting stupid works for me. Good luck to you.

My theory on extended warranties is this: if it's over $500 then I will buy one. Or in the case of my iPhone, buying the 2yr extended is worthless. Chances are if it breaks after a year I will want a new phone anyways. That and the $75 price of the warranty is almost half the cost of a new phone.

Recent success story with best buy warranty is with a 42" LCD tv I bout a few years ago. Backlight flickered once in a while so called th to come fix it. The service company said they thought it was a certain part and said it cost too much to fix. Best buy replaced the tv and I wound up grtting a 50" plasma for the coat of a new warranty. Best part is they told me I have to dispose of the old one. Well, it still works alright (except for a minor flicker every week or less). So now I have a basically free big tv for my office. I'm sure I got very lucky.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:27 pm

In my case, they stopped carrying higher end equalizers, so I was stuck with the repair option. I guess they thought I was messing with them after so many returns, but it really was messed up.

I have heard good stories too, but the more I think about it, I would just rather buy a higher quality product to start with. Heck, some brands even offer their own extended warranty online that is even cheaper than the retail stores.

tunis5000 · Post by **tunis5000** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:09 pm

well I went in yesterday and the person behind the counter couldn't do anything so I asked to speak to a manager, after a bit of talking he agreed to giving me a new warranty, (I guess they don't have those 4 yr service plans anymore, what they do now is have a 2 yr replacement plan which is much better) on a new camera. He also discounted it $60 for me so in the end I'm happy with how it turned out. got a Canon PowerShot A2000 IS. They'll work with you if they want to keep your business...

oh and btw I figured out what happened to the camera. my wife took it into a hot tub with her friends while they were drinking. she didn't think anything would happen to it? uh steam and bubbling water? sigh...

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:45 pm

Well yeah, I can understand being rejected after it being near a hot tub.

sheerdark · Post by **sheerdark** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:12 pm

How hard did you have to press to get that information out of her? Shouldn't she have put two and two together?

I was married once and it was amazing how many things went wrong and no one was to blame. It was good practice for when the kid came along, I guess.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:59 am

It's funny, I must be the only person I know who the only things that go bad for me are the ones that other people do. Something will work for years for me & the day I let someone else use it, it breaks catastrophically. Really, it's happen more times than I could count.

tunis5000 · Post by **tunis5000** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:34 am

all I did was start looking thru the pics on the mem card and I "figured" it out haha. I dunno, she said she thought it was water resistant for some reason...

sheerdark · Post by **sheerdark** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:21 pm

Gotta love the women. Good luck to you!