750 bucks for a VCR? Damn!! At that price, that sucker should vacuum your floor and wash your car.

I would recommend to everyone that I met, NOT to buy the extended warranty from Best Buy. I bought a TV/VCR combo demo model (last one in stock) and since they gave me a good deal on it I went ahead and bought the extended warranty because the price of the TV/VCR and warranty was still cheaper than the listed price. Since then I have taken it in for work 3 times for the same problem.

I understand that demo models take a lot of punishment and that's not my beef. My beef with the warranty is that every time that I had to take it in it was a very painful experience and the service that I received was extremely poor. I usually had to wait in line for about 45 minutes to 1 hour just to talk to a service guy and leave it with him. My TV/VCR is broken again now and the service people did not even fix the problem that I took it in for this last time.

If Best Buy wants to sell these damn things they should hire more service staff as well as more qualified technicians so that customers do not have to grow old waiting in line to drop off a defective product for repair and actually have their product repaired right the 1st time in for service.

The extended warranty IMO is worthless and I will never buy another one.

Gosh, where should I start.
RH, I went to work for Best Buy back in 1985. Store #13. You wouldn't even recognize the stores back then.
If you think they pressure you to sell these now, they fired you in a heartbeat if you didn't write at least 6% of total sales.
It became very clear to me, that selling these was more important than anything else you did. After about 4 years, I'd had enough.
I would have quit after a week if we hadn't got paid for it.

In 1995 I went to work for Audio King/Ultimate/Soundtrack.
Same thing.

In these companies defense, there is almost NO profit margin on electronics. Especially the low-end crud that 95% of the people buy. They have to make $ somehow.
That's the rub here folks. Everyone wants to buy stuff that's dirt cheap, but then they expect top notch customer service. Doesn't work both ways.

I'm kind of a A/V snob. I don't buy junk. But I didn't get the ESP on my big screen. 5 years of in-home service. I can't carry that into the store if it breaks. (didn't but it from BB)
The only other things I would consider it on would be a digital camcorder, or something over $1000.

My advice, buy your gear from your local Mom&Pop A/V store. Chances are, you'll get better gear, service, advice, and it doesn't cost that much more. (no, I don't work for one)

The only things I buy extended warranties on are the things I abuse. I have a lawn vacum I abuse the hell out of sucking up sawdust, acorns, rocks, you name it. I've had it for a year now and I expect it'll go anytime. Then I'll march back to Sears and get a new one (or they'll fix it).

Anything I don't expect to abuse regularly I take my chances on.

"I have a lawn vacum I abuse the hell out of sucking up sawdust, acorns, rocks, you name it."

KC Jones: It sounds like you and I are on he same vacume program. If it will fit through the hole, it's fair game. I have a shop vac that I have been doing that with for three years and it is still A-L-I-V-E. It looks like it has been through a war, lost the war but just keeps going.

~Bwana may have "accidentally" run over it with his truck so he can score the new model~ :D

Well, I was looking for some help but got mostly people saying don't buy the things (I am sure my bosses would just love to know i started this thread and the outcome of it). But I wanted honesty and that is what I got. Thanks anyways everyone, I have at least learned a little something.

raiderhader,
I agree with most of the posts here... but if you want to actually SELL these things... I think Dave Lane had the best advice...

Make the customer believe that you ASSUMED that they would want one...or play on their fears... if a customer is dumb enough to fall for it...owell. Darwinism at its finest.

--Kyle

Hader,

Dave Lane did have the best sales technique you are looking for.

Make the customer feel that purchasing the extended warranty is common practice. Make it feel like it's almost required in some cases.

I think these extended warranties are only good for stuff that is too big to bring back into a store, or for car stereo equipment.

I got screwed at Rex TV last year on my 55' inch TV for my room. The goof salesman told me that the Pioneer model I was purchasing wouldn't reduce in price at all. I come back from vacation two weeks later, and I see that the same Pioneer TV I bought was listed at 200 dollars less than I paid. I freaked out, and called the guy, but he said they only had a 10 day policy that you could get the item at the new sale price for. I explained to him that my family spent over 5,000 at that store in the last two years, but he said it didn't matter. That was the last time I shopped at REX.

But I did purchase the 3 year extended warranty with my TV that cleans the TV's jets and the screen whenever I need it. I also had a mishap and cracked my screen, and REX had to cover the labor for the new screen to get replaced. All I had to cover was cost. But in the end, I got the money back that I was screwed out of.

I know people around me who have big screens, and it's literally 200 dollars every time they have to have a repairman come service it.

I also took the service plans out on my car stereo speakers. I crank my speakers, so I figured another 7 dollars isn't bad to replace them if they blow out.

You just have you use common sense with these warranties. I was at Best Buy the other day, and purchased a scanner for my comp, and they tried selling me a service plan on that. I declined.

But, what I recommend doing instead of buying a warranty plan from BB is taking your product back to WalMart even if you didn't buy it there. I have taken back a Ps2 that I bought somewhere else and they replaced it with no question.

You know Frank that's fraud. Doesn't that bother you?

It would bother me if WalMart wasn't able to send the defective product back to Sony and get new a brand new PS2 to put on the shelves for no extra cost.

The end result is it costs Sony not WalMart.

If I would of dealt directly with Sony, I would of had to pay 110 dollar replacement fee because their product stopped working after their BS 30-day warranty.

NEVER buy the Extended Warranty. The ESP is more money for Best Buy or whomever! The salesman makes for "gip" (gross profit) from the ESP than he does for the actual product, and if you buy a high quality brand (Panasonic, Sony, JVC, Technics, etc), you're more likely to get eaten by a shark than have the product fail. Do your research, get a competitive price, buy a quality brand and you'll have no problems. If worse comes to worst, get the best prices and go to Sears. They'll back up their products for longer than a year, and they usually have competitive prices and products. The best advice I have when it comes to electronics (and I have TONS of stuff and never a failure) is to be careful and never impulse shop!

Frank,

My wife is a manager at Wal-Mart, and what you did does cost that particular store money. In the end, though, it's always the individual store that suffers, not Wal-Mart corporate. And of course, it affects my wife's paycheck... :(

Parker,

Then the info my friend who works at WalMart in electronics gave me was wrong.

He told me they just ship the defective PS2 back to Sony and they receive a new one at no cost to WalMart.

They should do it that way. That is how the majority of retail stores operate. They get a defective product, the get an RMA (return merchandise authorization) from the vendor and get it replaced.

In most cases that's true, but often times if they can't prove that it was purchased at their store (and in your case, obviously, they can't) they end up having to eat a "restocking fee" which could be up to 10% of the item's cost...

Bishop, most companies only issue an RMA for a product if you can prove that you bought it. In this case, Wal-Mart didn't, and cannot prove otherwise.