The Evils Of Extended Service Warranties.

I would like to spend a few momnets today to talk about Extended Service Warranties and their evils.

I think my hatred for the warranties developed when I was shopping for a laptop and was looking at ones put out by a certain company who shall remain nameless but whose name rhymes with swell 😉 😛 . Anyway I picked a llower end model since the laptop was just going to be used on the net. Its price witout any warranites was about 600 dollars. Not too bad I thought. Then came the warranties. 😱 There was a basic 3 year onsite repair warranty. There was a warranty to protect against accidents like lightning or dropping the item. There was a warranty to protect the hard drive and the data on it. There was a warranty to receive North American telephone support so you dont have to talk to anyone from India.This one is one of my favorites offer support so horrible that you can charge people more to get support that deos not suck so bad :sowrong:

There was a warranty to protect you against spyware and vriuses. There was even a warranty ffering you carbon offsets to help the enviroment. Well just out of curiosty I added up all the warranties I could have bought for this 600 dollar laptop and to my dismay it was about 600 dollars. Let me repeat that

600 dollars!

That was the exact cost of the laptop itself. I mean to me the better warranty would just be to by another laptop in case the original one broke. 😛 It was at that moment the evils of Extended Service Warranties hit me.

I mean think about it in a way they are like life insurance. The only way you win with life insurance is if you die. Similarly the only way you win with Extended Service Warranties is if the product you just bought breaks down in some way. The irony there is the salesman has just finished telling you the item you just bought is the best ever made and is now telling you it might suddenly break down so you need all the warranties. :disgust:

They seem to offer these warranties for everything little item. Like flash cards or external gard drives as well. I can imagine a day when I will by some paper for my inkjet printer and the sales people at the store will offer me an extended service warranty for that. Conversations like the one below are not far behind.

Clerk: Would like a extended service warranty for this item sir

Customer: Its a pencil.

Clerk: I know sir. We have 1, 3, and 5 year warranties on that. The 5 year is your best value.

Customer: Its a damn pencil what the heck can go wrong with it.

Clerk: All sorts of things sir. The tip could break.

Customer: Ummm cant I just resharpen it.

Clerk : I suppose you could sir if you wanted to go through all that trouble. Or you can use our resharpening service which is covered by your warranty. Just mail it in and we will sharpen it for you and you will get your pencil back in 2-4 weeks.

Customer: I think I am happier without the warranty.

Clerk: Did I mention the warranty covers you if you like to bite your pencil.

Customer: Bye I am going now to try to make my own pencil out of a lump of coal.

So what can we do. I say we stop buying warranties or ween ourselves off them and buy only those that actually make sense. Perhaps in this way companies will quit trying to suck more money out of the average consumers pocketbook. The widdle atom :atom: