Harvey Norman Warranty Hard Sell

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#563810 2-Jan-2012 17:51

"Since extended warranties are claimed so rarely, the profit margins on them run as high as 40% to 80%, says Marlys Harris, finance editor for Consumer Reports. That can pad a company's bottom line nicely. During 2004, in fact, nearly 100% of Circuit City Stores' and 50% of Best Buy's operating income came from extended warranties, say analysts. Is it any wonder that the big box retailers aggressively push these contracts?"

http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/family-money/extended-warranty-rip-offs-17820/

Wade

2225 posts

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#563823 2-Jan-2012 18:47

jahc: Back when I was young and dumb, I bought a 60" tv with a 5 year extended warranty..

Fortunately, 4 years and 10 months later, it broke down and made the nearly 5 year old decision worthwhile. hehe

No all it meant was you paid for the simplicity of resolve, a few years ago my out of warranty plasma went pop, it took a few hassled phonecalls to both Noel Leemings and Samsung to get the ball rolling and within a two week window i had a brand new replacement delivered to my house at no cost.

It did take me a few days to get traction because i was not willing to pay a non refundable $100 fee for the tv to be collected and checked, but once we got past that Samsung were absolutely brilliant to deal with. They even let me switch the replacement from a 42" 720p plasma to a 40" full HD LCD.

Possibly you paid a premium to simplify this process but if you divide the warranty cost into an hourly rate and work out how much time it actually takes its a no brainer ;)

old3eyes

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#563827 2-Jan-2012 19:21

About 4 years ago I bought a 46" TV from one of the Sony Style sores in Auckland. Knowing how HN and the like push extended warranties I asked the salesman about one. He said that the TVs these days are very reliable that they don't sell them and if I did have a problem outside the 18 month warranty the CGA could be used to claim repairs..

4.5 years later and the TV hasn't missed a beet.

Regards,

Old3eyes

jahc

92 posts

Master Geek

#563831 2-Jan-2012 19:32

Wade:
jahc: Back when I was young and dumb, I bought a 60" tv with a 5 year extended warranty..

Fortunately, 4 years and 10 months later, it broke down and made the nearly 5 year old decision worthwhile. hehe

No all it meant was you paid for the simplicity of resolve, a few years ago my out of warranty plasma went pop, it took a few hassled phonecalls to both Noel Leemings and Samsung to get the ball rolling and within a two week window i had a brand new replacement delivered to my house at no cost.

It did take me a few days to get traction because i was not willing to pay a non refundable $100 fee for the tv to be collected and checked, but once we got past that Samsung were absolutely brilliant to deal with. They even let me switch the replacement from a 42" 720p plasma to a 40" full HD LCD.

Possibly you paid a premium to simplify this process but if you divide the warranty cost into an hourly rate and work out how much time it actually takes its a no brainer ;)

You make a good point about any repair bill being about the same as an extended warranty.

eXDee

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#563847 2-Jan-2012 20:52

jahc:
Wade:
jahc: Back when I was young and dumb, I bought a 60" tv with a 5 year extended warranty..

Fortunately, 4 years and 10 months later, it broke down and made the nearly 5 year old decision worthwhile. hehe

No all it meant was you paid for the simplicity of resolve, a few years ago my out of warranty plasma went pop, it took a few hassled phonecalls to both Noel Leemings and Samsung to get the ball rolling and within a two week window i had a brand new replacement delivered to my house at no cost.

It did take me a few days to get traction because i was not willing to pay a non refundable $100 fee for the tv to be collected and checked, but once we got past that Samsung were absolutely brilliant to deal with. They even let me switch the replacement from a 42" 720p plasma to a 40" full HD LCD.

Possibly you paid a premium to simplify this process but if you divide the warranty cost into an hourly rate and work out how much time it actually takes its a no brainer ;)

You make a good point about any repair bill being about the same as an extended warranty.

Alternatively, a small claims fee is often cheaper than a warranty too, if it gets to that point.

Wade

2225 posts

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#563850 2-Jan-2012 21:00

No I never paid for a repair nor did I have to go through a dispute, the mere discussion of a cga claim was enough for Samsung to resolve the matter at no cost to me.

Aaroona

3193 posts

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#563857 2-Jan-2012 21:25

tigercorp: I've got no problems with a hard sell for anything, but the salesman's tactic was out of order.

My standard line is "I've got the CGA if the product is faulty and contents insurance if I'm faulty".

haha, I like that tag line ;)

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Aaroona

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#563860 2-Jan-2012 21:36

The only warranty I would ever tell someone to get, and push for, is the Dell warranty.

Accidental coverage was the best thing I ever had. They were all manufacturers faults I had, but it was extended for that as well.

So if you accidently run over your laptop or throw it off a building, its covered.

I never had to use mine for accidents, but having that piece of mind that if I did spill a drink through it, it was covered was nice.

Plus, they replaced my laptop 4-5 different times, with different models and just transferred my warranty to each new one (all manufacturers defects).

Recommending a Dell product on the other hand....

gregmcc

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#563866 2-Jan-2012 21:57

I've had a completly different experence with the extended warantee, we got a fridge freezer from NL, with ice maker and water, this damm ice maker has failed at least 4 times, the last time it took them 8 weeks to fix it, in the end I was on the phone every day venting my spleen as to when it would be fixed, the real icing on the cake was when I found out that the repair person they had sent out wasn't even a registered electrician or serivce person, once that happened and I chewed them a new one they sent out a service person from F & P.

Jaxson

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#564528 4-Jan-2012 23:41

mattwnz:
jahc: Back when I was young and dumb, I bought a 60" tv with a 5 year extended warranty..

Fortunately, 4 years and 10 months later, it broke down and made the nearly 5 year old decision worthwhile. hehe

That is great when that happens.

At work we're looking at starting a flagged inspection when a warranty period is coming to a close. Some items (roofs for example) have a 20 year warranty. You don't want to be paying a cent on maintenance during that period only to find it was technically covered by a long forgotten warranty. Anyway, sorry that's off topic a bit.

Brother had an interesting experience recently. Store still had lots of Boxing day sale tickets up in store and sales staff still said that was the current price. I rang store again later to confirm the pricing was correct and got them to hold the product. Brother rang up to pay and when they finally realised that wasn't the current price in the system they said they would still give it to him for this, BUT he'd have to buy an extended warranty on it! Go figure.

Also found out later that the Samsung $100 cash back offer expired in December and this was in January. No one in store knew about that part of the advertising displayed in store either..... Suddenly this deal just got a whole lot more expensive.

mattwnz

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#564537 5-Jan-2012 00:19

Jaxson:
mattwnz:
jahc: Back when I was young and dumb, I bought a 60" tv with a 5 year extended warranty..

Fortunately, 4 years and 10 months later, it broke down and made the nearly 5 year old decision worthwhile. hehe

That is great when that happens.

At work we're looking at starting a flagged inspection when a warranty period is?coming?to a close.? Some items (roofs for example) have a 20 year warranty.? You don't want to be paying a cent on maintenance during that period only to find it was technically covered by a long forgotten warranty.? Anyway, sorry that's off topic a bit.

Brother had an interesting experience recently.? Store still had lots of Boxing day sale tickets up in store and sales staff still said that was the current price.? I rang store again later to confirm?the pricing was correct and got them to hold the product.? Brother rang up to pay and when they finally realised that wasn't the current price in the system they said they would still give it to him for this, BUT?he'd have to buy an extended warranty on it!? Go figure.

Also found out later that the Samsung $100 cash back offer expired in December and this was in January.? No one in store knew about that part of the advertising displayed in store either.....? Suddenly this deal just got a whole lot more expensive.

You will find with roofing warranties, that if they are not cleaned down regularly to remove moss and dirt buildup etc, that the warrenty will be invalid anyway, so you do want to keep the maintenance up.

b0untypure1

1426 posts

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#564587 5-Jan-2012 08:26

Jaxson:
mattwnz:
jahc: Back when I was young and dumb, I bought a 60" tv with a 5 year extended warranty..

Fortunately, 4 years and 10 months later, it broke down and made the nearly 5 year old decision worthwhile. hehe

That is great when that happens.

At work we're looking at starting a flagged inspection when a warranty period is coming to a close. Some items (roofs for example) have a 20 year warranty. You don't want to be paying a cent on maintenance during that period only to find it was technically covered by a long forgotten warranty. Anyway, sorry that's off topic a bit.

Brother had an interesting experience recently. Store still had lots of Boxing day sale tickets up in store and sales staff still said that was the current price. I rang store again later to confirm the pricing was correct and got them to hold the product. Brother rang up to pay and when they finally realised that wasn't the current price in the system they said they would still give it to him for this, BUT he'd have to buy an extended warranty on it! Go figure.

Also found out later that the Samsung $100 cash back offer expired in December and this was in January. No one in store knew about that part of the advertising displayed in store either..... Suddenly this deal just got a whole lot more expensive.

it was on hold though, you could have declined the offer. What shop would not give the option of the warranty. You cannot force someone to take it, unless it free :)

dclegg

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#564610 5-Jan-2012 09:24

I never purchase extended warranties anymore, but I did get one recently, which I think is an interesting tale to tell.

We were shopping in JB HiFi for a stereo clock radio dock for my wife's iPhone. We found the model we wanted, and were happy with the price, so when approached by a sales assistant we simply said "We'll take one of these, thanks". He tried to sell us an extended warranty, but we politely declined. He said "Wait here a minute please". When he came back, he informed he could "generously" give us the extended warranty at no extra cost. I was tempted to say to him to apply the value of the warranty as a discount to the product instead, but at this stage we were ready to simply buy the product and get out of there.

I'd be interested to see what he did for the paperwork on this sale, but I suspect he discounted the product and put that discount towards the full (or partial) cost of the "free" warranty.

b0untypure1

1426 posts

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#564615 5-Jan-2012 09:28

{profit made from alarm clock}
{loss for warranty}
{net profit }

looks good and store still makes money :D

retailslave

8 posts

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#564626 5-Jan-2012 09:41

b0untypure1: {profit made from alarm clock}
{loss for warranty}
{net profit }

looks good and store still makes money :D

That's the one. And why wouldn't you want an extended warranty for free/extremely cheap? Most of the docks would be automatic replacement as well.

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