AhmedSquareTrade wrote:Hi. I'm from SquareTrade and just wanted to quickly answer a couple of questions and highlight key points of our warranties.
If you ever need to contact SquareTrade, feel free to call us at 1.877.Warranty (6am-5pm M-F) or email us via the webform on our site. Of course most of what's in this post is described further at www.squaretrade.com
We have had thousands of reviews of our service. Vast majority good and some not so good. You can review many of them at:
NexTag: http://www.nextag.com/SquareTrade~3300135zzzreviewsz1zmainz17-htm
Epinions: http://www.epinions.com/pr-Online_Stores_Services-SquareTrade_Inc/display_~reviews
You can learn details on our website, but the high level service overview is:
- Most items < $200-300, we'll refund you full item purchase price. Use the money as you see fit.
- Most other items, we'll fix. If it's shippable, we'll handle it in a centralized depot, and we'll give you a pre-paid shipping box to send it in. We give a 5 day service guarantee, i.e., it'll be on its way back to you within 5 days of receipt at depot.
- If it's big (>30 inch TVs, big printers, desktops), it's in-home service.
In all cases, there's no deductible, and we pay for everything. You can always transfer your warranty free of charge. You can also always cancel it (full refund in first 30 days, and pro-rata after that, i.e., if you cancel half-way through the contract, you get half back).
Our warranty prices are based on the following guidelines:
~ 12% of item price for items < $1K
~10% of item price for items >$1K and <$2K
~ 8% of item price for items > $2K.
For that price, you get:
- New items: a 3 Year Date of Purchase warranty (overlaps with mfr wty to some extent).
- Refurbished Items: a 1 year Extension (wty starts after manufacturer or woot warranty ends).
For most new items, you can purchase optional Accidental Damage from Handling coverage to cover drops & spills. For most refurbished items, you can purchase a 2nd year of coverage for 50% of the price of the 1st year.
There are some issues we don't cover:
- We don't cover items that are DoA or have issues in first 60 days. We consider those the manufacturer or retailer responsibility.
- We cover mechanical & electrical failures during normal use - we don't cover Drops & Spills (unless you purchase it as an additional option on new items).
- We don't cover user replaceable parts (e.g., batteries, bulbs on projection TVs). We do cover non-user replaceable parts (e.g., bulbs on LCD TVs or iPod / iPhone batteries).
- We don't cover software issues (you install Vista on your laptop and for some reason it's totally unusable - we won't cover it).
All warranties are further backed by an insurer (Amtrust in our case). That's to protect the consumer in case we go under or don't perform.
You have 30 days to buy a warranty from item purchase date. You can buy it through the Woot link near the item or come to SquareTrade's website and buy it (make sure to put in Woot as the retailer as we'll match it to the receipt).
You never need to keep a copy of the warranty - it's always available online (you can login to SquareTrade and manage everything about your warranty). We do need to verify your receipt to make sure you did buy this item at Woot. You can always fax / scan or email it to us ahead of time and we'll keep it on file for you. Alternatively, just keep it around till you need to make a claim (you don't need it to buy the warranty).
That was all very interesting, and imost of it was quite contrary to what I had previously experienced with "extended warranties," e.g., that they were mostly cams that set out from the get go to make it nearly impossible to receive a claim payout, whereas yours, at least, sounds very much the opposite, i.e., in many ways your warranty sounds superior to the actual coverage included with factory/manufacturer waranties, e.g., you must pay for shipping to return 27" or less TVs for warranty work or replacement (and, there are tons of stories of ppl having to do this 2-3 times in a row when the received a broken item back each time from the manufacturer such that the one way shipping fees became MORE than the item cost originally/would have cost to buy another respiffied outright, plus the latter would have left them watching the TV they bought themselves to replace the 2-4 bum ones if they'd just done so initially instead of sending their broken one in for factory service...and that doesn't even mention the fact that their repeated unsuccessful factory service attempts left them without a TV for 4-8 wks EACH TIME they sent it back, etc.!
At any rate, you really are getting a lot of good feedback from all of the places I've seen you discussed, so keep up the great work, and good luck! If you do keep it up, and stay afloat, you may very well change the minds of many ppl who thought about "extended warranties" the way I *used to*, before you came along...i.e., you may just redefine the industry, namely what the consumers conceptualize when they think of "extended warranties." And, if, or until, you do, you will be alone for the time it takes the rest of the industry to catch on and begin to HAVE to change their old ways to match your "customer centric" approach (or they will go out of business when ppl begin to realize that you are out there and that they can have your coverage instead...i.e., as YOU being to [re]educate consumers, etc.
Before I sign off, tho, I have a few questions for you:
1) *IF* I send the same item back for THE SAME PROBLEM more than once or twice, if the exact same problem occurs again, even if it's AFTER the warranty period expires, will you help (i.e., what provisions do your policies have in the way of lemons, if the item had been repaired by the factory one or more times during their coverage period, and the exact same thing happens again when your coverage is in force, etc.)?
2) If Woot or the factory included a 90 day warranty (in which one way shipping AND MUCH LONGER TURNAROUND TIMES would knowingly be incurred by the consumer), is there any reason for the consumer to just wait a few more weeks until the 90 days was up, i.e., to both avoid the shipping costs, as well as assure the much faster turn-around time you offer?
3) If you pay for a new item or replace it with a new or different comparable product, does your warranty continue for the rest of the period we origianlly paid you for, would it immediately terminate (if so, would I get a prorated refund for the period remaining in the period we paid for such that even your new replacement of full-cost payout allowing us to buy a comparable item such that our original investment would STILL be protected for at least the period we paid for it to be protected, etc.?
4) Can I renew my warranty for any option that was for a greater duration than I originally chose when I originally purchased the item and your minimum warranty option (i.e., as long as I did so before my shorter duration option expires?
5) If/when you decide to pay for a replacement (i.e., full payout), would you deduct any fees from the total replacement check amount for any prior repair costs which you may have incurred prior to your deciding to make a total payout on our item, e.g., say we paid $300 for our respiffied TV, and say you had serviced it 1 one or more times before you decided to pay us for a new or total replacement, well...that could, in a worst case scenario, mean that the TV we bought 6 months ago only worked a total of 3 weeks, and that if/when you deduct feels and prior repair costs from your total payout check, then we will be out a half year of the use of our money AS WELL AS possibly only getting 1/3 to 1/2 of the amount we paid for the TV *if* you deduct any fees or costs you may have incurred to ship and repair the item previously, etc.)?
5) What's your take on power surge damage to media entertainment type electronics, PCs, etc., e.g., what if we weren't using a surge protector when our roof-top antenna or sat dish got hit by lightning and fried the equipment that we bought your coverage for, or say we had some coverage that came with a cheap surge protector we got when we got the TV --whether or not we purchased coverage from you for the surge protector/entire home entertainment equipment as a system, etc.-- such that when we made our claim with you, we had no way of knowing if, when, or to what extent any claim with the surge protector maker would materialize, etc., ...what's your policy on such things?
6) IF we should disagree with your call/determination, handling, etc., of our claim's final outcome, what, if any, recourse do we have at that point, e.g., can we seek help from a third party, arbitrator, the actual insurance company that insures your claims, etc.?
Again, thanks for the previous posts/answers/great info, thanks in advance for mine, keep up the great work, and GOOD LUCK!
MS
60 mi due SSW of The Grand Canyon
