AhmedSquareTrade wrote:Ahmed from SquareTrade here.

Here is what has happened. In response to the financial crisis that is going on all around us, insurers have gotten far more conservative about how much they are charging as well as to bolster their balance sheets. They don't want to go belly-up like AIG.

That's translated into higher costs for us. We have absorbed some of these costs and maintained our very fair prices that are very significantly below other retailers.

However one of the things we have done is move away from a strict 12% relationship to an approximate 12% relationship; e.g., the entire $75-99 price band is priced at $12.99; the entire $175-199 price band is priced at $24.99, the $250-299 band is at $34.99 etc.; the $800-899 band is at $99.99.

Because of insurer pricing, we were more able to absorb the higher price band costs and keep those at the 12% or lower mark, and less able to absorb the lower price bands (e.g., $75-99).

In general, we maintained the spirit of our pricing model, which is affordable, fair and ~40% lower than big box retailers, and in the 12% range.

This new pricing didn't translate to the widget for some technical reasons.. and that's why the pricing differential.

Hopefully that clarifies. And thanks for being persistent.

Thanks for the followup. Appreciate it.

Just so ya know, in a few different places on the squaretrade website, it still says "12%", rather than having an * and a footnote that it may vary. Just mentioning it so that might avoid other complaints from other people ;)

<--- off to go purchase warranty now that he knows what the deal is.

Hulyen wrote:Any chance you can have them post the reply here? I (as well as others, I'm sure) would also be interested in hearing the answers to these questions.

Does anyone have any more information regarding this?

So I just picked one of these up, but it mentions sending them my receipt to keep on file in case I ever need to submit a claim. What DOES A woot receipt look like? Anyone know what we would send ST as a receipt from woot??

Thanks!

Hi. Ahmed from SquareTrade here.

I have done this myself (a SquareTrade warranty on a Woot product). You just go to "Your Account" on the Woot top navigation and you can see the list of your Woot purchases. Just print it out and then go to your SquareTrade account by clicking on My Warranties on squaretrade.com

You have to use the specialized SquareTrade fax cover sheet, so we associate the receipt with the correct warranty.

Snapster wrote:I think in common terms they are the extended warranty service provider. I'm not sure how regulatory the requirement is but they obtain underwriting/backing by presenting a portfolio of contracts that is backed by the insurance company. They are the only facing you would address, unless somehow they weren't around and then you have some assurance the backing insurer would be required to hire another service company to address your contract. By my understanding it's a good thing. However, this is in no way intended to be a losing proposition for them or ultimately their insurer, so I'm sure there's still a good amount of "by the book" approval involved when servicing claims. It's unlikely they are just renegade approving things outside the scope of coverage.

their marketing blurb is:

"All our warranties are underwritten by Amtrust Inc., an A- rated insurer with $1 Billion+ in assets. We work with over 10,000 sellers who refer their buyers to SquareTrade for their warranty needs. We pay out thousands of claims each month and are consistently rated 5-stars for our consumer-centric service. "

I believe they became known as a dispute resolution company (I remember seeing their logo on eBay as a default contracted or recommended arbitrator) and then evolved to this.

AMTrust is based out of Northern Chicago Suburb, there good. My only precautionary advice is to make damn sure they warranty "Refurbished" items. Some warrant comanpies don't.

Please post the answers to all of these questions...I also want to know the answer.

AhmedSquareTrade wrote:Hi. Ahmed from SquareTrade here. Thanks for your kind words.

Your questions are extremely detailed and I want to make sure you get the right and complete answer so let me refer you to our Customer Experience Manager - Kord Hamilton. You can reach him at kordhelps (at) squaretrade (dot) com. Just refer him to this board and the post and I'm sure he'll help answer them or track down the information you need.

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).

Ahmad< The Netbook this blog is about sells for $259.99 or say $260. 12% is $28.60. When I go to your web site it comes up as $49.99. Why the difference? Also do I have 30 days or 90 days to sign up for your warranty (which I will buy.)
Thankss, Norm

johnwarren wrote:Please post the answers to all of these questions...I also want to know the answer.

Ditto. Those questions might have been extremely detailed, as Ahmed put it, but I want to hear the answer to each one of them as well. Post it here for all of us to look at. NO SCURVY EMAILING!

How do this work in regard to shipping costs? I just bought this for my 24" famous maker LCD, and I want to know if I will have to pay shipping if/when I need to get it repaired?

Thanks!

YouCantWootThis wrote:How do this work in regard to shipping costs? I just bought this for my 24" famous maker LCD, and I want to know if I will have to pay shipping if/when I need to get it repaired?

Thanks!

From here:
http://www.squaretrade.com/cnt/htm/learnMore/guarantee.html

Looks like it's all pre-paid by Squaretrade. Awesome!

AhmedSquareTrade wrote:Hi. Ahmed from SquareTrade here. Thanks for your kind words.

Your questions are extremely detailed and I want to make sure you get the right and complete answer so let me refer you to our Customer Experience Manager - Kord Hamilton. You can reach him at kordhelps (at) squaretrade (dot) com. Just refer him to this board and the post and I'm sure he'll help answer them or track down the information you need.

Did your customer service rep ever answer these questions? If so, could you please post them here?

bloksoccer wrote:Did your customer service rep ever answer these questions? If so, could you please post them here?

I'd like to read them, too.

ALSO, new question: The description of the service mentions that a second, additional 1-year extension is available on some refurb items -- how can I find out
if that's available on any given, specific item?

I know this old and late. I did a great comparison of Squaretrade and other major players. As a previous employee of the other major player I was able to detail some inside knowledge and do further comparisons. You can check it out at blog.onlifesupport.com

amandashult wrote:Wondering if they consider email fax in mailing the specialized fax cover sheet.

Probably, but you may want to contact them first. They are extremely helpful and will get everything working properly.

When I had trouble e-mailing my receipt (their system wouldn't accept), they let me e-mail a picture of the receipt.

Uh. Isn't anyone curious why the add (Square Trade) states that they offer a "5 day guarantee"? Isn't that just a little short?

jmdavey wrote:Uh. Isn't anyone curious why the add (Square Trade) states that they offer a "5 day guarantee"? Isn't that just a little short?

From what it seems, most of the time they won't repair the product and instead just give you the money back. And it is 5 business days after they receive it and start returning it to you.

diletante wrote: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 refurb 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 refurb 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

These are excellent questions and I see no answers to them after months of posts. Clearly diletante has experience with ext warranties and while I couldn't have posed the questions as well as he did, I wonder about all of the above as I weigh the decision to purchase my first SQ policy. Please respond and post answers if available.

In general, I have nothing but good to report about Square Trade. The price is right and they do what they say. But last year I bought Pandigital Novels twice and they wouldn't let me buy warranties for them. As you may know, Novels are the ereaders that Velocity Cruz was designed after. So I can't understand why they would write warranties for Cruz when they won't for Novels.

diletante wrote:That was all very interesting, and imost of it was quite contrary to what I had previously experienced with "extended warranties,"

(mod: big quote)

@AhmedSquareTrade - where are the answers to these questions? I was all ready to use SquareTrade on a refurb laptop purchase until I got through this thread and saw that SquareTrade never answered these well-thought questions. Please reply to these questions. Thank you.

You said 12% of item price for items < $1K
So why does it cost $37.99 to cover a $250 item, why the extra $7.99?

AhmedSquareTrade wrote:Hi. I'm from SquareTrade and just wanted to quickly answer a couple of questions and highlight key points of our warranties.

pvkid wrote:You said 12% of item price for items < $1K
So why does it cost $37.99 to cover a $250 item, why the extra $7.99?

If you look at this post from 2008, they don't follow a strict 12%. Keep in mind his post was several years ago.

Keep in mind, you can always one of the SquareTrade promo codes. They come quite frequently (most of the time they give a 30% off up to $30 coupon every month or two). Even if you don't want to wait, you can still probably find a 20% off one at retailmennot.com.

This sounds great if i can actually buy it.
There was no purchase option on the Velocity Android tablet and I've not received any information on how to add it on.
So its all a bunch of wasted web site space to me so far.

I live in NYC. I love my gadgets and take very good care and precautions with them. Breakage and submergence are at a minimum (knock!knock!*wood). My biggest concern is theft and after reading ST website this is a situation they do not cover. Sadly I have an idea behind this decision. Will ST have theft coverage in the future? Thanks.

mschmerber wrote:This sounds great if i can actually buy it.
There was no purchase option on the Velocity Android tablet and I've not received any information on how to add it on.
So its all a bunch of wasted web site space to me so far.

You can go to their website directly and purchase. The link on the website is just an advertisement for it.

[edit] Disregard.

Yes I like that we will be able to add extended warranties within a 30 day time period. Although if i was purchasing a refurbished higher priced new or refurbished flat or computer I would purchase it at the same time. Of course depending on the price, item, new or refurbished there would be times that I wouldn't purchase but I still like having the option after all it is my money and investment and if I want an extented warranty then I should be able to have an option to purchase it.

AhmedSquareTrade wrote:Hi. This is SquareTrade again.

Just for the record, SquareTrade is NOT an eBay company. We are not affiliated with eBay in any way. We do work with many eBay sellers but as a 3rd party service provider who independently works with these sellers.

I don't doubt that there may be many other valid reasons to not buy warranties or to not buy SquareTrade warranties in particular.

Glad you replied and got this fact out. While I have no doubt there are great people and companies selling on Ebay, I absolutely will have nothing to do with that company or any offshoots, example, paypal.

Here's an update on Square Trade pricing that is recent. I bought a refurbished Galaxy S2 Tab 7.0 a couple weeks ago on Woot for $169.99 and the Square Trade folks wanted $75.00 for the extended warranty of one year. I can buy a new one for $250 so this seems way overpriced.

These Square Trade Comments are old... any updates? How do you add the warranty? I already clicked the "stupidly large button" to complete the purchase of the refurbished 17" MacBook Pro.

ThunderThighs wrote:On Features tab on the Sale page, you'll see a square with the SquareTrade warranty pricing. Click on that and it will take you to SquareTrade with all the info needed to get you started.

I clicked on the ST button and read through all of the ins and outs, but I don't see a means of actually signing up for the warranty.

maraich wrote:I clicked on the ST button and read through all of the ins and outs, but I don't see a means of actually signing up for the warranty.

When you first click the ST button, there's a popup that shows - and a green button that says "BUY NOW" - click that.

AhmedSquareTrade wrote:Hi. Ahmed from SquareTrade here.

I have done this myself (a SquareTrade warranty on a Woot product). You just go to "Your Account" on the Woot top navigation and you can see the list of your Woot purchases. Just print it out and then go to your SquareTrade account by clicking on My Warranties on squaretrade.com

You have to use the specialized SquareTrade fax cover sheet, so we associate the receipt with the correct warranty.

Just purchased a ST warranty for a refurb laptop. Instructions on website are clear, so I sent my "woot receipt" both as fwd email and as a pdf attachment, but no feedback after 8 hours. Nice lady on the phone says don't know what went wrong, and asks me to fax a copy directly to her to fix this. Now, that's nice; no run-around and direct resolution. Hope it stays like this if/when I need to file a claim.

The extended warrantee for electric

bicycles is not accepted at square trade

so why do you offer it?

Outstanding idea! Patent it before someone else does. Seriously.

fjordless wrote:You should start a restaurant featuring waitresses with thick glasses and Internet savvy and call it Wooters.

Oh, and decorate it with Roombas, monkeys, and bags of crap.

problem with front USB port the blue plastic inside breaks easily

I would like to add the extended warranty to my purchase today but not sure how to add. I don't see where this is included when I'm ready to purchase. Please help