Why you don’t need an extended warranty

Consumer Reports published a story on why you don’t need an extended warranty which is worth looking at. I don’t know how many times I’ve been to Future Shop or Best Buy and the clueless salesperson tried to sell me an extended warranty. If they were allowed, they would try to sell an extended warranty on blank DVDs.

The Consumer Reports story suggests that you consider an extended warranty if you’re purchasing an Apple computer (because they only have a 90 day warranty). Fair enough.

I’ve purchased 9 Apple computers over the years and have had to repair only one — a laptop.

Recently, the hard disk failed in an 3-year-old iBook that my father owns. It seems to be a hard disk failure and shouldn’t be too expensive to repair. Should he have purchased an extended warranty? No. I don’t think it would have been worth it.

Make sure that every electronics purchase you make is put on a credit card that has an extended warranty plan! A friend of mine told me to do this years ago and it paid off.

I purchased a Sony DVD player that stopped working right after the 1 year warranty was up. Because I purchased the DVD player with a VISA card (that doubled the warranty) I was able to make a claim. VISA paid to have my DVD player fixed.

Check to see if your VISA or MasterCard has an extended warranty program. If it doesn’t then get a card that does.

Posted in News and Technology at 11:30 PM