ufcrusher
10-20-2005, 02:43 PM
Throughout the years, many of us on the site have given our opinions on the benefit (or waste) of purchasing extended service warranties on certain products. I have offered a pretty constant response that it all depends on the item and what the warranty covers. One of my favorite examples was the warranties that included cleaning and aligning lasers on dvd players, cd players, laser discs, etc. My reasoning was that to pay for these cleanings would have run about $100 per service. Given that most extended warranties that inlcude this run about $100 and also cover breakage...its a no brainer.
i would always give examples from when I worked at the Goodguys and even my owne personal experience with my first DVD player which was replaced under warranty even after being properly maintained and cleaned.
Earlier in this year, my dvd carousel (5 disc changer) started acting up. It wasnt properly registering discs, making tons of noise while changing, and just being a pain in the arse. The first time they cleaned the laser, aligned the laser, and supposedly tightened up the mechanism. The second time they supposedly replaced the entire changer mechansim and laser. (Not that I believe that) Since it was still not working, I brought it in for the third time in several months. Under the terms of the extended warranty, 3 times in the same year entitled me to a new replacement of equal or higher value. I brought it in on Sept 16th (approx).
On Sept 21st, I left for Florida.......apparently on that same day, they left a message on my home phone saying that my unit was authorized for replacement and for me to come into the store. They left a second message at the beginning of October, which I deleted thinking it was unimportant. When I arrived back from Florida and then San Fran, it was already October 11th. I called the store where I had brought it in to see if I could actually just go to my local store. (When I brought it in, they were doing construction on my local store so I had to go to one 10 miles away.) During the phone conversation, I found out that my local store was closed down forever....and that the store where I had brought it into was one of two locations left open in SD region. It took me until Friday to be able to make it up to the store.
When I got there, the MCA (Merchandise Control Associate) had no clue what I was talking about. After 40 minutes and speaking to a person claiming to be a manager, I discovered that as of October 1st, the Goodguys had ceased to be a company. The few locations that were still open were being run by a liquidator and had no association with the Goodguys other than the fact they had bought off all of the product. They were no longer doing any warranty work, warranty exchanges, or anything else. In fact, they werent even accepting returns or exchanges. I was told that I had to call GE which backed the warranty.
When I tried to reach GE, I was told to call back on Monday. THe associate I spoke to was complete aware of the situation but was in the wrong department to handle my issue. When I called back on Monday, I got some fvcking idiot who didnt know her head from a pile of snake scat. Not only was she unaware of the fact that GE and Goodguys were no longer affiliated but she didnt even understand that San Diego county was extremely large and that just because 2 places were both official San Diego didnt mean they were within easy reach of each other. The woman lied about her manager status (claimed that she was a manager when I asked to speak with her manager...which I later found out wasnt true.) Then she refused to even answer any of my questions, proceeded to lie to me about the warranty, and generally just was a biatch.
To make a long store short, the woman claimed that I would get a call within 24hrs with a dollar amount for the exchange. Since I didnt believe her, I called back later on that day (waiting another 40+ minutes on the phone) and determined that she was lying and completely wrong. The new person answered all my questions and said it would take probably 24-48hrs before I heard back.
Three days later, I still hadnt heard anything so I called back in. 20 minutes into being on hold, my call waiting rang and it was the 2nd woman. She told me that they had authorized to pay me $250 for my $400 dvd player. Uh, NO! When I asked if they guy realized that it was a Cinema series dvd player, not the standard level...she said well he just has a list of the features. At this point I asked how I dispute their findings, only to be told that it was difficult to do, especially since the company no longer existed. I was told to call a particular 1800 number to speak with Consumer relations to see what they can do.
So....now I have to wait another 2 days before I find out how they appraised my unit. To make matters worse, I know that Toshiba stopped making the level of player I had (comprable to ES)....stopped even making any carousels...AND had been dropped by Goodguys 2 years prior to them going under. No wonder that guy had no idea what he was appraising when he low balled the hell out of it.
Unfortunately I am probably going to have to fight with them to get what I am owed.
i would always give examples from when I worked at the Goodguys and even my owne personal experience with my first DVD player which was replaced under warranty even after being properly maintained and cleaned.
Earlier in this year, my dvd carousel (5 disc changer) started acting up. It wasnt properly registering discs, making tons of noise while changing, and just being a pain in the arse. The first time they cleaned the laser, aligned the laser, and supposedly tightened up the mechanism. The second time they supposedly replaced the entire changer mechansim and laser. (Not that I believe that) Since it was still not working, I brought it in for the third time in several months. Under the terms of the extended warranty, 3 times in the same year entitled me to a new replacement of equal or higher value. I brought it in on Sept 16th (approx).
On Sept 21st, I left for Florida.......apparently on that same day, they left a message on my home phone saying that my unit was authorized for replacement and for me to come into the store. They left a second message at the beginning of October, which I deleted thinking it was unimportant. When I arrived back from Florida and then San Fran, it was already October 11th. I called the store where I had brought it in to see if I could actually just go to my local store. (When I brought it in, they were doing construction on my local store so I had to go to one 10 miles away.) During the phone conversation, I found out that my local store was closed down forever....and that the store where I had brought it into was one of two locations left open in SD region. It took me until Friday to be able to make it up to the store.
When I got there, the MCA (Merchandise Control Associate) had no clue what I was talking about. After 40 minutes and speaking to a person claiming to be a manager, I discovered that as of October 1st, the Goodguys had ceased to be a company. The few locations that were still open were being run by a liquidator and had no association with the Goodguys other than the fact they had bought off all of the product. They were no longer doing any warranty work, warranty exchanges, or anything else. In fact, they werent even accepting returns or exchanges. I was told that I had to call GE which backed the warranty.
When I tried to reach GE, I was told to call back on Monday. THe associate I spoke to was complete aware of the situation but was in the wrong department to handle my issue. When I called back on Monday, I got some fvcking idiot who didnt know her head from a pile of snake scat. Not only was she unaware of the fact that GE and Goodguys were no longer affiliated but she didnt even understand that San Diego county was extremely large and that just because 2 places were both official San Diego didnt mean they were within easy reach of each other. The woman lied about her manager status (claimed that she was a manager when I asked to speak with her manager...which I later found out wasnt true.) Then she refused to even answer any of my questions, proceeded to lie to me about the warranty, and generally just was a biatch.
To make a long store short, the woman claimed that I would get a call within 24hrs with a dollar amount for the exchange. Since I didnt believe her, I called back later on that day (waiting another 40+ minutes on the phone) and determined that she was lying and completely wrong. The new person answered all my questions and said it would take probably 24-48hrs before I heard back.
Three days later, I still hadnt heard anything so I called back in. 20 minutes into being on hold, my call waiting rang and it was the 2nd woman. She told me that they had authorized to pay me $250 for my $400 dvd player. Uh, NO! When I asked if they guy realized that it was a Cinema series dvd player, not the standard level...she said well he just has a list of the features. At this point I asked how I dispute their findings, only to be told that it was difficult to do, especially since the company no longer existed. I was told to call a particular 1800 number to speak with Consumer relations to see what they can do.
So....now I have to wait another 2 days before I find out how they appraised my unit. To make matters worse, I know that Toshiba stopped making the level of player I had (comprable to ES)....stopped even making any carousels...AND had been dropped by Goodguys 2 years prior to them going under. No wonder that guy had no idea what he was appraising when he low balled the hell out of it.
Unfortunately I am probably going to have to fight with them to get what I am owed.