I have to add to this thread because this is one of my biggest pet peeves.
I’ve bought some equipment from Good Guys a couple of times and each time they really tried pushing the extended warranty thing on me. The first time the salesguy started his spiel and I said I wasn’t interested and he gave me a hard time because I didn’t want to hear it. Then he went ahead and went over the entire warranty service and the prices, again I had to tell him I wasn’t interested. He then treated me like I was some sort of bum. I felt like walking out.
The second time I bought something there, another salesguy started ringing me up and added the extended warranty without even asking me. I told him I didn’t want it and he asked me why not. I told him that I felt it was a waste of money. He then became sulky and pissy and didn’t talk to me afterwards. I should have just told him to forget it and left.
Heh, I posted a thread about this just last year about buying a laptop. Seems that Service Plans are a decent way for companies to earn extra money without really providing much in return. However, it stops being decent when they use the most high-pressured sales techniques possible (I had several guys make the spiel to me, telling me the Apocalypse would come unless I spent $300 on their little contract), some of them downright unethical (I recall them pushing some sort of package whereby they would charge you something like $30 to set up a firewall and other random crap, insisting that only experts should do it and that if I didn’t, my computer would be taken over by terrorist hackers perhaps directly working for Al Qaeda).
Think the next time I’m in the US, I should stop by that same Best Buy, pretend to want to buy something, and start throwing a fit when they push the CSP, demand to see the manager, and then storm out angrily while yelling “I’ll customer service your pants, you impotent turdmonkey!!”
I used to work in the coprorate office of a large computer retailer handling return to vendor issues. I don’t remember all the specific prices but I do remember that profit margin on hardware and software were pretty thin. If we sold a computer system for $1,500 we’d make less then $100 in profit. For the most part I’ve not been bothered by customer services folks when I say “no” to extended warranties. Although I kind of wish I’d gotten one with my television since it buzzes all the time now. I might try to repair it once I have enough cash for another television.