Sorry. Bestbuysux.org.
Well. speaking as a former Circuit City “Sales Councellor” myself (it was my first job after college, a good 10 years ago) CC was very insistent that all salesdrones force extended warranties, sorry, make that “performance guarantees” on consumers, any piece of merchandise that qualified was expected to be sold with a PG, if i remember correctly, they wanted an 80-85% “attach rate” and you weren’t allowed to take “no” for an answer, in fact, in the obscure dialect of English that CC uses, No doesn’t actually mean No, it means “i need more information”
needless to say, i never had a good attach rate on my merchandise, because i respected the customer, if the customer said no, i’d pretty much say okay and ring up the purchase without the PG, no sense losing a sale over a stupid warranty
sounds to me like Best Buy is using a similar strategy, sad really, most of the time the warranties are a waste of money
I’ve had one bad experince in Circuit City. I was looking to upgrade the power supply in my PC and Circuit City was the first place I tried, it’s closer to home than Best Buy. I go in the store, head straight for the computer section, and can’t find power supplies. So I ask a guy. He doesn’t know, and finds a second guy. Second guy asks if it’s for a laptop, I say no. Second guy then says they don’t have what I need because they don’t do upgrades. He suggests I go to CompUSA! WTF? I left and walked to Best Buy.
Next time I was in Circuit City to find a sound card and a couple of speakers. I also looked at some video cards. The power supplies were across from the fucking video cards! How hard is it to learn what the fuck your store has, especially in your own fucking department?
Sheesh, you people don’t get out much! I got news for ya: Office Depot, Office Max, CompUSA and nearly every other store that sells electronics will give you the same pitch, although perhaps not as vigorous. So does every single car dealer I’ve ever been to. It’s called ‘marketing’ and if you don’t want to hear it, I suggest you shop on line, cuz it ain’t going away.
I always just give them a slightly aggressive glare and firmly say “no”. It seems to work, but then I can be fairly intimidating if I want to be. Also, here’s a little way to beat the scam for you (which worked for me with that fucking Compaq laptop from hell): if your gadget breaks, contact the company, tell them you’ve seen the errors of your ways and want to purchase a one year extended warranty (which they will happily sell you), then take the damn thing in and make them fix it. I got a new hard drive and software for mine that way.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s not true.
It really depends on the managers. Managers set the tone for the whole store. I love my nearby BB, but I won’t buy PC"s from there. That’s mostly because they are always out of people and have mediocre mnerchandise rather than pushy salespeople, though. They do have a great selection of 20$ anime dvd’s and some bargains games.
Consoles nearly never break, and your oods are if they do it’s because you broke it. Either way, you’re better off avoiding the warranty and taking it to a real service center. Consoles are made to be repairable, and they can fix almost anything, and probably for a lot less than the warranty would cost.
However, there is one reason to get the warranty. You might choose to buy, say, an e-machines computer (cheap but crappy; crappy but cheap). It’ll give a slgiht performance edge in exchange for faulty hardware. You can then return it in a few months when it breaks. Just back up your data. 
Wild applause! Well done!
I actually did something like the above when I bought a car some years back. I had very bad credit at the time so I went to one of those “we love your crappy credit” car dealers, who proceeded to try and sell me an 8 year old hunk of rattly tin for $10,000 at 21% interest by SHAMING me about my credit. They were absolutely hideous to me.
So I went down the block, bought a cute little Toyota with low miles at a not great interest rate from people who treated me like a human being, and then drove back the original lot in it. I think I said “How do you like my new car?” and cackled gleefully at him. Then I said something like “Maybe you should rethink trying to sell people cars by treating them like dirt, eh?”
I went into a Best Buy to pick up a Gamecube and a few games and controllers. The cashier tried to sell me an extended warranty. I said no thanks, it’s got a manufacturer’s warranty for free. He tried a few other pushy tactics, to which I said no each time. He finally asked me, “What’re you going to do if it breaks? Send it to the manufacturer and wait several months for them to fix it?” I said, “Yes. It’s just a fucking video game console. I’m sure I can go a few months without it.”
He gave me an evil look, but just shut up and rang me up.
You know you’re having a dry spell when this kind of sentence gets ya hot.
Shit, now jewelry stores are pulling this crap.
I bought my mom a necklace at Zales for Christmas, along with my wedding rings in November. They gave me such a hard time about the extended warranty - I’m like “It’s a $99 sapphire necklace. What exactly do I need a warranty for?”. They were so pushy about it, I decided against buying my fiance’s wedding ring there (I have a Zales account to put our rings on, but fiance is paying for my ring). Not only dd they push the damn warranties, then they lost my rings.
I’m getting our rings from a different jeweler that doesn’t push these damn extended warranties. I’m sorry, but if the chain on a $99 necklace breaks, I will find another gold chain in my hundreds of others for my mom to use. And if the platinum used to make two plain wedding bands should have something wrong with it, you can be sure as hell I won’t be going to an extended warranty to get it fixed.
I’m now at an independent jeweler, similar to the one that did my engagement ring - they don’t push the warranties on you.
If I’m getting something from Best Buy, I buy it online for pickup. Seems to work out easier that way - no one has pushed an extended warranty on me yet.
Ava
On the other hand, I bought a $200 printer from Best Buy a bit over 2 years ago, and let the guy talk me into the extended warranty.
Best investment I ever made, because apparently, the Printer Gods hate me with a passion unbridled. I’m on my 5th brand new printer off the warranty, since mine seem to take a dump about every six months.
Plus, since they never carry the old model anymore when my old one breaks, I’ve gotten 4 really nice upgrades to my printer for free. =)
Best Buy does have pretty decent deals. However, I have my own funny story about them and their “extended” warranties.
About two weeks after we moved into our new home, Mr. Taters and I decided we needed a phone upstairs. We nearly killed ourselves trying to race downstairs to answer our phone, and decided we wanted to ENJOY our home for a bit.
So, off to Best Buy. We peruse the shelves and look at several items. Finally we decide to pick a phone. Lo and behold, there is a “clearance” table full of phones. We chose a phone that cost us ten whole dollars because we felt we didn’t need any fancy schmancy stuff on the bedroom phone.
Off we go to pay for the phone. I could not believe my ears when they tried to sell us an extended warranty on the phone. The damn warranty cost more than the phone. We looked at the cashier like he smoking some wacky tobacky and told him that if the phone ever went haywire, the $10.00 we spent for it wasn’t going to make or break us. He opened his mouth again, and I cut him off. “Look,” I said. “I realize you’re doing your job, but we told you NO, and we mean no!” He promptly shut up and rang up the phone.
Every time we go to Best Buy, I look them straight in the eye, and in a very firm, but polite and quiet voice, tell them I don’t want a warranty. Must be something in my look and eyes that tells them they won’t succeed with me. They just ring up the sale and tell me to have a nice day.
That’s the messed up thing… I’m not even sure if they’d do anything if I came in with something. I was responsible for buying my mom’s computer 3 years ago, and I foolishly went ahead and got the TAP service plan from CompUSA, with some aggressive salesmanship. About a year after purchase, the ac adapter connector (inside the laptop) broke off. I took it in to be repaired and STUPIDLY said that my mom snapped it when taking out the AC plug. Well, after going through a bunch of hoopla on the phone, they finally said to bring it in, but then they told me that they don’t cover abusive type damage to the computer… Man, it’s not like she torqued the connection out with a wrench for crying out loud… I should have lied and said it just came off just like that… Anyway, it turned out to be $100 out of my own pocket to repair it at Radio Shack (I didn’t have the heart to tell my mom that the $250 TAP service plan didn’t do jack shit for it). The amazing thing is that if CompUSA was to repair it, they would have charged $760 because they would have replaced the motherboard. The Radio Shack guy just soldered a new connection on there and it’s been working fine…
But oh well… I am certain the expectation value of an extended warranty is severely negative, and even the few who should get a positive return (by being one of the ones who “win” the warranty lottery by having a catastrophic failure of some sort) have to deal with a bunch of hassle to see it.
By the way, I vowed to never again purchase anything from CompUSA after that experience, and am making a similar vow with Best Buy after this one (and reading up on www.bestbuysux.org; what a prolific, passionate, and diverse body of complaints from so many different employees!). From what you guys are saying, Circuit City does this crap, too, but they’ve been OK to me so far, so they’re not on the blacklist. They will be watched, though!
(yes I know I don’t matter, but it makes me feel a little less impotent to overexaggerate my consumer power :))
Hey, I’ve had an EMachine for almost 4 years, and it’s been on pretty much constantly in that time. But I have good luck with computers. I buy them on clearance (or opened-product or returned product), and have never had one die. My first computer (brand name I don’t remember, 133 Pentium, about 8-9 years old, I think) had the fan go out. That’s it. I always expect them to burn out for being on for a year or two straight, but I keep being surprised.
Anyway, to the warranties.
When I got new speakers at Circuit City in 2000. They had a sale on Polks, but I got there at the end of said sale, so I got Infinities instead. $300, all told (merry Xmas!). Do I want a $35 3-year warranty? Hell yes, I blow speakers like there’s no tomorrow. Since I got them, I blew out three rear speakers - all I have to do is take my car there, and I get a new speaker for free. When my warranty expired, I got to renew it for $14 for another 2 years. And I can apparently keep doing this for as long as I own the speakers. Sweet deal, I think.
Haven’t blown as many speakers since I got a subwoofer, tho. Go figure.
I sure wish I would have bought an extended warranty for my desktop - the HD went bad just after the manufacturer’s warranty ended. It cost me $311 to fix. I did buy an extended warranty on my laptop, I’m not experienced enough to work on a laptop. My SO has a lot of home theater equipment, and he always buys a warranty - and he’s had to use them, too. Electronics these days are crap, and until they start building them better, I do like getting a warranty. BB tried to sell me the set up service on my laptop, but I said no. I don’t remember a hard sell on that.
My stock answer to the Extended Warranty pitch: “Oh, really? Well, if the manufacturer isn’t going to stand behind their product, I won’t buy it.”
So far, no arguments.
Every goddamn last freaking register monkey at Best Buy seems to be a member of the Cult of the Extended Warranty. On the other hand, I have found that a simple direct glare and a “No, I don’t want one,” gets the point across most of the time.
What I can’t understand is why the marketing department thinks this tactic is going to work. Oh wait, now I remember, they’re all a stunning combination of stupidity and evil the likes of which mankind hasn’t known since the 4th SS Panzer Special Olympics Team.
When I worked at Staples, we were REQUIRED to ask this. I got tired of it and stopped, and I was written up for it. The only thing I hated more than having to ask every customer if s/he wanted an extended warranty was the smartass remarks from the customers when I asked. I’m sick and tired of people saying things like “What, is this going to break on me? Is it a piece of shit? Doesn’t the manufacturer stand behind it?” and so on and so forth. I didn’t WANT to ask the stupid questions. I KNEW the extended warranty was bullshit. After the first few months I worked there they changed our bonus system so we didn’t even get the commission we used to ($1 per warranty sold; I think I made $10 the whole time), and we were STILL required to ask. Like I said, I got written up for not asking. It’s not like we LIKE pissing people off - why would we TRY to piss you off when we then have to deal with your pissedness for the rest of the transaction?
I don’t like pushy salespeople but can’t be bothered arguing for long. I just walk out.
I hate to break it to the OP, but you should have got the warranty. I had an HP Pavillion desktop computer, and it was the worst computer I ever owned. Absolute piece of crap. This was way back when Pentiums were still new and exciting, so maybe they’ve improved. Doubt it, though.
I don’t think anyone here minds people asking once if you want the extended warranty. I personally don’t mind a couple of attempts, as they try to make sure you understand what you’re refusing… But when they make it their personal mission in life to sell the damn extended warranty to you to the point of making wild claims about how crappy the product is to making you feel like a complete idiot or jerk for not buying one while taking up 10-15 minutes of your day with this relentless sales pitch even after multiple denials…
Well, I’m sorry, the sales rep is asking for it. And so is the company that drives its employees to act this way. In fact, I read that the tag-team method I experienced is quite common in Best Buy, as it is SOP for the 2nd guy to barrage you again with the extended warranty pitch. In some cases, I’ve read about managers using tricks such as pretending the item is out of stock if you don’t go for the extended warranty, because apparently they get bonuses for having a good warranty/product sales ratio or some such… they’d rather have a non-sale in some cases than a sale without the PSP or PRP). In any case, after reading many such cases on this board and other places, it seems to be part of the Best Buy corporate culture, which means it’s a company I will never buy from again, and which I will try to convince everyone I know to never buy from again, either.