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Author
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Topic: Cell Phone Handset Insurance--Nearly Completely Worthless
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Bill Enos
Film God
Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 10-19-2005 09:56 PM
I was a sucker. I'm pretty hard on these things and usually manage to kill one every 12 to 18 months so last time I sprang for the insurance without giving it much thought. Cometime to use it, it is very inconvenient, just about the same cost as buying the phone outright. You pay the $5.00 every monthe for the so called coverage. In a year thats $60., add the $30. copay, add in some shipping and it's over $100. Factor in 3 to 5 days while they shuffle papers, plus 3 or 4 days for it to travel, it you really depend on the cell phone, your're screwed. Then they usually ship some bottom the line, cheap skate special to replace your upper line mega function phone. While I was in the store there were 3 people raising hell about the low line equipment they had received to replace high line phones. Unfortunately for them the contract is with the insurance carrier, not the cell company.
On top of all that, the monthly fee will go to $6. in Dec. and the copay goes to $50.
I bought a phone outright to get back in business and filed the claim as well, so next time there will be a backup. Sent my cancellation along with the claim form.
It isn't really insurance, just a $6. a month downpayment with a baloon payment at the end.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 10-20-2005 01:57 AM
In my experience, extended warranties and/or insurance policies for individual, big-ticket electronics items are an almighty scam. A few weeks ago I read a Sunday newspaper feature about how sales assistants in shops make more commission on extended warranties than they do on selling the product themselves. It noted that, in many claims situations, they fail to deliver (as Bill found out).
I had an experience to back that up, when I bought my last laptop just over two years ago. Having established what model I was after, I researched the costs of buying from PC World and online-only retailers. There was only a few quid in it, and to save the hassle of waiting at home for a courier delivery, I went to PC World. Having told the assistant what model I wanted to buy, he first tried to flog me a more expensive one with features I didn't want. After we'd got past that stage, he started with the extended warranty pitch. This was by no means cheap - something like £250 for three years.
If you think about how much a laptop is going to depreciate in that time, it probably wouldn't be economic (i.e. the PC would be worth less than the price of the warranty) to get it fixed if it suffered a major hardware failure at 2 1/2 years anyway. 'Oh, but what if it gets a virus in it?', the teenage sales assistant persisted. I explained that I'd been building my own PCs for almost a decade and was more than capable of reinstalling Windows, should the need arise. He kept at it, at which point I replied, 'OK - why don't you stop trying to sell me anything other than the machine itself, because if you don't, I'm walking right out of here and getting one from Ebuyer.' He still didn't get the hint. 'Oh, but I'm sure you'd appreciate the peace of mind...'
So I did walk out and get one from Ebuyer, and with one exception (a camera that was virtually being given away after a major high street retailer discountined 35mm SLRs and was clearing its remaining stock) have never bought any such item from a high street store again. As far as insurance goes, I added the laptop to my home contents cover, which costs me £15 a year and includes cover for anywhere in the UK. OK, there's a £50 excess on any claim, but that's a small fraction of the individual policies the shops try to sell you. I got rid of my mobile 'phone a couple of years ago, but I did the same thing there when I had one - it cost me £10 a year to add it to my household policy. Admittedly that didn't cover breakdown (just accidental loss or theft), but these things go wrong so rarely that I reckon that, over a lifetime, it makes no sense whatsoever to shell out for insurance/warranty deals for individual items.
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