In June 2004, I purchased a Hewlett Packard Photosmart Digital Camera from Best Buy in Toronto. The camera was a 5MP and 3x optical zoom. Not bad. It was on sale at a good price. Before I bought it, the salesperson did his very best to sell me the 'extended' warranty package, in which he quite literally described it as "whatever happens to the camera, just bring it back and it will get fixed, and you will get a loaner". I took his word for cash, bought the camera and started taking pictures of everything in sight since.
Fast forward to January 2006. I was on business travel. When I got back from PEI/Ottawa, the camera viewport was broken. The camera could still take photos, however you couldn't scan and preview/delete/etc. on them. Not fun.
So I dug around my files (thank goodness I'm organized) and found the receipt and warranty. Great! Onwards to Best Buy to get this fixed. This was especially timely because I wanted to have the camera ready for when I get the keys to my house this Wednesday (01 February 2006), so I can photograph and document the renovations.
When I get to the service desk, a geeksquad technician arrived on the scene to diagnose the situation. He immediately discounted the damage as "oh, this is not covered, it's not a defect". I said, "but I got the extended warranty". He said, "it doesn't matter. It's not covered by our extended warranty". I asked what my options were. They could send it out, but estimated that the price of fixing it would not be worth it vs. buying a new camera outright.
It seems the Best Buy 'value added' warranty adds on the manufacturer's stuff like "ability to make an exchange anywhere in the world". That's worth $80 CAD, for sure. There are other benefits such as providing an exchange if the product is defective more than 3 times, etc. But then again, wouldn't the manufacturer proper do this as their own level of customer service?
After paying $80 for an extended warranty which the salesman promised 'whatever happens to the camera, just bring it back here' when I bought it, now I'm stuck with a bum camera. Bullshit. So I asked for the manager. The guy said "he'll say the same thing". I replied, "you didn't answer my question -- can I speak to the manager?".
The manager arrived and I re-hashed the story to him and how I was promised the extended warranty would do everything but make me breakfast. He got into the whole "well, I'm not sure what the salesperson said and can't verify, etc.", speech. Which I understood and respected. I thought about yelling, raising my arms, etc., but I just didn't have the energy and didn't think it would get me anywhere. So, like a diplomat, I politely advised him that false assumptions should not be communicated when selling extended warranties to customers and that I should have been better informed by the salesperson.
He ended up respecting this and offered me to pick up a similar camera and take 50% off. I had to take this, as I need a digital camera and I was screwed out of a warranty.
So when I picked out the new camera (smaller, updated and better quality Nikon!), the salesperson started to sell the extended warranty to me. Here we go again. I looked at his face, which was familiar for some reason. I looked at his nametag. I then looked at the bill which had the salesperson's name from when I bought it. It was the same guy.
When he escorted me to customer service, he didn't know what I had gone through up until then. And he still kept bugging me about the warranty and how it will solve the world. At that point, I said, "my friend, I'm here because your warranty that you sold me didn't was junk, so here I am just like another customer buying a camera. Please get lost".
Anyways, I paid, left and all is back to normal. I have a new camera (nice!), it cost me a few bucks (ouch). In retrospect, I should have read the fine print on the extended warranty, however I went with it anyway. Lesson learned.
So here's my advise. "extended" and "value-added" warranties from the dealer are crap. Stick with a manufacturer's warranty, and you should be fine. Besides, going to a manufacturer direct would probably get you better service, especially if they know you can go back to the dealer for the exchange (i.e. the manufacturer would rather you deal with them, so the dealer doesn't start thinking their product is prone to problems.
HP has an online technician who you can deal with in a chat session. I told them the situation and they promised to rectify the situation. I'll find out in a day or two. Here's hoping for the best!