Six reasons to avoid the Zune / iPod extended warranty
Few people know this: you can extend the warranty on your Zune for an extra year. Unless you’ve had a problem with your unit, you probably aren’t aware of the policy. Despite what others will tell you, this is why you should avoid extended warranties on not just your Zune but your iPod too.
Today, ZuneInfo posted a great piece on why Zune extended warranties are a great idea. They cited 6 reasons which suck, so save your money. Every reason and rebuttal applies to the iPod as well.
1. "You’ll stop costly repair headaches before they start, for a total of two entire years."
The headaches they don’t mention are the ones you’ll get from having to deal with customer service representatives. Every customer service program out there fails. There are those that will argue against that statement because they’ve had an exceptional customer service experience or two at one point, but those don’t happen to most people.
2. You’ll have access to our Microsoft Customer Care Center seven days a week.
The various Zune fan sites and forums around the web are much more likely to provide helpful and quick responses to most user-fixable problems. Save your money.
3. "You’ll enjoy fast, convenient service from the only company qualified to repair your product."
"Fast" and "convenient" are big promises which can easily get ignored in shipping your device to a repair location. To be honest, Apple has done a decent job at being "fast" and "convenient" in many cases, but it’s still not worth the money. Just save your dollar bills, take care of your product, and buy a the newest model once yours breaks.
4. "Our knowledgeable professionals can help you diagnose and correct some problems right over the phone."
See #2.
5. "There’s no limit to the number of times you can obtain service during the terms of your coverage."
There’s also no limit to how many refurbished or broken units they accidentally (or purposely) send you.
6. "You’ll have the option to renew your protection for as long as you own your product."
So instead of putting my money towards a new MP3 player, I can spend my money to keep an old, scratched up device around? Sign me up!
OK, I know there are lots of you that probably disagree with me. You like the peace of mind of knowing your device will get fixed if something were to happen. Let’s keep in mind that I served my duty at an electronic retail store. A lesson I pulled away from the experience is that companies love extended warranties because consumers will buy them out of fear and then forget about them once the latest and greatest gets released. Selling an extended warranty is nearly pure profit, and, in many cases, pure loss for the customer.
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January 19th, 2009
Very Good article. Am surely not opting for one.