Don't buy the warranty!

Just so you guys know, when I worked in the electronics business, I was GOOD. I was consistently one of the best, if not the best salesman in whatever store I worked for. Most of these jobs were commission, and we were paid more based on how well we sold the warranty. This mattered over everything else. For instance, when I worked at Circuit City we were paid 15% of any warranty that we sold. So every time I successfully crammed one of those $440 warranties, I also increased my net worth by $66. If you were good at selling the warranty, you didn't get hassled. If you weren't good at it, you would constantly get raked over the coals by management, and would eventually lose your job. No matter what else you did, if you sold the warranty well, you were in good shape. So we did what we had to, and some of us made a good amount of money doing it.

However, you have to realize why this was so important. At Circuit City (and everywhere else) the warranty is the highest margin product in the store. In a 1000 dollar computer, there was sometimes less than 5% worth of profit, BEFORE you add in the Mail In Rebates, which made the product a loss. However, if the salespeople could convince the customer to buy the warranty, high margin accessories, and other things, it made up for the loss on the product. USB cables were sold for $30-40 (with a cost of about $2.00), but at least they were something the customer needed.

The problem with the warranty is that most people will never need it, most of those that do need it could get the work done cheaper elsewhere, and even those that do use it have to jump through so many hoops to actually get the repair done that it simply isn't worth it. The most common problems often aren't covered. Viruses, physical damage, spills, etc. When I worked there (and maybe still) Circuit City wouldn't even cover the battery on a notebook, which is the one thing that for sure WILL go out.

There are a million other reasons not to get the warranty, but this post is already a tad lengthy, so I'll leave it at that.