Warranties

Warranty Activation: Get what you paid for!

Before you buy new, check your product warranty!

Product Replacement

When something breaks, it’s really tempting to immediately run to the store or hop online to replace it, especially if it is a low dollar item. However, as the price point increases, I find I am less anxious to replace broken items before performing a warranty inquiry. Lately, I have been really impressed with my warranty replacement experiences when some of my favorite products just stop working a few months after purchase from normal usage. Activating the warranty on your de-funked purchases is also a great way to keep more of your money in your pocket by avoiding unnecessary and unexpected expenses due to product failures.

Barriers to Warranty Activation

Before I became a warranty warrior, I had a laundry list of reasons why I justified replacing a broken item with a newly purchased item, as opposed to activating my warranty. Those hang ups included:

• Not wanting to spend hours on the phone talking to an automated system;
• Fear of rejection;
• Assuming my product would not qualify; and
• Judgement from a stranger on the phone wondering why I was being cheap.

Once I got over my issues with making the call, I started saving a LOT of money because I was no longer paying for products twice when they broke much sooner than their lifetime guarantee suggested they should. One of the biggest selling points to contacting warranty departments was realizing that I did not have to make a phone call! Instead, I have found that most warranty issues can be handled via e-mail with photos attached or via online chat with a warranty services representative, which has been truly life changing and a huge motivator for pursuing product warranties!

Phillips Sonicare

One of the best warranty experiences that I have had in the past year, was with Phillips Sonicare when the button on my electric toothbrush handle started eroding and inverting into the handle. In 2017, I bought the two pack of Sonicare toothbrushes from Costco. I keep one at home and the other at my office, both of which I use daily; however, the handle at home was the only one of the pair whose button was inverting and eroding. After a less than 5 minute online chat with a warranty analyst at Phillips, I was told that a new handle was being shipped to me for free and upon receipt of the new one, I would need to mail the defective handle back with the prepaid mailer that would be in the new box with the warranty replacement. Painless.

Meal Boxes

If you have been following me on instagram, then you know that I have traded my weekly trips to the grocery store for weekly Blue Apron x WW delivery boxes to cut down on food waste and self sabotage at the grocery store, buying things that I should not be eating. Like other meal boxes, Blue Apron has a freshness and quality ingredient guarantee. So does the grocery store, but let’s be honest, once I get home and open the bag of cherries at home while unpacking and discover that the cherries are moldy, I am not driving back to the grocery store for a refund because I do not have time for that. Instead, the cherries get tossed in the trash along with the $5.00 I spent on them. Verses Blue Apron that has an in app option to report damaged or low quality items in your meal box. Blue Apron boxed cost $59.94 for two servings of three recipes, or six servings. Over the past six months, I have reported through the Blue Apron shriveled zucchini to leaky vinegar bottles to having the pork packaging leak pork juice on my entire box, leading to credits of $5.00 to $59.94, depending on the incident. All that Blue Apron asked for was a photo showing them the condition of the item for quality control. Despite the semi-regular leaky rice vinegar bottle in my delivery box, I love that Blue Apron gives a few dollars credit toward my next order and continue to provide high quality ingredients!

Cuisinart

I bought a new Cuisinart automatic grind and brew coffee maker summer of 2018. April of 2019, it stopped grinding but still brewed. After submitting an online warranty submission to Cuisinart, I received an e-mail asking me to pay warranty activation fees, the mailing fee, and a replacement fee. By the time I added up all of the fees, I could have bought a new coffee maker. So, I politely pointed that out to the warranty representative. Guess what?!?!? I received a reply to mail the coffeemaker to their return center and upon receipt a new, FREE coffeemaker would be mailed to me, per the warranty. Granted I did pay $10.00 to mail my broken coffee maker, but after two months of e-mailing with Cuisinart, $10.00 to mail in my broken machine was a lot cheaper than spending $75 to $95 to replace with the same or similar model.

Pro Tips

Always be polite, but direct when contacting warranty departments. Whenever possible, I recommend submitting your claim via e-mail with photos so that you have a paper trail vs. making a phone call. If you are confident that your item should be covered under warranty and replaced for free, but the response from the warranty representative requires the payment of fees to have your product replaced, then I recommend using a similar e-mail response to the one that I sent to Cuisinart:

Thank you for offering to replace my product under warranty, but with all of the fees, that’s kind of a rip off and way cheaper if I just buy a new (product)with a better warranty plan that does not make me pay a bunch of shipping charges that add up to the cost of a new (product) just to get the (product) I’ve had for a year fixed. In the mean time, I’m without a (product). I think this is my last (brand name)purchase.

No one wants to lose a customer.