...but not the sleaziness of it. The OP is warning others about Best Buy's sales practices, so that one will not believe their salesmen so easily. Now you may say one should never trust
any salesman, and only trust the contract, but there are plenty of businesses I go to where I know they will tell me the truth, and I do not have to go over the contract with a fine-toothed comb.
All that being said, you should only buy insurance (and that is what an "extended warranty" is) for things you
cannot afford to lose, like a house or
maybe a car. The premium on this "Black Tie" insurance works out to $132 a year! Forgetting your particular experience, this is a TOTAL ripoff; that is why companies push them so much.
In fact, even if the company made $0 dollars on it, (e.g. if you paid $10 to insure a $100 product, and you had a 10% chance of needing to make a claim), it would still be a bad deal. Why? Two reasons:
- As you have discovered, it is a hassle to make a claim, whereas if you don't get the insurance and have to buy a phone, that is easy.
- Technology moves so fast, that in just a few months the value of the replacement has gone way down, i.e. you can buy a new one for a lot less!
So again, NEVER get an "extended warranty" on anything, including your car (insure your car with "real" insurance if you really can't afford to lose it, and of course always have liability insurance).