Circuit City Extended Warranty Scam *Consumer Suggestion

As a former Employee of a major computer store and help center, I have to stress that When ever a consumer would purchase a piece of computer Electronics it's in there best interest to not only read the waranty handout that they are given but also obtain the full copy of the warranty from the insurer (in this case Assurant or formally know as GEZWM).

The reason I say this is too many people feel they are getting the raw deal when there unit breaks.

Most if not all warranties do not cover any problems caused by SOFTWARE (Virus, spyware, corrupted files). When the Enduser calls it's basically the same my computer doesn't work. I bought this insurance for you to fix it. Where do I sent it or take it.

Call center's question what sort of problem are you having?

Reply: How should I know your the tech you figure it out.

Call center: Can we try a few basic steps to verify the problem?

Reply: Look I bought this insurance so I don't have to do this sort of thing, just send me a box to ship it to you and you fix it.

These are some of the things that I have dealt with in my differant possitions.

If the Customers also would read the full contract they will find that scratches, cracks, and hidges are not covered. If a key pops off the keyboard is also misuse so it's not covered. Also did you know that if you find your floppy drive will not allow you to insert a disk and you sent it in for service and they find a metal door from a previous floppy that too is not covered due to misuse.

A word to the wize if a laptop screen has one two or even three small pixel's not working this doesn't warrant for a new screen according to the MFG of the screen also adopted by the OEM ( Original Equiptment Manufature )they deem this as an acceptable flaw. There is also another display issue that is not covered and that is called Tab Seperation this is when the screen would have a black horizontal bar that is about 3/4 of an inch thick. This to is a physical damage and will be written up as Misuse.

One final note if your data on your computer is so important then learn to back it up daily for in the event your HDD crashes or you have to ship it off for service and it gets reformated because you have some form of software problems.
Software is the Sole responceability of the End User and not the warranty nor the repair facility. Even your precious windows is not covered so make darn sure you have a working copy of your software.

Its funny sometimes to listen to customers complain about their warrantys that they were "duped" into buying....and no doubt there were a few sales people out there that did this, and this behavior is unacceptable and when caught you better believe there was action taken...when a sales person lies to a customer its the managers at the store that have to deal with it and I can tell you that listening to an ignorant ranting raving customer is the last thing they want to do. I get many phone calls from people that for instance DID NOT buy the warranty and their piece of junk GE broke on them 6 months later.

Well you know what? If the warranty was bought, the circuit would have done something for them,...only 6 months old? Sure we'll just take it back for you and give you a new one. Didn't want the guarantee...well then you can deal with the warranty you DID buy which is the manufactures. Not good enough?

Yes folks, all you customers out there seem to think that we personally make these products and we should be resonsible for them for months to come. Well thats not how it works.....30 days is all we have to cover it for and most times if a customer is civil about it the managers will bend over backwards for them to fix the issue. Come in yelling about something that we don't have to do....and we won't do anything.

Millions of dollars are saved by people every year on these warranties whether you believe it or not...no your laptop won't be shippied, fixed and back in your house in 2 days, what do you expect? Us to fly it to you? But if you didn't have the warranty have fun dealing with the manufactures! They don't care! We have to see you and listen to you so we will help.

Most people are great about things like this...they understand that if their tv breaks today, someone isn't going to be out there tonight...and they accept that and thank god they have someone that will come out to look at it in a couple days instead of dragging it off to some place where they can pay $60 an hour to fix it. Circuit City has one of the best return policies I've ever seen....we take back everything just to please the customer...soes Best Buy? Hell no! They tell you to screw if its 31 days later...no receipt for that $500 tv you bought 6 months ago...ooops to bad! Do we do that? NO WE DON'T! I am so sick of people complaining...I think they live to complain about everything that doesn't go their way in the snap of their fingers....people have to realize that occassionally things get screwed up and it might take a freakin minute to fix things!!! CALM DOWN!!!!

And one more thing....we replace very expensive equipment everyday that was covered under warranty and make exceptions to the rules 5 times a day for people who don't come in and treat us like crap! You want us to help you with something that we may not even legally have to help you with? May help if you have a little respect...yelling doesn't get you everything!

Circuit City as of 2-6-03 do not pay sales people any commission on items or warranty anymore. For fragile items like laptops, PCs, DVD players, Projection TVs, some audio, some car audio, etc have saved consumers millions of dollars using these services to fix their broken, defective items after the manufacturers warranty finishes up. Extended warranties are always the customers call, but now, the sales person(employee) doesn't make a dime off the warranties

I am not suprised that Mr. Carey did not update his own complaint.



First of all, let me explain a little to everyone.

The retailer, Circuit City sells the extended warranties. GE Zurich Warranty Management is the warranty holder. It is a well known fact that the sales people do not give the Terms and Conditions to the consumer at the time of purchase unless the customer ask's for it. This is something that GE Zurich is trying to change. The reason they don't hand out the T's and C's is that they are trying to sell the Warranty to make COMISSION and if they are proven wrong on their selling points, they won't make the sale. Please do not call GE Zurich expecting GE Zurich to honor the word of a sales person. We honor the contract.



In the case of Mr Carey, Ge Zurich investigated his case and found that indeed the damage was caused by the shipper and granted Mr. Carey an in store credit in the amount it would cost GE Zurich to replace his unit. So, Mr. Carey has a brand new laptop. He was given replacement value in dollars. Case Closed. But nothing has been posted here by him to tell the rest of the story.

I am not suprised that Mr. Carey did not update his own complaint.



First of all, let me explain a little to everyone.

The retailer, Circuit City sells the extended warranties. GE Zurich Warranty Management is the warranty holder. It is a well known fact that the sales people do not give the Terms and Conditions to the consumer at the time of purchase unless the customer ask's for it. This is something that GE Zurich is trying to change. The reason they don't hand out the T's and C's is that they are trying to sell the Warranty to make COMISSION and if they are proven wrong on their selling points, they won't make the sale. Please do not call GE Zurich expecting GE Zurich to honor the word of a sales person. We honor the contract.



In the case of Mr Carey, Ge Zurich investigated his case and found that indeed the damage was caused by the shipper and granted Mr. Carey an in store credit in the amount it would cost GE Zurich to replace his unit. So, Mr. Carey has a brand new laptop. He was given replacement value in dollars. Case Closed. But nothing has been posted here by him to tell the rest of the story.

I am not suprised that Mr. Carey did not update his own complaint.



First of all, let me explain a little to everyone.

The retailer, Circuit City sells the extended warranties. GE Zurich Warranty Management is the warranty holder. It is a well known fact that the sales people do not give the Terms and Conditions to the consumer at the time of purchase unless the customer ask's for it. This is something that GE Zurich is trying to change. The reason they don't hand out the T's and C's is that they are trying to sell the Warranty to make COMISSION and if they are proven wrong on their selling points, they won't make the sale. Please do not call GE Zurich expecting GE Zurich to honor the word of a sales person. We honor the contract.



In the case of Mr Carey, Ge Zurich investigated his case and found that indeed the damage was caused by the shipper and granted Mr. Carey an in store credit in the amount it would cost GE Zurich to replace his unit. So, Mr. Carey has a brand new laptop. He was given replacement value in dollars. Case Closed. But nothing has been posted here by him to tell the rest of the story.

This email is a rebuttal to RipOff #5179.

It was sent by CC Customer at spazz_monger@yahoo.com.



Circuit City Extended Warranty Scam (#5179)

They filed the following rebuttal to the above Rip-Off Report:



Their email: spazz_monger@yahoo.com

Their relationship to the company: Consumer Suggestion



Rebuttal:

It is entirely possible that the LCD was broken during shipment by the shipper or Post office (whichever you used). You can't presume that the repair facility "broke your LCD". Whenever you ship something as fragile as computer equipment, you ALWAYS get the extra insurance option from the shipper. If you had done this and the repair center agreed the laptop LCD was damaged when they received it, you would have some recourse against

the shipper.

I did receive a box finally to ship my laptop back for service. The company that they wanted me to send the laptop to is Micro Medics (another new company to help complicate issues). I did receive the laptop back very quickly. I was shocked, how great! That's the good news, the bad news is that the computer was sent back with a note saying that the damaged laptop was not covered by the warranty. The damage was a smashed LCD display.



THEY BROKE MY LCD DISPLAY AND SENT IT BACK TO ME! I didn't even send it in for the LCD, it was working fine. I sent it in for a bad hard-drive and CD-Rom drive. I am so angry I don't know what to do next. But, I will figure out something.



David Carey

480 396-4666