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Whether or not to get the extended warranty is always the question.
When buying a phone from Verizon, it rears it's ugly head in the form of an $11/month racket. But since everything now is built for planned obsolescence, we bought into the racket.
"If anything goes wrong with your phone, it is replaced the next day!" the misleading saleslady told me.
This is my experience:
They don't replace anything the next day.
The Verizon store doesn't have replacement warranty phones.
The Verizon store says somebody will FedEx the phone to you.
Verizon sends you an email specifying it is going to the wrong address.
You call Verizon, and point out the wrong address.
Verizon says, no problem, they contacted FedEx and it has been re-routed to correct address.
You don't believe it, and the next day go to FedEx in person and show them the tracking number.
FedEx tells you the shipment wasn't re-routed, it was ordered to be returned to the shipper.
You contact the Verizon and after 30+ minutes on a borrowed phone (because yours doesn't work) they explain that "for some reason when they ask phones to be re-routed, FedEx returns them instead."
You point out that if they know this, why do they bother? Why not send another phone to correct address instead of going through these shenanigans?
Verizon tells you what a valuable customer you are.
Verizon tells you this time they are *really* sending the phone to the correct address, but since it's a Friday, "next day delivery" of new phone really means, 6 days after your phone quit working.
All this, for only $11/month, quite a bargain? I'll let you know mid-next week when the "next day delivery" of replacement phone is supposed to happen.
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Some credit card companies will cover repairs, damage, or theft of your cell phone if you pay your monthly bill with their card. Here's a list of some banks that do this:
http://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/elimina...ken-iphone
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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Extended warranty is rarely worth it, in my opinion. Except maybe for fridges in Hawaii, the climate seems hard on them.
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Check that there isn't a huge deductible too!
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When we bought our house it didn't have any appliances and we got extended warranties on all of them when we got them. We had one repair to our dryer that would have cost more than all the extended warranties combined, so it worked out for us. The appliance repair guy told us that modern appliances are only designed to last as long as the manufacturer's warranty and he recommended buying the longest extended warranty they offer. The only appliance we didn't get an extended warranty on was the microwave and OF COURSE it died almost to the day after the 1 year warranty ran out. Our dishwasher died 3 months after we got it. The cell phone died after 15 months.
Pretty much everything made nowadays is crap.
The extended warranties on our appliances are probably due to expire in the next year, so I expect things will probably start breaking soon after...
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We had the worst luck with Verizon ever.
Same exact experience as yours.
Turns out - the sales people nation wide all get a commission on every transaction - about 30% .
They in the hilo outlet hustle every client who walks in the door .
What we ended up doing was going Wal-Mart and getting a cell phone for the 45$ a month and have Verizon for our carrier .Totally bypassing the commissions of the vultures at the Verizon store and no contract.Via Wal-Mart we have an extended warren tee and much better service than Verizon outlet in Hilo by WalMart.
We have replaced our cell two times and it is a 72 hour delivery via Fed-Ex to our gate .
Not next day as Hawaii and remote areas of Alaska fall into a different category but 3 days is better than even Amazon for delivery to our gate.
Mrs.Mimosa
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One of my kids has the same plan as me but without the Warranty and it costs about half as much as I pay. Was thinking of changing my plan anyway because my IPhone is so old, it's not really worth replacing.
I think we'll take Mrs. Mimosa's advise and just cancel the "plan" with Verizon and go to Wallys .
Mahalo Mrs. Mimosa
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The plans might have changed, but when I checked the Walmart plans didn't include any type of hotspot or tethering which made them useless as a backup internet for other devices. If that has changed I might be interested in it myself.
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I only "buy" a new phone when the model is about a year old and the carrier wants $1 for it with no contract, and never pay for the insurance as a result. Have 3 phones that way on a Verizon family plan right now with decent amount of data and unlimited everything else. Costs about $130 a month for all 3 with all fees and taxes.
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11 x 12 is 132 bucks a year. 3 years works out to 400 bucks....
Cell phones depreciate rapidly as soon as the new model comes out, usually around 6-7 months depending of course when you bought it.
I always buy a phone (lower than the latest one) for example, I paid 300 bucks for a brand new S6 plus in the box unlocked a year ago. I think it's better than the S8, but that's just me. So, I've had the phone for a year, now, no problems. I don't think I'll have a problem with it for next two or three years.
Unless your phone is like an 6-700 dollar phone and your kinda prone to dropping it... or the coverage also protects against theft. It's a toss up. If your phone costs less than 400 bucks I wouldn't get it.
This all being said, I had a 47" tv, that I used A Lot. No warranty, it finally started doing the screen twitch after it got warm. It was either the power supply, or the screen after googling the problem. New power supply 100 bucks, if it was the lcd panel, it was toast. I decided to chuck the TV, Costco had 55" on sale for 400 bucks...
Even tho, costco will warranty the TV for 2 Years, I also opted to get the extended warranty for 3 extra years for 39 bucks. Figured it would be worth it. If not, they said they usually end up crediting you back the purchase price (if something were to happen) you throw away the tv, and buy a new one. Figured it would be a win, win for over here in Pahoa.
As for using your phone as a hotspot. Never buy a cell phone through the carrier... They all disable that ability. Buy a phone that can be rooted to turn on the hotspot. Verizon offers one of the best plans 23 gigs per month and I hear you can go over that without too many problems. I've been using samsung products and never had any of them die on me, tho I normally don't keep phones for over 3 years.
