As those who read this regularly know, we recently purchased a new washer from Sears. We're still waiting to see if they'll keep their word on delivery times.
As with most purchases these days, the store offered me an extended warranty. I automatically turned it down but the guy did try to persuade me to give it a try by pointing out that if there were no service calls, I could apply for a complete refund.
For a little while, I was flummoxed. How does this work to make the company money? After all, they started offering the extended warranties as a money grab. The majority of people won't have to call and the company makes a tidy profit.
Then I figured it out. Aside from the fact that most people won't both applying for a refund for a machine they bought three to five years ago, the company gets an interest-free loan for those three to five years.
I still said no. I'll play the odds that the machine will work fine and if it doesn't, it's likely to fail straightaway.
It bothers me that corporations try and salestalk people into scams. It's a multibillion corporation, surely it doesn't need to play on petty nickel and dime stuff.
Wouldn't it be refreshing if companies simply strove to produce quality goods at reasonable prices and sold those goods on their merits rather than through tricks? A pipe dream, I'm sure. We can't even manage politics on merit instead of soundbytes. Actual consumerism is probably a lost cause.
No comments:
Post a Comment