A few months ago, the battery in the family laptop stopped holding a charge. It works as long as the laptop is plugged into an external power source but there is no battery functionality. Initially I thought it just needed a new battery but I was not 100% sure that replacing the battery would fix the problem so I never bought a new battery. Of course, the factory warranty (12 months) was expired so we had a number of unappealing options: buying a battery (not cheap) in the hopes that it would fix the problem, buying a new laptop (more expensive than a new battery), or just deal with the nuisance of always needing external power (free, but sometimes inconvenient). We decided to go with the last option for a bit while also thinking about the other two options.
After a few weeks of this, I remembered that
Visa automatically doubles factory warranties. I purchased the laptop online in May 2009 and I had paid for it with a Visa card. The original 12 month warranty was expired but the 24 month extended warranty was still valid. I wasn't really sure what to expect from Visa but I called their Enhancement Services people and filed a claim. After confirming my eligibility for warranty service, they asked me to get a repair estimate. I took the laptop to the electronics repair shop on the local army base and the guy discovered that the battery was fine but the module on the motherboard that receives a charge from the battery was damaged. His repair estimate to replace the motherboard exceeded the initial purchase price of the laptop so Enhancement Services sent me a check that covered the price of the laptop plus tax plus the cost of the repair estimate. Nice.
Now we have a new laptop and continue to use the old one. I picked a "Scratch and Dent" Dell XPS 15 from the
Dell Outlet. Most refurbished electronics come with only a 90 day warranty but Dell gives the full 12 month warranty on theirs. And Dell now offers shipping to overseas APO addresses. So basically we got a great laptop with a small dent in the lid for several hundred dollars less than the same laptop without the dent in the lid.
Wow. this is really interesting. We've bought a lot of things with our Visa. Do they do that for everything or do we need to make sure we had signed up for that benefit?
ReplyDeleteMy Disney Visa from Chase does this for all purchases automatically. I have the option to pre-register expensive things with them at the time of purchase but I never do.
ReplyDeleteTo file a claim, you need to fax them the relevant monthly statement from your Visa card (should be available online), an invoice showing the date of purchase (tricky if you didn't buy it online -- hang on to those paper receipts), and a copy of the warranty (available online for most things).
We also used this service when we had a problem with our Blu-Ray player. After 13 months, it wouldn't power on. Visa paid $120 for Sony to repair it.