Warranties are a Good Thing

The fridge debacle is almost over. Today was the day that Geek squad was to come to my house for the third time to complete the repair on my refrigerator. I took the entire day off of work to be at home for their stringent repair hours. The geek squad calls between 7 and 9 am to tell you the window that they will arrive. The repair should take the tech about 3 hours to complete so this wastes my entire day at home. I have the ability to work remotely from home so I tried to be a good employee and work today since I no longer have any vacation days because of my desire for exotic travel.

The repairman calls me while I am in the shower this morning and I have to take the call dripping wet. He tells me that he will arrive between 10:30 and 12:30. He called me about 12:45 to tell me he would be late and he would talk to me when he arrived. I thought it was weird that he would say that but I put it out of my mind and continued to work. When he arrived he came inside without any tools and I got a bit scared. He told me that my new part did arrive but it was missing some of the electrical components. I put my face in my hands and shook my head and thought how could this continue to happen? He said he could repair the unit using the existing electrical equipment but he wouldn't recommend it. I agreed with him and I didn't want any further problems with the appliance.

Now the best part. He told me that when a customer is inconvenienced for more than 5 days without a working fridge they will replace the fridge with a new unit. I told him I though that I would qualify since my wait time has exceeded three weeks. He said he would get me an authorization code to take into the store for approval of a new unit. So I went to Best Buy tonight and they looked up the information on my old unit and discovered that this unit has not been manufactured since 2004. Since the didn't have an exact exchange I could pick a replacement unit of comparable features and price. The first few units we looked at would take until mid October to be delivered as they didn't have any in stock. He then extended his search to other brands and I settled on a NEW GE Stainless Steele unit. It looks fairly similar to my old fridge but it is 4.5 years newer.

The new dilemma is weather or not to purchase the extended warranty on the new unit. The cost is $250 to $300 for 5 years. This is about double the price that I paid for the original warranty. I have 30 day to make my decision but I think I will. The $300 warranty will cover food spoilage to $350 and a yearly preventative maintenance visit. I know I will buy it but I just hate so spend $300 this way. Hopefully, after Saturday there will be no more stories about my appliances.