Warranties

Warranties, a brilliant marketing concept, and, at one time, a truly valuable commodity for buyers. Now, for the most part, they’re not worth the paper they are printed on. Today, EVERYONE offers a warranty. Most are limited warranties. Unfortunately, they are no longer usually a valued asset for the purchaser.

For example, a $12 fashion watch I recently purchased came with a supposed 2 YEAR warranty. Do you really expect anyone will be looking for or receiving warranty service or replacement on a $12 watch six months from now? Sure sounds impressive though. The best warranty in this case is the goodwill of the retailer who sold it to you. It is, of course, absurd.

Even on big ticket items, the warranty is sometimes made so difficult to redeem, you have to go to illogical, often impossible lengths to get service or to replace an item. As well, some come with legal fine print equal to that on a property insurance application.

Yes, there are legitimate warranties offered by good, trustworthy companies that have value, but, nowadays, many are useless. It’s become a widespread practice in the business world, you know, the business world we can blindly trust and, therefore, there is no need for increased vigilance on them. Quite the contrary, we need to remove supposed roadblocks from all of these fine companies that are doing business. Buyer beware is a massive understatement in today’s world of commerce.