Third time's the charm? Why you should buy the extended service plan!

Well yesterday, I got my wife her third digital camera since 2003. It was free… because I bought the extended service plan. You see, everyone bitches about bad customer service, so I thought I would tell you about some good service that I got…not once, but twice.

In 2003 we bought my wife a Canon digital ELPH camera. When we bought it, we got the 4 year extended service plan. After we had the camera for a year and a half, some of the functions (like movie mode) stopped working. So, I took it into Best Buy for repair work. Well when I got there, they said that it couldn’t be repaired, and they no longer carried that model. So what did they do? They gave me the full purchase price towards a new camera. Any new camera. So at that point I used the full price to buy a Canon Powershot S70. The S70 had double the megapixels of the previous model, and a ton more features. I got a brand new camera that was pretty much twice as good. It was great customer service.

Well yesterday, my wife fired up the camera, the lens slid out, and then locked up with a loud beeping noise and an E18 error on the screen. No matter what we tried, the lens wouldn’t close and go back in. After a quick Google, I found that error to be quite common on that camera. So, six months after we got it, I took it in for repair.

Well, this time it was also unrepairable, and they no longer carried that model. Once again, they gave me the full purchase price towards a new camera. I decided to go with a Sony DSC-W7 this time. Hopefully this one might last a little longer.

Anyway, the extended service plan was worth every penny of the $49 I paid for it at the time. I know many of you won’t buy an extended warranty, but it has more than paid for itself, not once but twice. And the help I got at Best Buy both times was excellent. Kudos to them.