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This is the second time I've had to post in one of these Squaretrade threads. Please, people -- Squaretrade is a company that makes profits by hedging selling '

by tumult 16y ago

This is the second time I've had to post in one of these Squaretrade threads. Please, people -- Squaretrade is a company that makes profits by hedging selling 'warranties' for 3rd party products. If you don't cash in the warranty within a certain window, they make money. It's in their best interest to portray popular electronics as less reliable. Let me repeat that. It's in their best interest to portray popular electronics as less reliable. They want to sell you a warranty for an expensive item that you won't need. There is no reason they couldn't have just completely made these numbers up. The last time, this was about MacBook Pros failing. Stop voting up these garbage Squaretrade links. Jesus.

ben1040 16y ago
Exactly, and their numbers even justify to me why this warranty is unnecessary. Repairs on an iPhone 4 for non-warranted issues like damage are $200, unless you break it into multiple pieces [1]. Unless SquareTrade's numbers show you have a >50% chance of destroying your phone accidentally within 2 years of ownership (they don't), why would you buy a $99 warranty from them? I'd rather save $99 now and risk a 15-20% chance of having to pay $200 a year and a half from now. A lot of credit cards double the manufacturer warranty on purchases, so for actual failure of the device you can still be covered for the length of your 2 year contract. [1] http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq/#warranty7 http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq/#warranty7
dandelany 16y ago
While it's important to know their motivations, and I appreciate knowing them, this doesn't necessarily nullify their results, especially if you're comparing them relative to one another. "SquareTrade analyzed iPhone accidents for over 20,000 iPhone 4s covered by SquareTrade Care Plans and found a 82% increase in reported broken screens compared to the iPhone 3gs." It's not science, but to me, this is fairly good evidence that the iPhone 4 screens break significantly more often. Either that or iPhone 4 users are twice as likely as iPhone 3gs owners to commit insurance fraud. Or SquareTrade is just lying through their teeth, but I'd find that a little hard to believe.

by tumult 16y ago

ben1040 16y ago

Exactly, and their numbers even justify to me why this warranty is unnecessary. Repairs on an iPhone 4 for non-warranted issues like damage are $200, unless you break it into multiple pieces [1]. Unless SquareTrade's numbers show you have a >50% chance of destroying your phone accidentally within 2 years of ownership (they don't), why would you buy a $99 warranty from them? I'd rather save $99 now and risk a 15-20% chance of having to pay $200 a year and a half from now. A lot of credit cards double the manufacturer warranty on purchases, so for actual failure of the device you can still be covered for the length of your 2 year contract. [1] http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq/#warranty7 http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq/#warranty7

dandelany 16y ago

While it's important to know their motivations, and I appreciate knowing them, this doesn't necessarily nullify their results, especially if you're comparing them relative to one another. "SquareTrade analyzed iPhone accidents for over 20,000 iPhone 4s covered by SquareTrade Care Plans and found a 82% increase in reported broken screens compared to the iPhone 3gs." It's not science, but to me, this is fairly good evidence that the iPhone 4 screens break significantly more often. Either that or iPhone 4 users are twice as likely as iPhone 3gs owners to commit insurance fraud. Or SquareTrade is just lying through their teeth, but I'd find that a little hard to believe.