When I make a big purchase, I mark Google's calendar with a yearly reminder so I can keep track of the warranty. I keep receipts in a folder I change every year when I do my taxes.
I always wish the store would just email me a receipt. I would furnish an email on my credit card so when I swipe my credit card the warranty info would just happen automatically.
Anyone think this would be a bad idea?
Hmmm, You can just register the product with the maker providing purchase date and model no. seller's name, etc. Then you'll get a confirmation reply. You know what, any thing we buy hardly fail within wrranty period. As soon as warranty expires, bingo, you start having problem, LOL!
I throw the receipts in a drawer. I often use a credit card which doubles warranty period, so they say.
Kmart sends me receipts via email. Probably sears too.
Greg
I just attach the receipt to the paperwork (manual, warranty) that comes with the (insert thing here) and put it all in the drawer I use for that purpose.
Jon
I don't think it's a bad idea, but it might be hard to implement.
The problem with that sort of automated process is that every store would not only have to be able to pull the card holder's email address via the credit card, but they would also have to be linked to every manufacturer's system in order to activate the warranty.
That's a lot of inter-connections, which would have to be pretty flexible since stores change brands quite often.
In many (most?) cases, the stores have no connection with the manufacturers since they buy their products from a distributor. Many warranties are activated by the consumer either via mail or by registering online.
Then there is the issue of gift purchases. If I buy a chainsaw for my son on my credit card, I don't want to have to be in the middle of a warranty issue if the thing breaks down. I want him to register the item under his own name.
I recently ran into an issue with an "automated" warranty, although it wasn't setup like you've described. I bought a computer from BJ's Wholesale. It came with a one year "on-site" warranty. About a month after I bought it, it blue screened on me. I contacted the manufacturer's online tech support who logged in and ran some diagnostics. As I watched what he was doing, I saw the "home screen" for my system/warranty and noticed that it ended about 9 months after I bought the unit, not the full year. When I questioned the tech about it, he said that their system showed that the ship date for my serial number was 3 months before I actually bought it. I told him that they may have shipped it to BJ's on the date showing in their system, but I didn't buy it until 3 months later. He was nice enough to adjust the warranty to match my purchase date.
That could be an issue with any type of automated system like you envision. The store would have to pass the serial number along to the manufacturer as part of the automatic credit card email receipt process. That's fine when, for example, you buy an iPad from the Apple Store, where it's all "in house", but if you buy a Poulan Chainsaw from Home Depot, things get a little more complicated.
Met,
Like Jon, I put the receipt with the owners' manual. I find that lately receipts fade and are illegible after several years. This is frustrating.
Dave M
Home Depot does this. Or you could pick up a receipt scanner and do it yourself.
I was not necessarily suggesting auto activate of the warranty. It would be nice to automatically receive a receipt that you didn't have to deal with. As someone suggested, most of the time the product will last until the warranty expires. Since most do, I feel that filling out the warranty info is usually unnecessary and a waste of time.
Autokeeping a receipt would just make the times where you did need to use the warranty more reliable.
I guess I took this to mean "automate the warranty process"
"...when I swipe my credit card the warranty info would just happen automat ically"
If all you are asking for is an email receipt, that is certainly much easie r, but it would still require some system interconnectivity to work. I know that ceratin stores will provide an email receipt, but I don't think it's tied to the credit card.
Then again, there is the issue of cash purchases, gift card purchases, stor e credit purchases, etc. Those transactions would require some manual inter vention to obtain the email address, be it entered manually by the consumer or the cashier or perhaps obtained via a swipe of the credit card even if the card wasn't used for the purchase.
Again, I don't think it's a bad idea, I just don't know if tying the proces s to a credit card would be as easy to implement as one might like.
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