My friend Luis and I stopped by CompUSA over the weekend tso Luis could pick up a new laptop. We found the salesman unknowledgable but extrememly eager to sell us an extended warranty. So eager in fact that we had 3 salesmen plus the stores assistant manager following us around pitching the extended waranty to us. We saw a bunch of unethical tactics which include:
- Being told that laptops are not made the way they used to be and will eventually break within the first year
- Most of the pixels on the screen will die and we will need that extended warranty to replace the screen (which apparently costs like 80% of the total laptop price according to CompUSA)
- The manufacturers give you 90 days of warranty support and after than you are screwed and the manufacturer will not help you (this sounds about right) - The salespeople were not able to tell us the difference in warranties between the Compaq and ACER systems, apparently all manufacturer warranties are the same
- They wanted to charge us $20 for updating Windows XP to have all the latest patches (duuuurrrr??)
- As soon as we walk out the door and open the laptop box, we cannot return it to the store for any reason (although on the back of the receipt it says we have 21 days to exchange it)
So what they basically told me in summary is that all the laptops they sell are garbage and will break once you walk out of the door, they are not reliable and CompUSA will not support us if we have a problem. I almost exploded in anger watching them pitch us for 30 minutes as we waited to go to the checkout.
Ridiculous
I am sure that all of these laptop companies would love to watch the sales process there, its embarrassing and pure harassment.
If you have had a similiar incident someone, please comment, I would love to hear it.