Having worked in retail for more than a decade, there's one thing that's universal across all stores, in all sales industries: the extended warranty. Call it what you will; every retail company has some version of it. Working in retail, I do acknowledge the truth of these things. Ninety percent of the time, they're completely unnecessary. What it comes down to is knowing what you're buying.
Not all extended warranties are equal. It's worth looking at the fine print and seeing what, exactly, they cover. Ones that cover accidental damage or theft are rare but good, particularly for electronics. Understand the terms and conditions, limitations, and usage rights before you turn your nose up at it. Understand, too, that employees are often offering these things not because they firmly believe in the value, but because the company knows they're mostly profit and judge employees on their ability to sell them. In many cases, employees with low attach rates risk losing their job because you keep saying "no" without thinking about it first. I used to have people lay into me every time I offered it, as if I were asking for a first born child, car keys, or a kidney. Did I believe in the warranties? Not really.
Of course, now I have to counter that, and I will do so with a little story that might sound familiar if you played video games between 2005 and 2007. In November of 2005, the X-Box 360 launched to wide acclaim, a minuscule number of manufactured units, and insane sales numbers. My boss at the time refused to sell the systems to employees unless we also purchased the extended warranty on it. Adding $80 to a $400 price tag didn't really appeal, so I was willing to wait. But then I heard about Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Gears of War, Saint's Row, Dead Rising, Enchanted Arms... All these games that sounded amazing, and they were all coming out within a year of launch. So my husband and I discussed it, and we agreed it would be worth the $80 premium to be able to actually play some of these games when they came out instead of waiting months to find a system. So, we got one. Fast-forward now to October of 2007, and my husband is in the middle of a huge battle in Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires. Suddenly the screen explodes in colored pixels, and then goes completely black. The system shuts down, and we just look at each other in confusion, wondering what just happened. I got up to turn it back on, and what do I see?
The Red Ring of Death.
Because we both worked retail at the time, we both knew exactly what that meant. It meant our system was dead. A brick. A pretty white paperweight, there for little more than fancy decoration. We could go to Microsoft, fill out a warranty claim, wait six months for them to fix it or replace it entirely. We could just go to a store and buy a new one ourselves.
Or we could use that handy dandy 2-year extended warranty due to expire in a couple of weeks.
Clearly, you can figure out what we did. We took it in and exchanged it, of course. And the icing on the cake was seeing my boss' face when I set that system down on the counter in front of him, a big old grin on my face. Because he'd essentially strong-armed me into purchasing the warranty, and the warranty covered manufacturer defects (of which RROD was widely acknowledged as one), I was well within my rights to request a replacement unit.
It just goes to show, you never know when those annoying extended warranties might just come in handy.