Customer Reviews

SquareTrade 3-Year Laptop Warranty Plus Accident Protection (£200-250 Items)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Customer service is very heplful when you want to discuss policy. Kept waiting on the phone for a long time to make a claim though. Doesn't cover theft or loss of item. Fairly expensive for the little it provides. Insurance is terminated if you make a claim, that seems unusual and unfair. Overall an average 3STARS!

I have been reading thro all the very positive reviews from people who have bought but not used the guarantee. The one person who has used it said the warranty was voided after one claim!!!

How can four plus stars be given to a product that has not been tested in practice - very misleading!!!

Caveat: Like the majority of other reviewers to date, I've yet to use this insurance/warranty combination in practice.

But it doesn't take long to work out that this is a poor deal for Amazon customers and a great one for 'Square Trade'.

Try looking at it as a bet, based on the one-time warranty/insurance premium paid and the amount insured - it suddenly becomes a "D'oh!" deal.
Something Homer might go for? ;)
Starting with the lowest level of cover - machines from £100 to £125 - Square Deal want £45 for 3 years cover.
OK - if it's a £125 laptop/netbook we divide 125 by 45, and the answer is 2.78.
You might think that these are odds of 2.78 to 1, but a bookie gives you your bet back and insurers are craftier than that.
To calculate a bookies odds, we must subtract the £45 'bet' from the £125 'payback' before dividing.
This time we get odds of 1.78 to 1 - or short enough odds for a sure thing.
It gets worse if we consider the £100 end of the price range - 1.22 to 1 - or pretty near even odds. A 'racing certainty'?
Looked at from an insurance/warranty perspective, if we are generous and use the best-case 2.78 to 1 odds, this means that 1 in 3 - a third of the insured laptops - can be a total loss inside the 3 year period and 'Square Trade' can still make a small profit. How often do insurance claim incidents happen to you?
OK, I can think of one 10-year-old who has a happy tendency to wreck things, but do you want to be paying a premium that supports the accident-prone 10-year-old laptop owners?
Without being dropped, stood on, filled with sticky drinks or otherwise abused it's our experience that laptops go for years and years - we've refurbished (more RAM, new free software, paint job) many ~£30 8-year-old laptops as gifts for the grandkids and such, and these are still working after another 3 years, although some of the batteries are in need of replacement.
So what about the 2-year deal from 'Square Trade'? It's worse!
For our £125 example it'd cost you £39 for two years - one third less time on cover (33% less) for 13% less money.
Well, it's a 20% better deal for them, I suppose, but you'd have to be feeling generous.
The bottom line is that you can get laptop cover for far less on your household insurance. Check it out.
As an example, look at the Square Trade cost for a £2000 laptop - £500 for 3 years.
That's more than a year's total house & contents insurance on many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
You may already be covered for laptop theft and accidental damage on your household policy. We are.
Warranty?
There are firms that offer an excellent 2-year warranty for free with new laptops.
One of them is "Never knowingly undersold", too.

.....If that is the case I fail to see how lots of people give it multiple stars. I almost purchased this but not under those terms, sorry.

I have yet to receive the warranty, I have been expecting it to arrive since payment and would appreciate knowing what has happened to it.

Great warranties, does what it says. Great value and UK call centres - perfect .

Easy to buy, clear terms and conditions, nothing hidden. Great

Limit of Coverage

The maximum liability under this Contract shall be the original purchase
price of the insured item, excluding delivery charges.

If you have received repairs or replacements up to the value of the
original purchase price of the insured item or a cash settlement for the
replacement cost of a new item of equal features and functionality, your
policy will immediately end.

[...]

purchased for a small laptop for a boy who is accident prone..the inevitable happened after 8 month and this company were fantastic.. replaced with a great service and would highly recommend

The laptop was received next day from Amazon, and the laptop and the service received from Amazon was great. But then I looked up the warranty dates on the Lenovo website and it said the warranty had started 4 months before I bought the laptop. I checked with Amazon and they and I thought maybe the laptop had been registered by someone else. So they sent another laptop, but that had the same problem. The problem is that Lenovo start the warranty from when they ship stock to their resellers, not from when it is purchased by actual consumer.

But I contacted Lenovo support and after several attempts, they changed the warranty start date so that was good. Then I thought I'd take out the extended warranty from the Lenovo site (a lot cheaper (1/3) than the SquareTrade protection plan). But when it came to the check out, Lenovo added £15 for "Shipping". For a warranty extension?

So overall, laptop is good. Amazon service is faultless. But the Lenovo website/Lenovo after sales experience seems naff. Surely I am not the first to have these same problems. I will think twice or thrice before buying Lenovo again because of this. Not that the problems were major. Just it gives a bad user experience/lack of confidence in them.

This seems excellent value for maintaining my new laptop The cover provided is comprehensive. The response to the order was very quick.