Anyone used Sagemax Protection Plan by NEW?

I've never heard of Sagemax before - it is a fairly extensive and fairly

expensive 5-year warranty offered on peripherals at B&H and (I'm sure) other

online vendors. Has anyone purchased this plan before and/or had any experience

with them? The fact that B&H is willing to offer the product bodes well, but I

saw no reviews on their site. I am considering buying the plan with a new Epson

printer but the investment of over $300 represents 25% of the base price for

the model I would buy. Not bad for a 5-year plan but not a small outlay at this

time of year. Thanks for any insights.

B&H also sold worthless Mack extended warranties. At that price you are better off keeping the cash and make yourself the insurer. Most tech stuff drops in valus to about 1/2 of it's purchase value in about 2 years in today's market. You already have the first year in most cases from the manufacturer. Those warranties are high mark-up....big profit items.

B&H also sold worthless Mack extended warranties. At that price you are better off keeping the cash and make yourself the insurer. Most tech stuff drops in value to about 1/2 of it's purchase value in about 2 years in today's market. You already have the first year in most cases from the manufacturer. Those warranties are high mark-up....big profit items.

NEW is the same warranty that ritz camera uses, which actually protects from physical

damage... if you drop the printer off your desk and it shatters, they would fix or replace it.

On a camera it would make sense if you were a rough shooter (hanging off cliffs or surfing)

but on a printer it seems less useful. do you travel with your printer? if so, it may be useful.

with any warranty, be sure to read the fine print before committing.

The Mack Warranty being useless is only an opinion. Millions of people are satisfied with their purchase of a standard warranty. They understand that is only covers manufacturer defects. We do however have a contract which covers everything but water, theft, loss & fire. It is called the Diamond Service Contract. An advantage is being able to purchase the contract from anywhere you like and not from the store you buy the camera from.

There is a lot of buzz going on about the SageMax Protection Plan. Yes, the SageMax plan does cover Accidental Damage from Handling, including damage caused by liquids; check out the website for more information.

 

www.sagemaxprotectionplan.com

 

Hope this helps

"Millions of people are satisfied with their purchase of a standard warranty."

 

Scott, a Mack representaive, uses standard sales propaganda. His figure, is meaningless and irrelevent. Millions can be disatisfied as well. A relevent figure would account for the number that needed to use the warranty for an actual repair and the number FROM THAT POOL that were satisfied with the result.

 

Given the prevelance of complaints about Mack (even when wiping half of those out due to consumer misunderstanding or disregard of the warranty terms) we can make an educated guess at what the real percentage of satisfaction is.

<p>I too am debating a sagemax warranty. I do know that MACK did NOT come through for me when I had a completely legitimate claim. In a conversation minutes ago with BH, the rep said they had a lot of trouble with Mack and therefore switched to sagemax feeling it an upgrade. reality is that it remains largely untested... but it is great coverage (if they honor it).</p>

<p>John,<br>

We receive thousands of pieces of equipment weekly. Just to give you an idea of how many warrantied items are repaired.</p>

<p>Peter,<br>

What transpired with your claim? Please send me an email with the details so I can look into it scott (at) mackcam.com</p>

<p>-Scott</p>

<p>hi...i bought creative zen vision w media player from b&h and also purchased the sagemax extended warranty...i cannot say enough good things about them. it was the fastest service i have ever had on a warrantied product. i previously had to go through the excruciating process of getting my canon camera fixed/replaced through the circuit city warranty people and it was such a pain - it was 3-4 weeks each time i had to send it back (4 times before they FINALLY replaced it - luckily i had a backup camera otherwise it would have been worthless bc i cannot live without a camera for nearly a month!) anyway, when my media player started acting crazy and not functioning properly, i called the sagemax claims number, they sent me a prepaid box, i sent in my player on a friday and i had it back on wednesday fixed and back to working perfectly! i am looking to buy a new camera now and will only buy it from b&h bc i will ONLY buy the b&h sagemax warranty - primarily bc it covers accidental damages and i had such a great experience! two thumbs up to b&h and sagemax! </p>

<p>I bought the Mack warranty from B&H for my Canon 70-200 2.8 lens. After a month, Mack had not started working on the lens. I needed it badly, so they sent it back with a label to send it back to them, but asked me to call before sending it. I have left word several times, but no return call. They told me one guy worked on the "pro" lens and he had been overwhelmed by the volume. Because of this experience, I am leary of warranties. B&H did say that this warranty is much better than Mack. It would be very nice if they do everything in the warranty. Unfortunately for Sage, the experience with Mack makes you think twice before purchasing the warranty.<br>

I am thinking about purchasing the Canon 5D mark II and am debating whether or not to buy the warranty with Sage or go with a plan that is offered through PPA.</p>

<p><em>John, We receive thousands of pieces of equipment weekly. Just to give you an idea of how many warrantied items are repaired.</em></p>

<p>This, likewise, is an irrelevant figure.</p>

<p>Knowing how many repairs are made gives no insight as to the level of customer satisfaction. There could be many thousands of units that are not repaired on request even if they should have been. Knowing the ratio of how many people sought legitimate warranty repairs compared to how many actually obtained such repairs and in a satisfactory manner would actually be useful.</p>

<p>I have used Sagemax. It is not great.<br>

First of all, Sagemax is just an office front name. It does nothing but collect premiums, issue RMAs and pay commissions to those who sell its warranties.<br>

They ship all products to a facility called "Lifetime Service Center." These people are competent enough to determine if a product's problem is a dead battery. Period. Dumb-dumb-dumb.<br>

When it's not a simple problem, they must send the product for service to the manufacturer. They appear to purchase service time at a discount, because the turn-around time is ridiculous.<br>

Example: On June 6th, my 18-200 Nikon VR zoom suddenly lost the autofocus mechanism. Sagemax emailed me a UPS label. While it was supposed to be prepaid, when I got to my local UPS store, I had to pay $6.<br>

Lifetime Service received it on June 11. On June 16 they shipped it to Nikon. Two weeks later, I began calling Lifetime, and received the first of a series of tap-dances as to what was happening.<br>

At 1 month, I was told Nikon had fixed it, but that it then failed in their tests, and had to be re-repaired. It had, I was told, been shipped to Lifetime who would ship it to me immediately.<br>

10 working days later, I haven't received the lens, and the online status says it's still at the manufacturer.<br>

Conclusion:<br>

1. Go to Netflix. Rent a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers video. Better tapdancing<br>

2. Take the money you would have spent on a Sagemax policy and invest it in a few shares of a good growth stock<br>

3. When your product fails, sell the stock and pay for a Nikon repair.</p>

<p>I got a Sagemax 3-year extended warranty for my Nikon D300. After a year and a half of hard usage the camera "failed" just recently - totally over or under exposed images from frame to frame. I called Sagemax to arrange for repair. I knew things weren't going well when the person I was talking to asked me how to spell "Nikon."<br>

I was then told that they would send a UPS label via email. That took nearly 24 hours. I was also told that they were sending me, also by UPS, a box to use to send the camera in. After five days without seeing said box, I called them back and was horrified to learn that, no, they didn't send a box, and that I could use any suitable box I had on hand. Bleep!<br>

The first person I talked to also gave me a physical shipping address to use, some outfit in Tennessee. The label they emailed me was for a company in Illinois. So, I finally got my camera packaged, and dropped off at my local UPS office. This was on a Tuesday. In checking the progress of the UPS shipment, it said the package wouldn't be delivered until the following Wednesday. Double bleep!<br>

So, by the time somebody starts work on it, more than likely another five days or more will have elapsed. Then, only God knows, will this company even be able to do the required work, and do it well? I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath!<br>

Sagemax gets an "F" for f***ed up! If I think of it I'll continue this rant in another post when I finally get the camera back. (I'm a pro shooter, and I can't handle this bleep! You can be sure B&H will learn of this, too!)<br>

Bruce in Maui</p>

<p>Bruce:<br>

Thanks for alerting us to this uncharacteristic difficulty. I am sorry Sagemax has disappointed you and regret they did so. I will forward your issue to people there who have been particularly customer-focused and helpful in the past and I am confident they will get this squared away in short order.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

<p>Thank you, Henry, for looking into this. (I apologize for the tone of my previous post, I was not very happy when I wrote that.) In the meantime, I found the repair center's web site. Although I feared the worst, from what I found at their site, I think they'll get the job done right. Who are they? United Camera and Binocular Repair.</p>

<p>I purchased a Sagemax plan through B&H for my Sony EX1R. I needed to send it in for repairs and at first everything seemed great. The first customer service rep was very friendly and told me that it would take 7 to 14 days to fix or they would replace the camera.</p>

<p>I had to wait about about week for them to send me a UPS label and a box by snail mail which was annoying and a little strange but not a huge deal. Unfortunately, it's now been more than a month and half and I still haven't gotten by camera back.</p>

<p>Sagemax sends broken cameras to another company for repairs. If they can't fix it, they send it to the manufacturer. All of this passing the buck is done via UPS ground so it takes a very long time. Once your camera is the repair process good luck getting an actual update or ETA on completed repairs. All they can tell you is that the repairs are in progress and often their updates are flat out wrong. I've been told the repairs are done and the camera on the way back to me only to find out the following week that repairs haven't even started because they are waiting for parts.</p>

<p>Sagemax claims they will replace any product they can't fix but good luck getting them to honor that claim. Almost anything can be fixed if it's sent to enough people and you have enough time to wait. I am sure it will eventually be repaired but it's looking like it will be another 3-4 weeks. That will be more than 2 months since I sent it out. I use this camera for business so it's frustrating to be without it for so long. If you can wait for several months for a repair, go for a Sagemax warranty. Otherwise, I'd recommend looking for other options.</p>

<p>P.S. B&H is a great company with great service and product selection. My problems with Sagemax in no way damper my enthusiasm for B&H. On paper, Sagemax looks good. I can see why a vendor would offer the service to customers.</p>

<p>Please never use SageMax. I purchased the warranty for my Pentax K-x. Unfortunately, the card writer in the camera went out. I contact SageMax .. who knew so little about electronics they thought it was spelled "Pantex". They sent my camera off to another contractor, who received the camera and just repackaged it and sent it back the same day. Now SageMax wants me to resend the camera to the same guys who ignored it in the first place. Stay AWAY from SageMax and if you can gripe at B&H Photo who sold me the contract.</p>

<p>I used sagemax for my canon sx-1 is. the liveview lcd was displayed in reverse. the good news is that sagemax fixed the camera in the time frame they promised. it cost me nothing. the bad news is that there were two significant delays that were trivial in detail but influential in that i lost 10 days' worth of time (receive prepaid mailer, ship camera for repair, repair, return camera). i was clear with them that i was leaving the country and, despite their week's delay, they used standard (5 - 8 bus day) shipping back and forth. <em>the ONLY reason i will be able to take this camera on my two-month trip is because my wife's passport was lost and we had to postpone the trip. </em><br>

<strong>Summary</strong>: they did exactly what they promised to do in that they repaired the camera and I was not billed. However, there was no customer service mindset or demeanor during the process... no "sorry we messed up costing a 10 day delay ... we'll expedite the process for you." <strong>So, a C. camera fixed... but no 'service with a smile' and nothing beyond the call of duty. </strong></p>

<p>Save your Money Folks. This protection plan SageMax is selling looks better on paper than what it actually is. Unless you think you will use the plan within a year, because with the advance of technology if you wait long enough to use the plan, often time you will be told that your camera (or whatever product you bought) is discontinue and Lifetime Service Center(Sagemax subcontract) can use that for reason and you will never see your camera again. I purchased a SageMax 3 yrs protection plan when I purchased a camcorder at B&H. I sent it in to Lifetime Service Center(this is the store that actually doing the repair) for repair and now it has been 4 weeks my camcorder isl not repaired and LTS is still waiting on ordered parts. Because B&H said that the camcorder I bought in 2009 is discontinued. And when I called Lifetime Service Center the only thing they can tell me is that I don't know. I don't have any information. I am waiting for update from the technician. Most people buy the protection plan and have never used it, and that is what SageMax is banking on, that you don't use the protection plan. But when you need to send your item in for a repair, that is when they get you. it will be in their mercy and they will give you any kind of bs excuses to delay returning your possession.</p>

<p>Seriously folks. If you have the money to waste and have too much time on your hand to deal with the frustration and rude CSR, then maybe this protection plan is for you. Good Luck, you will really need it to deal with SageMax and Lifetime Service Center.</p>