Mack Warranty - Bad Experience - Beware of these guys

We have a Canon Powershot that is less than 2 years old. We got the dreaded E18

message and brought it to Mack to fix (it is still under warranty). They don't

even call us back to give us a quote - they mail me a quote that says "impact

damage" (which isn't the case) and note that the warranty has been voided and it

will cost $150 to fix.

 

Any ideas on what my recourse is Also - where else can I get this camera

repaired - I refuse to pay these idiots one more dollar? I have to go pick up

the camera (I'm in NJ) I think I will tell them what I think of their scam.

Should have posted here before you bought the Mack warranty. Perhaps we could have saved you some money a couple years back.

I've had some terrible experiences with Mack and will never buy another one of their "warranties". They repeatedly sent back a product unfixed, claiming that it was fixed. Talked to them on the phone and they didn't even feign a slight interest. Unfortunately, it doesn't pay to have most low-end digicams fixed.

Aftermarket extended "warranties" have always been a fools game; whether for cameras, cars, vacuums, TV's, skill saws, sewing machines, or even just a hammer. In some dog eat dog fire sale items like LCD TV's etc its the sole profit area, since pricing is wonky with "meet the competitors" price during price matching wars. Yes I have been too sucked into this game long ago! In flaky places joints will get one to finance the gizmo, and you are paying interest on the warranty too. Sometimes the item maker has a good warranty, and the extended warranty really has no "extension"! <BR><BR>Mack is not the only place offering extended warranties, the office box stores do, walmart does, your car dealer does. Its a very high profit added item to a typical sale, with the actual warranty thru a mystery group of goofs that are paid to be stern and scrouges.<BR><BR>A 150 buck quote on a digital camera fix with a mystery message is really not out of line with the quotes I have seen for Olympus, Canon, Nikon devices I have owned. Most of the time the defects are really "impact damage" brought about by many smaller bumps since one is often dealing with a bad solder joint that gets a fatigue failure. The units I have worked one often require a rats nest maze of flex cables, just to replace a typical cruded up stuck switch, worn switch, cookie crums in zoom tubes, or retouch a solder joint. <BR><BR>In a friends VCR that had an extended warranty the goofs would not cover the repairs either, I dont even think they opened the VCR. I had to break some seals to get deep into the box. Before the scrap heap I opened the VCR and cleared out mechanisms jammed up state of affairs that kicked out the tape always. The "repair/surgery" was just removing the decapitated plastic green Armymen that were in the "fort"; the VCR's door.<BR><BR> I once was quoted 120 bucks to fix just the clamshell slide door on/off switch on my Olympus D360L 1.3 megapixel camera that cost 350 bucks when new. I bought another used unit on ebay for 130 2 years after purchase, and fixed the problem myself. Then I bought a 3rd unit last summer for 45 bucks as a spare. Thus its often easier and cheaper to just buy another used camera on Ebay than deal with repairing. <BR><BR>Repair folks are a dying breed, and repairing the zillion P&S digitals is just going to get worse, many will just get chucked out ie not repaired. <BR><BR>"Canon Powershot" has 9500 items on ebay now, which camera is it? <BR><BR>Whats a new or used model of your camera going for on Ebay versus the 150 buck repair quote?<BR><BR>With local friends "camera problems" I have many times seen their cameras as new old stock on Ebay available cheaper than the repair costs quoted.<BR><BR>What is the repair cost from Canon?

When CD players were new c 1980's. I bought a SONY from "Crazy Eddie", and spent an extra $25 on the extended warranty. In 4 month's time the CD player "pooped the bed", and Crazy Eddie had vanished. Save your money.

Very true. Manufacturers warranties are okay to stick with, but buying an extended warranty is almost never worth it. Evidence my philips TV. I took it in to be fixed under the manufacturer's warranty because it stopped working. I had taken the time to pop the cover off and see what I could find. It was a burned out fuse which I had no replacement for at the time, but I lived right by the Best Buy that I bought it at.

 

Took the TV in, didn't mention what was wrong, and they came back and told me Philips denied the warranty claim because the TV had evidence of having been dropped (it hadn't and showed no evidence of any abuse) and the repair tab was likely to run $200...did I want them to fix it (this is on a $300 TV)? I told them no, picked it up, ran by radio shack (30 minutes from me) and bought the $1 fuse, replaced it and it has been working since.

<p>Terrible experience with Mack. Useless warranties and bad customer service, rude reps. All my repairs with Sage Max have always been completely hassle free, which was not the case with Mack. They're a bunch of crooks selling value-less warranties and invoicing customers with estimates for normal wear and tear repairs which are supposed to be covered. I'll never buy a Mack warranty again.</p>