I’ve got a question for you. Do you ever wonder if the warranty that came with something that you bought is worth the paper that it’s written on or do you, like we have many times in the past, just replace an item when it goes south without trying to exercise that warranty?
I say this with some conditions. The most important of which is the time elapsed from the original purchase date to when it breaks. If it blows up shortly after I bought it, obviously I’m gonna do what I can to have the company make it right.
But if you have had it for a while, do you figure you got your money’s worth, just let it go and go get another one? I know that I have taken the latter course many times.
What kind of warranty?
However, there are those instances when, for the sake of research, you just gotta see if the warranty will be honored by the issuing company. When I bought my Costa Del Mar sunglasses , they came with a life-time warranty. Now you gotta give Costa some credit here ‘cause it takes some stones just to offer that, right? I mean really, a LIFETIME warranty?
Okay, well here is exactly what happened when I had the need to find out if this was all bluff or all stuff.
I originally purchased my current pair of Costa’s in 2011 from Bass Pro Shops.I know ‘cause I held onto the receipt which was put in the box that my glasses came in.
After three years of wearing them on a daily basis for everything from driving to fishing and subjecting them to sweat, sunscreen, bug juice and a host of other tough environmental conditions, the rubber around the frame, especially at the nose bridge was coming loose as well as splitting.
How tough could the process be?
I figured that this would be something that would be considered normal wear and tear on the glasses which wouldn’t be a covered repair so I contacted Costa via e-mail, told them exactly what was going on and waited for a reply.
I was surprised when, within a few days, they wrote me back. They outlined the necessary steps that I had to go through to start the process of determining if this was covered and ultimately, to get my glasses fixed. Just so there isn’t any confusion, here’s what I had to do.
One, open a work order with them which required a credit card number. $11.50 was to be charged no matter the outcome for them to take a look.
Two, send them to Costa so they could determine if the damage was covered. So off to the UPS store. $18 dollars later, they are on the way.
About two weeks passed with me checking my e-mail on a regular basis before I heard from them again.
Good news, they got my glasses, determined that the damage was covered and that they were in the process of repairing them. From there, my glasses would be shipped back to me with no further charges.
Okay, pretty cool so far. Now all I gotta do is wait for ‘em to get back to me and hope that they don’t get busted up during shipping!
They’re back
I got home one day to find a package in my mailbox from Costa. I opened it up and there, looking brand spankin’ new, were my glasses. Not only did they fix the rubber that was damaged, they replaced all the rubber on the glasses, polished the frames and spit shined the lenses.
The entire process took about 30 days and carried an out of pocket cost to me of about $30. Not to shabby to my way of thinkin’!
So what ever possessed me to try this in the first place? Beats the fire out of me, I guess I just had to find out.
In the end, it’s nice to know that with all the bluff out there, you can still find a company with not only the stones to offer a warranty this extensive, but the intestinal fortitude to back it up!
Ya’ know, maybe I’ll have to pay more attention to those warranties and keep all my receipts from now on. You never know when it might come in handy.
See ya’ on the water …