Real cute:

[jrittenhouse]

Not long ago, we were having some real problems with Concast, our cable/phone/internet provider, which turned out to be the usual; damage to the line coming into the house from squirrels, weather, etc.  That's their responsibility, and the deal with Comcast is that if you messed up the line in the house, or it's your rewiring attempts or whatever

Comments

[barondave]

Back in the 80s, when AT&T broke up, our local Baby Bell heavily pushed the insurance. It wasn't a total rip-off -- they did what they said they would, to my knowledge, and it did help some people under some circumstances -- but it wasn't a good deal and most people were better without it.

Now, we have taxes that do that. My basic phone service is %15.xx but my bill is $23.xx.

I suspect Comcast and others have learned from this lesson: Nickel and dime people to death. It's better than a monopoly, and much better than socialism...

[filkertom]

I do believe Consumer Reports or some similar organization had a study showing those "insurance" plans were one of the worst rip-offs facing consumers, basically useless except for the getting-money-from-you part. I never pay 'em. They offer them on $10 phones, for FSM's sake.

[ckd]

Yup. Sure, I'll pay $6 to get insurance on my $24 gamepad! Or not. (I put it on the "double the warranty up to an extra year" credit card anyway.)

[jrittenhouse]

I don't tend to get them on anything inexpensive - on a laptop or bigger, I'd be tempted.

[aisb23]

Over the weekend I bought a $15 money belt from the local Brookstone store prior to a trip overseas. The guy behind the counter is ringing it up and then looks at his computer screen incredulously - no doubt he just got some sort of prompt - and says to his co-worker "They don't really expect me to ask if he wants a protection plan on this, do they?"

[bammba_m]

Which reminds me... my bill jumped up unexpectedly and i have to call them. (My intro rate wasn't applied for the correct length.)

[awfulhorrid]

Well, the first thing I'm going to do with this laptop when I get it home is to violate the warrenty, so I don't really see much point to it ...

(Then there's the offer of $30 for each program installed and $29 for trailware removal ... gah!)

In the Imortal Words of Max Bialystock

[shelleybear]

"There are a lot of little old ladies out there."

[shaharazad]

Just another item for my list of reasons I'm glad I don't have cable.