今
年早些时候，一个不请自来的营销电话频频打到我的手机里。如果我接听那个电话，那么一个经计算机程序处理的录音会警告我说我家车子的出厂保修期即将到期，但是如果我现在就采取行动，我有可能获得延长保修的服务。
这番电话攻势让我明白了两件事，要么是丰田汽车公司(Toyota Motor Co.)真的是非常关心我，要么卖延长保修单是个能赚大钱的生意。
不过，当我近来深究起这些电话时，我发现其中奥妙是我一开始没有想到的。
Marcellus Hall
接下来会什么样呢？给铲子也办个延期保修？
零售商推销这些东西并不奇怪。有些时候，他们在推销保修服务上赚到的钱甚至比销售实物商品还要多。
让我困惑的是为什么消费者要买这个帐。如果零售商因为销售它们而大赚特赚的话，那么显然消费者在购买延期保修单时一定没少花钱。
这还没完。假如提供延期质保的公司遇到财务问题了怎么办？这你可以问问美国达拉斯得克萨斯大学(University of Texas)的管理学教授拉姆•饶(Ram Rao)，他对这些保修单颇有研究。
他说，你必须要从那些不可能破产的公司手中购买服务合同。
读者可能会从逻辑上推导出我本人是不会去购买这些延期保修服务的。差不多是这样，可是问题是我老婆喜欢这些东西。
我老婆克拉丽莎(Clarissa)和我说，每次她给什么东西买延期保修服务的时候，都是确有需要，这就象给人买保险一样，生活中总是时有麻烦。
今年早些时候，当我们买新冰箱的时候我们花了不到100美元买了份延期保修服务。这台冰箱的压缩机有时不能正常工作，因此我们倒也没有为修理它而太过破费。
就在写这篇文章的时候，我得知克拉丽莎在没告诉我情况下给一个和冰箱差不多同时买的炉子也办理了延期保修。碰巧的是，那个炉子有一个灶眼坏了，很难点着。我们试图拿最初的保修单将它修好。那个维修工差一点就要求我们订一个新炉子了，但最终我们被告知这里面存在设计缺陷，因此现在还不清楚除了换新炉子，是不是还有别的补救办法。
几年前，克拉丽莎还伙同我女儿胁迫我给一个大学笔记本电脑办理了延期保险，这件事至今仍困扰着我。那份保修服务耗资300美元，几乎是电脑自身售价的一半，而它至今还一点毛病没有过。这就意味着，目前距离保修单作废还有将近一年的时间，我在这上面花的钱已经打了水漂儿了──至少现在我是这么认为的。
但克拉丽莎不这么看，她说，我们买的是安心，让我们十来岁的女儿人虽远心却近。
延长汽车保修
就汽车而言，全美汽车经销商协会(national automobile dealers association)公布的数据显示，今年上半年34.4%的新车买主有意购买延期保修服务，较1999年时的23.5%明显增加。该协会说，平均来看，汽车经销商现在每卖一辆车就都在赔钱，推销延期保修服务就成了重要的盈利来源了。
而这些保修单对消费者来说是否物有所值？全美汽车经销商协会的首席经济学家保罗•泰勒(Paul Taylor)说，这就相当于买保险，它取决于客户对风险的评估。
泰勒相信更多的人们办理延期保修单的原因之一是人们更新车辆的速度慢了，保有车辆的时间长了。
消费者杂志《Consumer Reports》几年前就保修单问题针对8000多名读者进行了调查。结果显示，65%的人认为他们花费在新车保修单上的钱要远远多于节省的维修费用。
《Consumer Reports》的汽车测试主管大卫•查皮恩(David Champion)对我说，如果你买的是质量不可靠的车子，那么买份延期保修服务或许还是值得的；但如果你的车是本田(Honda)或丰田这样质量不错的车，那么你应该把钱拿出来去存定存单或投入货币市场帐户中，区别是当你再买新车时这笔钱还在那里呢。
例外情况
查皮恩说，他本人几乎不会给任何一种商品办理延期保修。唯一的例外是给他16岁儿子的手机。他说，我儿子可不是个仔细的人。那个手机已经坏过两次了，其中有一次是被碾碎了；因此给它延长保修还是划算的。
我开的车是丰田公司生产运动型多用途车(SUV)汉兰达(Highlander)。该公司说约38%的客户都办理了延长保修。丰田的出厂保修期是开始使用头36个月或行驶3.6万英里，视先到者为准。目前，丰田可将汉兰达的保修期延长至八年或行驶10万英里，根据保修涵盖内容的不同，公司开出的延长保修建议报价为1,325至1,600美元。
那么我今年夏天接到的电话是怎么回事呢？丰田金融服务公司(Toyota Financial Services)的发言人贾斯汀•林奇(Justin Leach)说不是公司自己打的。他在回复一封电邮时说，目前有推销此类产品的第三方公司，同时骗子公司也是遍地开花。
事实上，已经有数千消费者进行了投诉，称自己反复接到录音营销电话，要求他们给自己的车辆办理延长保修。林奇自己就在这些人当中，考虑到他连一份初始保修单都没有，林奇被兜售延期保修服务的电话骚扰就显得很可笑了。他的坐驾是一辆通过丰田员工特别福利方案而租来的雷克萨斯(Lexus)。
Neal Templin
Earlier this year, an unwanted caller got hold of my cellphone number.
I would answer, and a computerized recording would warn me that the factory warranty was about to run out on my vehicle, but if I acted now, I could get an extended warranty.
The phone campaign told me one of two things: Either Toyota really cares about me, or selling extended warranties is a very profitable business.
But when I delved into the calls recently, the explanation turned out not to be what I expected.
It seems every time I buy something these days, someone wants to pitch me an extended-service plan. I recently bought a $90 weed whacker at Home Depot and was offered an extended warranty by the cashier. No, thank you.
What's next? Extended warranties on shovels?
There's no mystery why retailers push them. In some cases, they make more profit selling the warranty than they do selling the actual gadget.
The mystery is why consumers get them. If the retailer makes a lot of money selling them, then it stands to reason the consumer buying the warranty isn't getting a great price.
That's not all. What if the company offering the warranty gets into financial trouble? asks Ram Rao, a management professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, who has done research on warranties.
'You have to buy the contracts from someone not likely to go broke,' he says.
A reader might logically assume I pass on buying extended-service plans. That's largely true. The problem is that my wife likes them.
'Every time I've bought a warranty for something, I've needed it,' Clarissa told me. 'It's like insurance against life. And life bites.'
We got one when we bought a new refrigerator earlier this year. The warranty was less than $100, and refrigerator compressors do go out sometimes, so I didn't get too bent out of shape about it.
And in writing this column, I learned Clarissa took one out on the stove we bought at the same time without telling me. As it happens, the stove has had a problem with a burner that's hard to light. We tried to get it fixed under the original warranty. The repairman went so far as to order a new part, but eventually we were told it was a design flaw, so it's not clear there is a fix short of getting a new stove.
Clarissa and our daughter also browbeat me into buying an extended warranty for a college laptop computer a couple of years ago, and it still bothers me. It cost $300, nearly half as much as the laptop itself. The laptop hasn't had a problem yet. That means that so far, with nearly a year to go on the warranty, it has been money down the drain -- at least as far as I'm concerned.
Clarissa feels otherwise. 'What we were buying was insurance for a teenage daughter being a teenage daughter away from home,' she says.
In the case of cars, 34.4% of new-car buyers bought extended-warranty plans in the first half of this year, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. That's up from 23.5% in 1999. With the average car dealer now losing money on each car sale, selling extended warranties is an important source of dealer profits, according to the dealers association.
Are the warranties worth it for consumers? 'It's insurance,' says Paul Taylor, the association's chief economist. 'It depends on the customer's views about risk.'
He believes that one of the reasons more policies are being sold is that people are keeping vehicles longer.
Consumer Reports surveyed more than 8,000 readers a couple of years ago about warranties. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they spent significantly more for the new-car warranty than they got back in repair savings, the magazine reported.
'If you have your heart set on a car that is unreliable, then [an extended warranty] is probably worth it,' David Champion, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports, told me. 'But if you have a reliable Honda or Toyota, you should take the money and put it in a CD or money-market account. The odds are it will still be there when you buy a new car.'
Mr. Champion says he personally eschews extended warranties on nearly all products. The one exception: a cellphone for his 16-year-old son. 'It's not in the hands of the most careful person,' he says. The cellphone has broken twice, once after being run over. So the warranty was worth it.
Toyota, the maker of the Highlander sport-utility vehicle I own, says about 38% of its customers buy extended warranties. Toyota will sell them up to the first 36 months of a car's life or up to 36,000 miles, whichever comes first. Currently, Toyota charges a suggested retail price of between $1,325 and $1,600, depending on the level of coverage, to extend the warranty on a Highlander to eight years or 100,000 miles.
So what about the calls to my cellphone last summer? Not us, says Justin Leach, a spokesman for Toyota Financial Services, the car maker's financing arm. 'There are third-party vendors of such products, as well as flat-out scams operating across the country,' he replied in an email.
Indeed, thousands of consumers have been complaining about being cold-called repeatedly by a recording pitching an extended warranty for their vehicles. Mr. Leach is among them, which is rather interesting considering that he doesn't have a car warranty. He leases his Lexus through a special program for Toyota employees.
-0-
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
I would answer, and a computerized recording would warn me that the factory warranty was about to run out on my vehicle, but if I acted now, I could get an extended warranty.
The phone campaign told me one of two things: Either Toyota really cares about me, or selling extended warranties is a very profitable business.
But when I delved into the calls recently, the explanation turned out not to be what I expected.
It seems every time I buy something these days, someone wants to pitch me an extended-service plan. I recently bought a $90 weed whacker at Home Depot and was offered an extended warranty by the cashier. No, thank you.
What's next? Extended warranties on shovels?
There's no mystery why retailers push them. In some cases, they make more profit selling the warranty than they do selling the actual gadget.
The mystery is why consumers get them. If the retailer makes a lot of money selling them, then it stands to reason the consumer buying the warranty isn't getting a great price.
That's not all. What if the company offering the warranty gets into financial trouble? asks Ram Rao, a management professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, who has done research on warranties.
'You have to buy the contracts from someone not likely to go broke,' he says.
A reader might logically assume I pass on buying extended-service plans. That's largely true. The problem is that my wife likes them.
'Every time I've bought a warranty for something, I've needed it,' Clarissa told me. 'It's like insurance against life. And life bites.'
We got one when we bought a new refrigerator earlier this year. The warranty was less than $100, and refrigerator compressors do go out sometimes, so I didn't get too bent out of shape about it.
And in writing this column, I learned Clarissa took one out on the stove we bought at the same time without telling me. As it happens, the stove has had a problem with a burner that's hard to light. We tried to get it fixed under the original warranty. The repairman went so far as to order a new part, but eventually we were told it was a design flaw, so it's not clear there is a fix short of getting a new stove.
Clarissa and our daughter also browbeat me into buying an extended warranty for a college laptop computer a couple of years ago, and it still bothers me. It cost $300, nearly half as much as the laptop itself. The laptop hasn't had a problem yet. That means that so far, with nearly a year to go on the warranty, it has been money down the drain -- at least as far as I'm concerned.
Clarissa feels otherwise. 'What we were buying was insurance for a teenage daughter being a teenage daughter away from home,' she says.
In the case of cars, 34.4% of new-car buyers bought extended-warranty plans in the first half of this year, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. That's up from 23.5% in 1999. With the average car dealer now losing money on each car sale, selling extended warranties is an important source of dealer profits, according to the dealers association.
Are the warranties worth it for consumers? 'It's insurance,' says Paul Taylor, the association's chief economist. 'It depends on the customer's views about risk.'
He believes that one of the reasons more policies are being sold is that people are keeping vehicles longer.
Consumer Reports surveyed more than 8,000 readers a couple of years ago about warranties. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they spent significantly more for the new-car warranty than they got back in repair savings, the magazine reported.
'If you have your heart set on a car that is unreliable, then [an extended warranty] is probably worth it,' David Champion, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports, told me. 'But if you have a reliable Honda or Toyota, you should take the money and put it in a CD or money-market account. The odds are it will still be there when you buy a new car.'
Mr. Champion says he personally eschews extended warranties on nearly all products. The one exception: a cellphone for his 16-year-old son. 'It's not in the hands of the most careful person,' he says. The cellphone has broken twice, once after being run over. So the warranty was worth it.
Toyota, the maker of the Highlander sport-utility vehicle I own, says about 38% of its customers buy extended warranties. Toyota will sell them up to the first 36 months of a car's life or up to 36,000 miles, whichever comes first. Currently, Toyota charges a suggested retail price of between $1,325 and $1,600, depending on the level of coverage, to extend the warranty on a Highlander to eight years or 100,000 miles.
So what about the calls to my cellphone last summer? Not us, says Justin Leach, a spokesman for Toyota Financial Services, the car maker's financing arm. 'There are third-party vendors of such products, as well as flat-out scams operating across the country,' he replied in an email.
Indeed, thousands of consumers have been complaining about being cold-called repeatedly by a recording pitching an extended warranty for their vehicles. Mr. Leach is among them, which is rather interesting considering that he doesn't have a car warranty. He leases his Lexus through a special program for Toyota employees.
-0-
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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